2. Child-Friendly Design Guidelines

The guidelines are the technical tool to support, inform and assess how the Council plans, designs and maintains public spaces and development schemes to ensure that Hackney’s built environment meets the needs and rights of children and young people. Through the application of design measures, this section of the document seeks to maximise opportunities for activities, play and social interactions in all outdoor spaces for all current and future generations to come.

The guidance identifies three neighbourhood ‘place’ scales, the Doorstep, Streets and Destinations, that reflect the three main types of ‘places’ that a child in Hackney will grow up and experience within their neighbourhood:

Neighbourhood: 

The draft document identifies design guidelines for each scale. These are supported by related LP33 policies. The draft document includes case study examples in order to illustrate best practice and demonstrate creative ways of incorporating child friendly guidelines to achieve successful development proposals.

Case studies of best practice and lessons to learn from are  provided throughout the draft document to help define principles of child-friendly places and to illustrate the design guidelines. At the end of each design scale section of the SPD there are a series of criteria assessment questions that applicants are encouraged to consider throughout the design development of a scheme (for more information see Child Friendly Design Standard Questions in the tile 'Tools for Implementation & Delivery')

Please find further information on each design guideline scale and share with us your thoughts and questions you have below