Growing Up in Hackney: Child Friendly Places | L B Hackney
This planning guidance seeks to ensure that the design of new development and existing places consider the needs and requirements of children and young people at every stage of the planning and design process.
Vision & Purpose
Through establishing child-friendly principles and design guidelines for the built environment, we can ensure the planning process for development actively considers design for people of all ages, abilities and backgrounds.
Child-friendly design and urban planning goes beyond designing designated playground provision towards shaping the physical features of public space around and in between buildings in our neighbourhoods, as a whole, to become more inclusive and welcoming for everyone.
The child-friendly places SPD contributes towards helping to deliver the Mayor of Hackney’s manifesto commitment to ensure new development and existing places consider the needs and requirements of children and young people at every stage of the planning and design process.
This planning guidance aims to contribute towards an essential industry shift in how built environment professionals think about designing cities for children. Aiming to go beyond designing designated playground provision towards shaping the physical features around and in between buildings in neighbourhoods, as a whole, to become multifunctional, inclusive and welcoming for everyone.
Context
Growing Up in Hackney: Child-Friendly Places Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) was adopted in July 2021. The guidance was adopted to support the delivery of Hackney’s Local Plan which is guiding future growth and regeneration across the Borough.
Work started on the draft Child-Friendly Places guidance in Autumn 2019. Feedback from consultation enabled the preparation of the final version of the SPD which was adopted in July 2021. Now adopted, the SPD is a material consideration in the determination of planning applications and the guidance is informing emerging Area Action Plans and area-based Supplementary Planning Documents. This guidance is also working to positively shape existing places through improvement works for parks, public realm and street initiatives, housing and regeneration projects, to encourage future intergenerational work and link with other council strategies such as Hackney’s Ageing Well Strategy.
Impact
The SPD is formed of six chapters and outlines eight child-friendly principles, provides design guidance and case studies of best practice to shape a better environment for existing and future residents. The SPD was informed by findings from the Hackney Young Futures Commission and engagement work with Hackney Youth Parliament.
An important part of the guidance was to develop a practical tool that could be used to measure how the principles and design guidelines set out in the SPD. The child-friendly design checklist (page 67) was developed which comprises a list of questions to help critically reflect on the built environment and neighbourhood (doorstep, street and destination scales) through the lens of children and young people. The questions are designed to be used at all stages of the development process, guiding design-related discussions between young people, local community members, local planning authority and other stakeholders.
Planning proposals that generate a child yield of 10 or more, as outlined in Hackney’s Local Plan policy, are now required to submit a Child-Friendly Impact Assessment as a validation requirement for new applications from July 2021. A key part of the Child-Friendly Impact assessment is completing the Child-Friendly Design Checklist. Hackney’s Child Friendly Places SPD seeks to ensure that new development maximises the benefits it brings to all children and young people who study, work, play and live in Hackney. It is the first SPD of its kind in England. It aims to ensure Hackney is a place that actively plans the built environment for people of all ages, abilities and backgrounds.
Engagement with Children & Young People
Engagement has been a fundamental part of developing the Child-Friendly Places SPD. In 2019 the project team commissioned Dinah Bornat, ZCD Architects to assist in developing the youth engagement strategy for the SPD and delivering a series of workshops with Hackney Youth Parliament. Three workshops were held with Hackney Youth Parliament as part of the preparation and development of the key child-friendly principles and design guidance in the SPD.
It’s been essential to adapt innovative ways to engage children, young people and the wider community in the development of this plan. This has included sessions with young people, virtual intergenerational workshop sessions due to the pandemic, workshops with parents and carers and older people.
The lessons learnt through consultation on the SPD and the engagement guidance outlined in part 5 of the document will inform an update to Planning’s Statement of Community Involvement (SCI) with a dedicated chapter setting out how children and young people can be engaged in planning decisions.
Project Team
ZCD Architects
London Borough of Hackney
Where: London Borough of Hackney (borough wide design guidance)
Timescale: 2 years (September 2019 - July 2021)
Status: Supplementary Planning Document (SPD)
● The SPD provides design guidance to shape high quality neighbourhoods for existing and future residents of the borough.
● Child-friendly design and urban planning is an emerging field that recognises children and young people as key users of the city with rights, needs and aspirations for the built environment. This approach goes beyond designing designated playground provision, towards shaping the physical features of neighbourhoods, towns and cities as a whole to become multi-functional and inclusive.
● Children and young people experience and move through their built environment at a different pace, scale and range than adults. It’s therefore important to have a toolkit that provides guidance that supports an alternative understanding of designing spaces and assessing planning applications for such groups who are often under-represented.
● Hackney’s Child Friendly Places SPD seeks to ensure that new development maximises the benefits it brings to all children and young people who study, work, play and live in Hackney. It is the first SPD of its kind in England.
● This highly innovative approach demonstrates the importance of planning considering children and young people in the design of public spaces and the built environment.
