Designing play into urban environments: challenges and good practice within the city of Bradford, UK

Background: Outdoor play supports children’s physical activity, mental wellbeing, and social and cognitive development. Urban sprawl has diminished children’s opportunities to play in their neighbourhoods. Designing play into the built environment is an increasing priority to ensure cities are child-friendly.

Purpose: To explore the strategic-level influences within the local system in Bradford UK, and understand the barriers, facilitators and potential solutions to ‘designing-in’ play’ within urban environments.

Methods: Nine strategic leads who influence the built environment and children’s play and physical activity in Bradford, were interviewed. Data analysis was guided by the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research. Local strategies and plans were reviewed to understand their influence on designing suitable spaces for play.

Results: Individual characteristics and knowledge of the strategic leads, organisational culture, and external partnerships are driving an emerging evidence-based, co-designed approach to embedding play into urban built environments, partly through incorporating play and children’s voice into local strategies within and beyond planning, and combining resources. Barriers primarily stem from external pressures, including insufficient funding for maintenance of spaces, the prioritisation of economic viability over quality of housing developments, and insufficient internal staff capacity . Further cross-department communication and collaboration to ensure play and the child’s voice is in all agendas, a focus on designing spaces for children with additional needs, and evidence of impact are recommended.

Conclusions: There is good practice within Bradford which has the potential to enhance children’s opportunities for outdoor play. Areas for future local work have been identified. Good practice is hampered by external factors which require national-level action.

Practical implications: The good practice identified through this work can support strategic leaders from other urban places to ensure children’s play needs are embedded into the policy environment they work in.

Funding: NIHR programme development grant (NIHR204232) and ActEarly Research Innovation Fund