My initiative is designed for and delivered in London
Yes
I am 18 years of age or above, by the application deadline.
Yes
My organisation is a registered UK entity and has a London-based address.
Yes
My organisation is a non-profit (e.g. school, university, or local authority) — not a for-profit, which can only join as a partner.
Yes
If there is a for-profit organisation as a partner in my initiative, they work on a cost-recovery basis only.
Yes
My solution is implemented at scale, or if not, I have a clear business plan, a minimum viable solution (prototype, pilot, or proof of concept), evidence of access to a lease for the space you are leveraging, and evidence of work or impact in London within your coalition.
Yes
I am aware that, if I am submitting more than one application to a Challenge run by Ashoka and Go! London, only one of them is able to progress through the stages.
Yes
Are you an employee (and their children and grandchildren) of Ashoka or any of its respective affiliates and participating advertising and promotion agencies?
No
I have read and accepted the Challenge Terms & Conditions.
Yes
First Name
Lorenzo
Last Name
Ciancarini
Pronouns
He/Him
I would like to receive notifications and updates about Go London!, Ashoka, Ashoka Changemakers, and other Ashoka opportunities.
1
Are you an Ashoka Fellow?
No
Are you applying from an organization founded by an Ashoka Fellow?
No
If you are applying from an organization founded by an Ashoka Fellow, please specify the name and organisation of the fellow below.
Lead Organisation Name
Walk Wheel Cycle Trust (formerly Sustrans)
Year that you started/ registered your organisation
1984
Initiative Title
Young Street Builders
My initiative is designed for and delivered in London
1
Website URL(s) or Social Media Handles
https://www.walkwheelcycletrust.org.uk/
Initiative Stage
Growth (You’ve moved past the very first activities; working towards the next level of expansion.)
Sectors/Themes: What topic does your project most directly relate to?
Children & Youth
Initiative Summary: Describe your initiative in one sentence
This project proposes to radically reimagine street space outside the City of London Academy in Islington as a space for community, play, rest and activity for all, handing over design agency to young people to shape a public space that they would like to spend time in, and centring them in the build process to deliver these street changes. It is a partnership between the City of London Academy in Islington, Walk Wheel Cycle Trust, BuildUp and Islington Council.
The Problem: What problem are you helping to solve and who will benefit the most from your solution? How close are you to the problem and/or community impacted?
The project tackles two interlinked systems: the lack of opportunities for young people to play, move, and socialise on their streets, and their exclusion from decisions about the outdoor environments they use every day. Only about 20% of children meet the recommended levels of physical activity. Car-dominated streets limit the freedom to move and opportunities for children to "play out", despite strong evidence that street play increases activity, strengthens community ties and reduces social isolation. Streets are our largest public space resource, yet their potential as social, active and learning spaces remains vastly untapped. While local authorities are prioritising people‑friendly streets, they often are not truly child‑friendly due to limited resources and a lack of meaningful youth involvement. This gap is exactly where our idea sits. We work directly with young people who navigate these streets daily and often feel unheard in local decision‑making. Without opportunities to influence their environment, they also miss out on developing confidence, leadership and a sense of agency. A fairer society requires equipping all young people with the skills and spaces to help create it. The project will benefit young people at the City of London Academy Islington (CoLAI) and children across the wider St Peter’s area, where access to public space for play and socialising is limited. Islington is the 2nd most densely populated area in London, with the least access to green space and the 4th highest child poverty rate in the UK. Walk Wheel Cycle Trust is already working with Islington Council to redesign streets for people in St Peter’s Ward, and has a long‑standing partnership with CoLAI through workshops exploring healthy streets principles with pupils and designers.
Your approach: How are you/ will you addressing the problem outlined above? How does your solution unlock or reimagine access to spaces for sport and physical activity? What role do landowners, local authorities, or other decision-making stakeholders play in your approach? We'd love to know about the origin of your idea, and what was your "aha" moment" that led you to take action?
Our approach tackles both systemic root causes at once. We are developing a youth‑led methodology for street design, placing young people at the centre of shaping the spaces they use, happening over three youth-led phases: design, construction and activation. Working with pupils at local schools, we will co‑design and co-build structures to encourage movement and play, embedding activity into daily journeys. The project builds on a live Islington Council scheme with WWCT to reclaim roadspace for people at two key junctions just outside the school. At WWCT, we thrive to make neighbourhoods places where everyone can walk, wheel, cycle and be active. We see a pattern across projects: young people’s needs are secondary, so redesigned streets rarely support youth activity. Our “aha” moment came during work with CoLAI pupils, where we felt the resolution to challenge traditional tokenistic co-design approaches, delivering schemes truly led by the young people who use them. We are partnering with Build Up, experts in youth‑led design and construction, to ensure young people meaningfully lead the project from concept to delivery. The Council as landowner ensures the transformed space is permanent; schools anchor participation. By integrating co-designed features into the street, we expand sport and physical activity into free, everyday movement woven into daily life. A pupil-led activation event will invite the wider community to reimagine the space through a Movement Festival, with programmed activities embedding long-term ownership, connection, and use. Together, we will open up new pathways for young people to shape public space, transforming an overlooked streetscape into an active environment and helping create a blueprint for future system‑changing projects.
