‘New residential flats should be designed to be child and family friendly’

A study undertaken at Australia’s Deakin University concluded that family-friendly design guidelines for apartment buildings should be introduced to promote the health of the growing number of children being raised in Melbourne’s high-rise apartments.

The study, published in 2018, examined how the rapid increase in ‘high-rise’ parenting was adversely impacting on Australian children’s health and development.

Lead author, Dr Fiona Andrews, argued high-rise homes were typically designed for young professionals or couples without children, while the needs of children in the planning of cities were not being properly considered.

Problems identified in the study included: safety risks of windows and balconies; restricted space and limited storage; concerns about children disturbing neighbours (or vice versa); and day-to-day challenges such as drying the increased amounts of laundry generated by young children.

But the biggest concern was lack of outdoor space and opportunities for active play.

The Milliners private flats – photo by Martin Booth

An increasing number of children and families in Bristol may be set to experience similar problems, as the current Mayor and cabinet insist that tall residential buildings are necessary to meet their housing targets.

On the face of it, Bristol City Council’s Urban Living supplementary planning document (SPD) acknowledges that new residential flats should be designed to be child and family-friendly.

The document includes a quotation from the World Economic Forum: “We are living in an ever-increasingly urban world, with more children growing up in cities than ever before. It is therefore imperative that we design and build cities that meet the needs of children: seeking their input during the design process, providing them with access to play and education, and facilitating their social and cultural interactions.”

Bristol’s SPD states that ensuring ‘everyday freedoms’, through independent mobility around a neighbourhood and children’s infrastructure for play and socialising, should be key considerations of the design process: for under-5s play space should be incorporated within the development, while for older children it may be off-site but should be safely accessible.

How is this being enforced in practice?

The high-rise development approved at Totterdown Bridge, including a 17-storey tower, does not inspire confidence.

A controversial 15-storey tower block has been granted permission in Totterdown.

With a ‘child yield’ of 40, there is no space for the storage of bulky items on the individual floors, play areas for under-5s are limited to balconies and roof terraces, and more independent play requires crossing a busy dual-carriageway and negotiating a steep rat-run to the nearest park.

Apparently emboldened by the approval of such a scheme, another high-rise planning application has been submitted for a nearby site which, rather than propose a family-friendly scheme in line with the Urban Living SPD, simply states that “due to the tight nature of this brownfield site the scheme is unable to deliver formal built in play facilities to meet these standards”.

It seems likely that other developers across the city will also test the current administration’s commitment to ‘family-friendly’, high-rise schemes.

A view of the top of the tower.

If so, this will not only be at odds with the Urban Living SPD but will undermine other pronouncements made in recent years.

The Bristol Children’s Charter was launched in 2018 during the city’s annual Play Day, when the Mayor of Bristol, the Director of Children’s Services, and the Cabinet Member for Women, Children and Families, agreed to develop a new approach to ensure that children were at the heart of the city in council decision-making and across the breadth of Bristol’s partners.

In 2019 Bristol hosted the first independent conference curated by the European Network for Child-Friendly Cities, when Mayor Rees declared: “The Towards a Child-Friendly City conference puts children centre stage in our built and urban environments which is exactly where they should be.”

And the notion of a child-friendly city has been carried through to the latest draft Corporate Strategy (currently out for consultation) in which it is stated: “Helping families isn’t just about the children’s services that the council delivers, but also how we design our neighbourhoods and build communities to be safe for children, have access to play and green spaces, or areas for young people to enjoy safely.”

If these child-friendly policies and declarations are to have any credibility, it should be made clear to developers that some valuable space must be specifically allocated to children growing up in their lucrative high-rise schemes.

Suzanne Audrey is a Senior Research Fellow in Public Health. 

Main photo: Google

Read more: Is Bedminster ready for a high rise boom?