Ranken, Emily;
Barber, Sally;
Haurari, Hanan;
Siems, Amanda;
Christie, Nicola;
Cameron, Claire;
(2025)
Designing play into urban environments: strategic-level challenges and best practice in Bradford and Tower Hamlets, UK.
Cities and Health
10.1080/23748834.2025.2539612.
(In press).
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Abstract
Children have a fundamental need to play and be physically active for their health and wellbeing. Cities, enacted through both built environment and strategic policies, have the potential to enhance or restrict urban physically active play. But cities have densification pressures, and space and infrastructural support for children’s outdoor play are often a low priority. As part of a project scoping ways to ‘design-in’ physically active play in two urban areas of England, we report on the strategic challenges and opportunities that shape urban children’s outdoor play. Policy analysis and fieldwork capturing the views and experiences of policy stakeholders representing public health, play, greenspaces, inclusion, corporate strategy, and urban design in Tower Hamlets and Bradford demonstrates both the extent of barriers to improving playable spaces and some ways to shift the policy mindset. Recommendations concern the need for effective alignment and coordination across policy areas; to establish cross-departmental collaboration; the development of a robust local evidence base; and the importance of ambitious and motivated stakeholders.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Designing play into urban environments: strategic-level challenges and best practice in Bradford and Tower Hamlets, UK |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1080/23748834.2025.2539612 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1080/23748834.2025.2539612 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2025 The Author(s). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent. |
| Keywords: | Play, public health policy, built environment, children’s physical activity, local play policy |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Civil, Environ and Geomatic Eng |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10211648 |
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