Places to Go: Promoting better mobility, transport and travel for children and young people

13 August 2007

Places to Go is a National Children’s Bureau and Play England project aimed at changing policy and practice so that children and young people can have more opportunities to enjoy their local streets and neighbourhoods, and to have better access to travel and transport.

Travelling is an integral part of daily life for children, young people and their families, allowing them to access learning, work, play and childcare facilities, health, shops, social and cultural activities. Travelling around is an intrinsically enjoyable activity for many children and young people. It provides them with the opportunity to explore their local environment, independently or with others, through outdoor play or just ‘hanging out’.

Children and young people are as such, significant stakeholders in the public realm, where they play or meet their peers, and as pedestrians, cyclists and public transport users. Too often however, their needs and views are not reflected in local transport and land use planning decisions, and barriers to accessing transport and travel, such as safety, cost and security, availability and accessibility remain.

More needs to be done to ensure children and young people can safely get to the services and activities that provide quality of life and support the development of sustainable, prosperous communities. Recent government initiatives such as the Manual for Streets are a positive step in creating child friendly streets – but there remains a long way to go.

Our vision

Our vision is for children and young people to be widely regarded as respected and rightful stakeholders of public space, with travelling and transport needs that are met with appropriate investment and supportive policy delivery at the local, regional and national levels.

We call for a wide uptake of the Delft Manifesto on a Child Friendly Urban Environment, which states that a child friendly city is a city friendly to all.

We support Sustrans’ goal for a safe route for every child to school – and expand that to include all journeys children and young people wish and need to undertake: a safe route for every route.

Our call for action

The National Children’s Bureau and Play England call for the following;

More child friendly, physically and socially safe, streets and public space
Increased participation of children and young people in local transport and planning decisions, resulting in changes in policy and investment levels
Greater investment in safe local streets in which children can cycle and walk without fear of traffic
Greater investment and policy development of sustainable transport that benefits children and young people’s needs and wishes.
Greater access to public transport and affordability of public transport for young people.

Delivering these actions will contribute substantially to the Every Child Matters’ outcomes, the government’s cross cutting policy agenda for improving children’s lives. For example:

Being healthy – active travel and outdoor play provide significant opportunities for children and young people to meet Department of Health’s physical activity and obesity prevention PSA targets5.

Staying safe – through play and independent travel children and young people learn the skills and confidence to help them stay safe as they grow-up. The main barrier to outdoor play and independent local travel is a deep seated and justified fear of traffic.

Enjoying and achieving – being free to play outdoors, move around the local neighbourhood and travel to school and other activities independently is essential for an enjoyable childhood. Securing young people’s access to ‘positive activities’, and preparing and publishing a sustainable school travel strategy, are new duties placed on local authorities by the Education and Inspections Act 2006. Without the ability to travel independently, inequality of access will remain for many.

These actions will also contribute to the full implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, in particular:

Article 12: the child’s right to express his views feely in all matters affecting him
Article 15: the rights of the child to freedom of association and of peaceful assembly
Article 24: the child’s right to enjoying the highest attainable standard of health and to facilities for treatment and rehabilitation
Article 28: the child’s right to education
Article 31: the right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts.

What we will do

Through the Places to Go project, NCB and Play England will:

Engage with all levels of government to advocate greater effective participation of children and young people in local transport and planning decision making
Launch a national campaign called Can we get there? aimed at capturing children and young people’s views on their travel and transport needs, shout about what needs to change and provide advice on the steps to achieve it
Collate and promote good practice case studies that show what can be achieved when relevant policy areas – such as children’s services, local planning and transport – are joined up, and children and young people’s travel and transport needs are met with sufficient investment.

We would like to work with those in national, regional and local government, non-government organisations, charities, think tanks and children and young people’s organisations to promote our call and campaign.

More information

For further information on this project or to discuss how we can work in partnership with your organisation, please contact Rhian Barnes on 0131 539 8120 or by email.

Rhian Barnes is on secondment to Play England from Sustrans, the sustainable transport charity.