The handbook, produced by the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC), provides practical tools for creating more equitable and inclusive urban spaces. LLDC is believed to be the first local authority in England to introduce such guidance.
The guidance recognises the importance of understanding the lived experiences of women and girls, and outlines steps for urban designers, planners, developers, architects, and other stakeholders to adopt a gender-informed approach in the planning, design, and decision-making processes. It was informed by robust local evidence, including two rounds of evidence gathering involving approximately 1,000 women and girls, as well as emerging national and international studies and methodologies.
It sets out key tools for local authorities and developers to consider when applying gender-informed urban design and planning processes, which include:
1. Creating gender-responsive corporate strategies
The handbook outlines the idea of creating gender-responsive corporate strategies, which are informed by engagement and analysis, and explain how the findings from the local evidence base (as discussed below) will be addressed.
The corporate strategies should be fully embedded and integrated with other policy documents and strategies, such as local transport plans, economic growth strategies, and local planning documents.
2. Adopting gender-responsive procurement mechanisms
Gender-responsive procurement is the sustainable selection of services, goods, and works that considers the impact on gender equality that goes beyond cost management. It is important to adopt gender-responsive procurement mechanisms when articulating and evaluating tenders. These mechanisms should use a balanced scorecard approach and criteria linked to the local evidence base within an area. The handbook suggests that possible criteria could include:
- Equal opportunities policies adopted by companies
- Women-owned businesses
- Percentage of diverse women in the company at all levels and across all roles
- Training provided on female allyship
3. Gender budgeting
Gender budgeting is an approach taken to achieve equality by focusing on how public resources are collected and spent. It considers the various needs of a diverse population by using an intersectional gender lens to respond to the different experiences of women, men, and gender-diverse groups, and aims to promote accountability and transparency in planning.
This should include an assessment of how financial contributions which have been secured through development are used, including the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) and CIL Neighbourhood Portion.
4. Using the gender-informed local evidence base in strategic planning
The need to collect a local evidence base (or local needs analysis) is essential for understanding how we can create spaces that work for women and girls. It should be ensured that the data collection methods are fair and inclusive, and an intersectional approach should be adopted so the data collected represents the diversity of the community.
The handbook outlines that not only does this process aid local authorities in efficiently directing resources towards improvement initiatives and ensuring that decisions are evidence based, it is also a valuable tool for guaranteeing accountability by establishing a baseline for measuring progress. Additionally, it serves as a valuable resource for developers, offering insights that inform the initial background analysis of a place.
The evidence gathered should inform the preparation of strategic documents such as local plans, infrastructure delivery plans, corporate strategies and individual projects.
5. Impact assessments
Once implemented and in operation, any gender-responsive intervention should be monitored to ensure the envisioned outcomes are being achieved. This process should include conducting an impact assessment and engaging with women and girl user groups to understand their experiences of the changes.
It is recommended that the impact assessment is conducted by the delivery team (e.g. the developer, if this is a built environment project, or the local authority if this is a plan/policy), and should include:
- Understanding of the evidence base
- Assessment of gender equity aims and key performance indicators against the proposed design, plan and policy, reporting on potential positive and/or negative impacts
- Potential impact on relationships between different groups, and considering intersectionality
- Any key actions/mitigating factors to address the negative impacts identified
Summary
The strategies and guidance outlined in this document would contribute to the creation of better and more inclusive places. And embracing the guidance and, potentially, longer lead-in times to ensure the additional steps can be taken, would be a welcome move forwards.
Though the guidance is promising in theory, more needs to be done so that having a gender perspective is standard practice. The responsibility for this lies with a variety of different stakeholders, including schools, universities, and apprenticeship training courses to ensure that teaching modules cover the importance of planning and designing inclusive places, and encourage a diverse range of people into the profession.
Within the public sector, there is an opportunity to implement changes at strategic and governance level, and to apply an intersectional gender lens when it comes to assessing how financial contributions generated and secured via development are used. From a private sector perspective, there is the responsibility to recruit the appropriate people to enable meaningful dialogue and drive the implementation of gender inclusive practices.
Overall, the handbook’s core message is clear – achieving gender equity is a collaborative process, relying on partnerships and support among all stakeholders, and engagement with women and girls must remain at the heart of this process. While the handbook has been developed with the LLDC context in mind, it is hoped that other local planning authorities will follow suit and develop their own guidance which will push built environment professionals and practitioners to embrace a gender inclusive lens in planning and design.
Further information
Contact Alice Gardner
.jpg)