My Lords, we have discussed for many hours now the importance of a plan-led process and the outcomes of planning. Planning has the power to create great, safe, appealing places. Equally, poor planning has the ability to create places that do not feel safe and do not appeal to many of our fellow citizens. Amendment 288 asks the Government to have a consultation once the Bill is enacted in order to consider in the planning process the particular angle of women’s safety. In saying that the focus is on women’s safety, I do so in the knowledge that anyone who is particularly vulnerable, be they old, less able, or children or young people, would benefit from a focused look at safety in public places in the planning process.
I equally acknowledge that, during a planning application, the safety unit of the local police force will often be asked for advice and commentary on what is being proposed. Frequently in my experience, that considers fencing, alleyways and so on, but this amendment is trying to extend that. The consultations that I am seeking would have a broader look at whether the places that we create will be safe for women,
particularly on their own, to use. There have been a number of recent tragic examples where clearly walking across a park at night is not safe.
I was particularly alerted to this issue when I read a research report published by Turley, a planning consultancy. Its argument, which I summarise, is that women are disproportionately impacted by poor design in public spaces, which makes women feel more vulnerable. I guess that, if I asked the women in this Chamber whether they cross the road at night when the other side is better lit, the answer would be yes. Do they avoid overgrown hedges where it is particularly dark? Yes. Do they avoid going down the shortcut of the alleyways, or the ginnels, as we call them? Yes. Our planning process has resulted in places where women feel less secure, and if they feel less secure, they are less likely to use public places. If public places are public places, they ought to be safe for everyone.
What I am seeking is that, by giving greater thought to women’s safety, we plan out, before places are built, areas which are less safe for women. In a survey, 55% of women stated they would not use public transport after dark and 34% stated that feelings of insecurity have stopped them travelling at times. A report by UN Women UK found that 70% of women have felt harassed in public spaces due to the issues that I have just raised of dark places, poor lighting, overgrown hedges, high fences and that sort of situation.
It has consequently been argued that women cannot fully enjoy towns and cities, especially, if they do not feel that they can travel through them safely. The sad fact is that there have been several recent terrible examples where women, even though they were not alone, were viciously attacked. If it were within our grasp to avoid creating places where this happens, surely we would want to grasp that and deal with it very quickly.
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Further research published by Turley shows that planning and design can improve safety and reduce crime. It states:
“Urban planning can reduce the vulnerability of people to crime by removing opportunities that are provided inadvertently by the built environment”.
This is more or less what I have just described from my own experience.
UN Women published a report, Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces, which—the wording is perhaps a little strange—identified
“a gender approach to urban planning”
as one of the four key ways to improve women’s safety. It is basically saying, “Have a woman’s-eye view on safety in public places”. It is not rocket science; it is about having a tick list about lighting, blind corners, underpasses—I will not use an underpass on my own at night—snickets and ginnels, or alleyways as they are called in the south. They should not be used unless they are well lit, you can see from one end to the other and you can see that there is an escape route if need be. All these things can be dealt with in the planning process. At the moment the police take a bit of a tick-box approach when they look at a planning application and advise on areas where crime can take place. I would hope that we could be a bit more positive than that.
I end by saying that, while it seems like a bit of a marginal issue to raise, if we are going to create what the Secretary of State called “beautiful places”, safety is really important. If the safety of women and, therefore, of other vulnerable groups, can be planned into new design, that will be a positive approach to the future of new areas that are being created. With that, I beg to move.