Thought Leadership: A call to arms for spatial equality

Plan public spaces with girls in mind to create a more equitable, healthier and safer society

The Lionesses’ iconic UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 win at a packed Wembley Stadium was a watershed moment for British women’s sport and catapulted it into global stardom. It followed the England Women’s Cricket Team finishing as worthy runners-up to Australia in the 2022 ICC Women’s World Cup Final in New Zealand. Today, with the Lionesses securing another Euros win in 2025, England’s women’s rugby union internationals, the Red Roses, are ranked No.1 in the world. 

This catapulting of women’s sport into the public psyche has thrown a welcome spotlight into grassroots sports and the wider provision of public spaces that should exist to facilitate and nurture it. Sadly, the UK falls woefully short when to comes to addressing the needs of girls and young women in public spaces. Research – and common sense – suggests it’s time that planning professionals get serious about the changes that are so critical to a more equitable, healthier and safer society. 

As part of ongoing pre-planning consultation, Highwood has taken a stand and, with the support of urban design and masterplanning consultants, Mosaic, is proposing a refreshingly new approach that designs for girls and young women. We can’t emphasise enough how designing by centring girls and young women will allow for a more equitable society and more inclusive spaces.  

But first, the state of play.

Make Space for Girls (MSfG) campaigns for parks and public spaces to be designed for girls and young women and the need for their voices to be heard in the planning process. In its 2020 report, MSfG stated: 

“There is an increasing awareness that planning and public space are dominated by men and built for the ‘default male’ citizen. Many cities across Europe and beyond are now adopting the idea of ‘gender mainstreaming’, i.e. making sure that urban spaces are designed to meet everyone’s needs rather than just being designed for half the populations. These ideas are now starting to be explored within the UK, but there is one area in which the default male is still very much to the fore, and that’s parks, play equipment and public spaces designed for older children, teenagers and young people… Girls feel that parks are unsafe, and offer nothing for them, but these issues are never acknowledge, never mind addressed. Most of the time they have never even been asked what they want.” 

Fast forward to MSfG’s 2023 follow-up summary and, although little appears to have changed, increasing awareness of the issue has prompted an increasing demand for better provision for girls. 

The context

Here are some of the key takeaways from this year’s report; planning professionals take note:

• Girls’ use of space is determined and regulated by the presence of boys¹
• 72% of older girls think that boys use outdoor spaces the most²
• In one survey, 59% of teenage girls said they didn’t feel welcome in parks because the spaces were dominated by boys³
• Research into the use of pitches suggests boys are likely to exclude girls from informal kickabouts⁴ while work in Belgium found sports fields were 92% used by boys⁵    
• The common perception is that MUGAs (multi-use games areas), or fenced pitches or cages, are predominantly used by boys⁶ and are ‘places for young men to engage in active and exuberant forms of play’⁷
• Traditional high fencing MUGA design, combined with narrow entrances make them feel intrinsically unsafe for teenage girls wary of being trapped⁸

The law

MSfG points to the current legal framework that’s in place to engender equality of opportunity. Again, planning professionals have a role to play in recognising its rationale and, crucially, enforcing compliance. Here’s MSfG’s round-up of our laws:

The Equality Act 2010 prohibits direct and indirect discrimination on grounds of sex in many fields⁹

Public Sector Equality Duty, mandated by the Equality Act 2010, exists “to bring about culture change so that promoting equality becomes part of public bodies’ core business.”¹⁰

The duty on public authorities to consider equality and on planning professionals to advance the mandate when proposals for the public landscape are on the table is clear. Sadly, it’s an indisputable fact that, as things stand today, our playparks and public spaces are simply not compliant with the law.

The forward-thinking urban planner’s view 

Lisa Addiscott is Director of Mosaic, the masterplanning and urban design practice that focuses on strategic land in the UK. Lisa’s work casts light on the impact the MSfG initiative could have on major planning projects and the difference it could – and should make to the future of urban and community projects. 

“MSfG has highlighted the gender imbalance of our public spaces that has always been an issue, but never openly discussed. The default practice has been to design for boys and men, in particular the football pitches and MUGAs that have an overdominance of teenage boys using them. Put simply, this is because, historically, men have been the decision makers and designers of these spaces. Typical policy in Local Plans and Design Guides asks for pitches and MUGAs in a very traditional way. It’s only in the last few years that we know it’s mainly boys using these spaces and that girls are being marginalised.

