What’s the context?
As future users of places, it is essential to give young people a voice in the planning process. Academic literature points to the value that young people can bring to any consultation process around place. They often hold expert local knowledge about places that are important to them, they are able to envision places in the future and they often develop their own personal identities through their attachment to those places. Genuine processes for their involvement are needed. For example, Article 12 of the UN Convention Rights of the Child (1989), which the UK has signed up to, calls for young people to be offered a voice on matters that affect them. There is a lack of evidence as to the extent to which policy formulation has included young people (or not). The literature suggests a general absence of young people’s involvement in planning whilst Scotland is making moves to better include young people in the statutory planning process.
What is the challenge?
North Tyneside Council is currently progressing a number of large housing development sites as part of its emerging Local Plan. The particular site you will look at is a site in Murton on which several thousand homes may be built. Like other large developments, the Murton site development can bring opportunities as well as risks. One of the large selling points is that development could result in introduction of green space on 50% of the site. At the core of the project is the notion to progress the ideas of young people, the future place users, who may even one day purchase a home or use the future green space on the site that is yet to be developed. What makes a successful place in their eyes? What tool could help young people express which green spaces should be retained or created? The audit would help to establish a number of principles that would then give young people and the statutory process a transparent and usable format that shows how proposals measure up to their expectations and standards.
What are the deliverables?
There is a lack of tools to help young people influence the design process and thus one of the goals of this project would be to come up with a number of outcomes and the design concept for one.
The ideal outcome would be something that planners can use in their local plan, a master plan or in working up the details of a development proposal.
- Perhaps a design for collaborative workshop, inviting young people to express their visions for the ideal future site design by coming up with a process to draw on, share, and vote on maps.
- The project would utilise the conceptual site plans that already available
- Existing available evidence, including the Green Space Strategy and the developer’s site appraisal would also inform the project.