What are the barriers to building a child-friendly city?

Twitter can bring professionals together – or so we discovered when placemakers from across the UK joined into a conversation about child-friendly cities in the UK. The forum developed into a meet-up at a curry house near the train station in Leeds, organised by Emma Bearman of Playful Anywhere CIC and recorded by The Developer, where practitioners shared their ambitions and the challenges they are facing in pursuing a child-friendly agenda. The conversation serves as a powerful sign of this growing movement across the UK to create more playful, liveable cities.

Attendees included Adrian Voce, President of the European Network for Child Friendly Cities, Andre Reid of Kiondo in Birmingham, Sadiya Salim, Local Authority Officer at Child-Friendly Leeds for Leeds City Council; Grant Menzies from The City of Play, David Craig from Assembly Bradford, Gayle Appleyard, architect from Gagarin Studio, Dr Mohamed Radfar, Senior Lecturer at Leeds Beckett University, Elaine Cresswell, director of Reshaped landscape architects, Kristina Hall who focuses on providing space for organic learning and sustainable learning outcomes, Rebecca Thomas, Regeneration Officer at Leeds City Council and hosted by Emma Bearman of Playful Anywhere CIC.