There is a lack of policy in the UK and Essex promoting safety and inclusion for women and girls in the built environment. However, there are a number of principles that can be utilised both to help shape future policy and to interpret existing policy in ways that will promote safety and inclusion for women and girls.

Gender mainstreaming, defined by the RTPI as ‘the integration of the gender perspective into every stage of policy processes – design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation – with a view to promoting equality between women and men’, is a perspective that can be positively utilised by policy and planners to achieve more equitable outcomes for women and girls. Decision makers should utilise this principle as a component of their broader commitments to inclusivity to ask whether new developments will create more equitable outcomes between genders, or whether they will further entrench the unequal aspects seen in many built environments.

When engaging in gender mainstreaming, decision makers should account for women of all demographics and their unique needs. Women are not a monolith, and women of different ages, economic statuses, ethnicities, disability statuses, etc will have differing needs in addition to their shared needs.

There are also areas where decision makers may need to find compromises, where pro-feminist design may come into conflict with other obligations. For example, climate and biodiversity obligations may conflict with pro-safety lighting strategies and require a compromise of motion sensor lighting in some areas. It is important to engage with the relevant officers in order to find intelligent and contextual compromises.