Women, girls and gender diverse people: safety in public spaces

Today, Publica CIC are celebrating the launch of the updated Women, Girls and Gender Diverse People: Safety in Public Spaces handbook at City Hall.

First published in 2022, the revised edition offers expanded guidance for London’s built environment practitioners to better respond to gender safety in the city. It contains a toolkit of actionable insights, ideas and examples to help integrate a gender perspective into public realm projects.

This edition provides a set of practical actions, developed through 10 live public realm projects across London in 2023, and tested through 19 workshops with support from the Mayor’s Design Advocates. These projects serve as dynamic case studies, demonstrating how diverse engagement and thoughtful design processes can foster gender-inclusive public realms.

Why now?

With feelings of safety in London declining, it is critical to address the exclusion of women, girls, and gender diverse people’s experiences, needs, and realities, in urban development processes. The way we design and build our city must reflect these realities.

This requires all of us to take collective action, to feel informed about gender inclusion and build it into the processes that shape London.

The handbook provides the tools to make a more inclusive city and one that is safer for women, girls and gender diverse people.

Read and download the handbook here.