Women in Planning

Today involved a lot of reflection on what planners and planning can do to improve diversity and inclusion. Enjoyed being on the POS (Planning Officers Society) 🏳️🌈 Annual Conference panel about diversity discussing what Women in Planning does alongside Helen (Hong) C. from BAME Planners Network, Jenny Offord from Neurodiversity in Planning and Rob Krzyszowski from Planning Out. Thanks to Rob Bristow for the invitation and bringing us together. Followed by a fab launch at Arup for London Legacy Development Corporation for their new toolkit on gender inclusion in planning. Congratulations Marina Milosev for pushing this project forward!

Wow, the Women and Planning Conference 2024 last week was fantastic. Thank you to everyone who participated. It was an uplifting experience to be with so many people passionate about making positive change. Dr Karen Horwood  and I are still reflecting on the great discussions and connections made to push forward gender-sensitive planning in academia and practice. And, it is because it was so successful that it has taken a while to post about it. Huge thank you to our sponsors Royal Town Planning Institute, WSP in the UK and AtkinsRéalis. Thank you to our supporters BAME Planners Network, Women in Planning, Women in Property , ISOCARP - International Society of City and Regional Planners and Commonwealth Women in Planning Network. Thank you to colleagues that helped over the two days too. For me, the key highlights were: ·      It was a truly international conference, and as one colleague remarked, we had representation from nearly every continent. The UK has a lot to learn from other countries on gender-sensitive planning, for example, Spain, which has a gender mainstreaming approach to housing. ·      There is a lot going on in practice across the UK right now, from Glasgow to Leeds to London. We need to find ways to maintain this, share best practices, and expand this activity. However, to do this we need to reflect on why it ceased before. More on that from Janice Morphet and I to come. ·      Much of the debate is around women’s safety in urban environment which is important but it sometimes means that we forget other areas of gender sensitive planning which the previous Women and Planning Movement focused on (see our blog  for our thoughts on how we shift the debate - https://lnkd.in/efKFHJU7). Finally, to celebrate the conference and to further bridge the gap between theory and practice, we have collaborated with the RTPI and editors of Planning Theory & Practice to bring you a Virtual Special Edition called Women and Planning 2024. It includes articles that Dr Karen Horwood and I have selected. These can all be accessed for free from here: https://lnkd.in/eaNTVkjD Thank you to David Mountain for his support with getting this published. We hope you enjoy reading the papers. School of Built Environment, Engineering and Computing @ Leeds Beckett University Leeds Beckett University #WAP2024 #LeedsBeckett

🌟Earlier this week we had the pleasure of attending the Women and Planning: From Theory to Practice Conference hosted by Dr Karen Horwood and Charlotte Morphet MRTPI FRSA AoU. This international conference brought together academics and practitioners across the built environment industry to share expertise and experience in how we can shape a more gender inclusive practice and gender inclusive spaces🌟 👏We had the exciting opportunity to contribute to this discussion in hosting a panel joined by Dr Karen Horwood Co-founder of the Practitioners Network, Charlotte Morphet MRTPI FRSA AoU Co-founder of Women in Planning, Jenna Dutton Co-lead of the Commonwealth Women in Planning Network and Katy Robinson Campaign Manager of NAWIC Yorkshire. We explored why it’s so important for women in the built environment to connect, how networks can be used to influence the creation of gender inclusive places and what the future of networks should look like. It was fascinating to hear the panellists’ experiences, how they’ve benefited from their networks and the fantastic impact they’ve had, especially the success of the Charter for Inclusive PPE headed by Katy Robinson 👏 🌍It was inspiring to listen to the wealth of research and work happening across all levels and sectors, some particular highlights for us included: 📚The Examples from Practice Panel which brought together practitioners who are at the forefront of implementing gender sensitive planning across the UK to understand their approach and what we can learn from them. It was great to hear about the work already being done here in Leeds to achieve this including that led by Tomas Johnson from Leeds City Council who spoke about how gender inclusive planning is being embedded into urban planning policy in the Leeds Local Plan, and Helen Forman from West Yorkshire Combined Authority who shared the Safer Parks Guidance produced through engagement with women and girls 📚 🤝A workshop led by Marina Milosev from London Legacy Development Corporation which shared her work in creating the handbook ‘Creating places that work for women and girls’. This session shared the success of placing participatory led engagement at the heart of the development process and how local authorities, developers and designers can overcome challenges to adopt similar approaches 🤝 🚎A session hosted by Susan Leadbetter from WSP which shared how important it is for our transport systems and cities to be designed for the needs of women to ensure their safety and ability to access places equally. 🚎 📚Research by Alanis Burgess which shared her analysis into gender inclusivity within Newcastle’s urban core which explored how women’s voices can be reflected in Newcastles planning policy 📚 A huge thank you to Dr Karen Horwood, Charlotte Morphet MRTPI FRSA AoU and the team at Leeds Beckett University for organising the event and creating a space for these conversations to take place and valuable connections to be made.

Have a look at this years #POS Annual Conference Programme. New date Thursday 11 - 12 July 2024 #planning #publicsector #conference contact secretariat@planningofficers.org.uk for more details https://lnkd.in/eX9fq6Ar