“MSfGs are engaging directly with girls in parks and schools and highlighting how important it is to talk to girls about their fears and needs of public open space. The information that MSfG has highlighted is that girls don’t feel safe or able to access these facilities because they get harassed or abused. These reports of intimidation are similar for other marginalised groups, such as the elderly and disabled.

“The MSfG initiative is influencing masterplanning new communities in a really positive way because it’s encouraging a more equitable society and the design of inclusive spaces. Designing for girls not only benefits women and girls but also for those other marginalised groups – note that it’s often women who are the carers of young children, the elderly and disabled. This is because designing for girls puts safety and inclusivity at the forefront of the design process: places designed for girls will be positive for every group in society to use.

“It also makes for a more interesting placemaking strategy. MSfG research has highlighted that girls prefer smaller zones to play and interact, with better lighting, overlooked spaces and swings, for example. Some of this has always been at the forefront of public space design, but not all. Nonetheless, it’s a relief from the standard policy requirements of playing pitches and MUGAs.”

Advocating for spatial equality matters: what we’re doing

From the perspective of the planner, the priority is to acknowledge the status quo and its shortcomings and the parameters of the law that should support our proposals. One of our current planning consultations focuses on a substantial strategic land community scheme that will, as a matter of course, encourage beauty through placemaking and inspire people to interact with the landscape and community.  

A new community sports hub with FIFA-standard artificial pitch, tennis court and clubhouse facilities is proposed. Our experience in community projects that incorporate such next-generation sports hubs is exemplified in our landmark, multi-award-winning North Stoneham Park project; we’ve certainly set the bar in shining a floodlight on youth sports facilities.

Now, by embracing the MSfG concept, we’ve acknowledged the need for a balanced design in outdoor sports facilities, parks and play spaces and will engage on this proactively through schools and youth clubs achieve this goal. The current space has an over-subscription for girls’ football teams since the success of the Lionesses in Euro 2022 – providing a new astro turf pitch will ensure membership can be opened up more widely and encourage more take up by girls in the area.

Changing hearts and minds

Earlier this year and following a Lionesses campaign for equal sport opportunities, the government pledged an additional £600 million package of investment into school sport. We should all take heed of the words of Stephanie Hilborne, CEO of Women in Sport, who said of the Sport England investment:  

“It demonstrates Sport England’s commitment to put women and girls in all their diversity centre stage in delivering Uniting the Movement, a strategy to tackle the deep-rooted inequalities in sport, leisure and society at large. Physical activity does more than just build strong hearts and muscles, it brings self-belief, resilience, mental wellbeing, joy and freedom; no-one should be excluded from these life-long benefits.”

We agree. It’s our mission to create sustainable and quality communities for all ages, always with legacy and local need in mind. Promoting spatial equality and delivering community schemes that take account of the welfare and wellbeing of our girls and young women should always form part of our planning process.


By changing the hearts and minds of those in our industry, we’re confident we can effect the change that’s so badly needed for our hungry and determined athletes of the future. Together, we can prove that the world-stage achievements of our Lionesses, Red Roses and World Cup cricketers were really just the start.

Martin Hawthorne, Planning Director, Highwood.

For more information on the MSfG initiative, please visit makespaceforgirls.co.uk and, to read and download the Make Space for Girls The Research Background 2023, click here.

¹Lloyd, Burden, and Kiewa 2008. ²Girl Guiding Research Briefing 2020. ³Yorkshire Sport, 2022. ⁴Mayeza, 2017. Clark and Paechter, 2007. ⁵Helleman 2021. ⁶GLA, 2020; City of Vienna, 2013. ⁷Billingham, 2020. ⁸Barker et al, 2022. ⁹The Equality Act deals with most aspects of gender related discrimination through the lens of biological sex, rather than gender, and hence we are required to use the binary terms woman/man/girl boy when dealing with the legal framework, rather than the social and more fluid concept of gender. ¹⁰Government Equalities Office (2009b) The Equality Bill: Making it Work. Policy Proposals for Specific Duties (London GEO)