Collaboration with young people and the community: In what ways does your initiative engage young people and community members closest to the problem? What role do they play in building the solution you deliver?
Young people will take a seat at a table they’re rarely offered, initiating ideas and sharing decisions with adults as equal partners. Together with engineers and council officers, they’ll redesign and build a playful, active space on their school’s doorstep, turning an ordinary junction into a vibrant community asset and creating a lasting legacy in one of London’s most urbanised and least green boroughs. We will bring together our streetscape expertise with BuildUp’s youth-led design and construction knowledge. The approach will enable young people to have a voice in a field where professional practices normally exclude young people. The project will be led by a paid Youth Advisory Group, which will shape design and construction in co-production workshops, plan and deliver the activation event, and play a role in collating/sharing learnings from the pilot. 60 young people will participate in workshops led by Build Up’s facilitators and designers, alongside Islington and WWCT’s engineers and engagement specialists. They will map how they use the space and generate ideas for movement-focused structures. Pupils will redefine the space, prototype a variety of approaches (with features like balance beams, climbing elements, and playful seating), and make decisions about design, types of play, layout, and specifics like materials and colours, taking part in conversations with Islington teams. These ideas will then be brought to life in 8 hands-on build workshops, where they will construct the features themselves, transforming their designs into a tangible space. A final youth‑organised activation event will celebrate the students’ achievement, bringing together the 900 school pupils, residents, and partners to recognise their contribution and embed long‑term outcomes.
Potential for/Evidence of Impact: How do you imagine your initiative will make a difference in unlocking spaces for and access to physical activity and sport so far? If you have already implemented it, what difference have you made so far? What is the impact your initiative has had , and or what impact do you envision having in the future?
The project transforms 2,000m² of vehicle-dominated space into playful, active community space, unlocking opportunities for movement, climbing, balancing, play and connection in the public realm as part of daily school journeys. The space will bring young people into core decision‑making, enabling them to create spaces that reflect their needs, benefiting all young people in an area with limited access to outdoor space - directly supporting the Challenge priorities: expanding access to play and movement, reducing inequalities, empowering youth to shape healthier neighbourhoods. There is strong evidence for the long‑term impact of active streetscape design and youth‑led place shaping. Build Up’s record (53 youth‑led construction projects, 301 young people in 2025) shows that youth‑centred projects produce inclusive, better‑used spaces. WWCT Hounslow Play Streets introduced gymnastics, ball games, dance, planting, recording a 300% increase in walking, wheeling, scooting and cycling. Build Up’s 24/25 data found people felt new spaces were: safer, cleaner, wanted to spend more time (95%), more appealing, welcoming (89%), positively changed the neighbourhood (100%). We will evaluate key project stages to assess the approach in different contexts and identify critical success factors, through interviews, surveys with young people, residents, stakeholders, and workshops with the project team and youth. Learning will be shared through presentations, CPD sessions, conferences and a visual publication. Structural barriers still separate youth‑led design from streetscape improvement. WWCT delivers school‑focused schemes, &Islington supports youth engagement but lacks processes. With Go London support, we can create a scalable model and deliver long‑term change in St Peter’s Ward
Innovation: What is different about your initiative compared to other solutions that are already out there? How is your approach original and innovative?
Our innovation lies in merging two proven, but previously separate approaches: WWCT’s expertise in street transformation and Build Up’s youth‑led construction model - moulding a new approach to street design that embeds informal physical activity into children’s daily routines. While youth engagement in street design is often limited to consultation workshops or wish lists, our approach goes further than sticky notes: young people will define, design, and physically build new play features into the public highway, shifting them from passive consultees to active designers of their surroundings. BuildUp’s unique youth‑led design approach already works, but has rarely been applied to live public realm projects. At the same time, street transformation projects often aim to increase active travel, but overlook informal, everyday opportunities for play and movement, and traffic reduction schemes lack reimagining streetspace for different uses. By combining these two worlds, we are creating a new model to provoke a mindset shift. Our innovation lies in democratising physical activity by embedding playful, active features directly into the spaces young people use every day. Beyond relying on formal sports facilities, we reimagine streets as places where movement, play, and social connection are part of daily life. Why shouldn’t a street be a space for climbing, balancing, or imaginative play? This idea sparks a completely new way of collaborating between actors who rarely get to work together. It brings engineers, designers, council officers and young people together as peers in a genuinely shared process. The result is not only a high‑quality active space, but a methodology London boroughs can adopt to ensure future street designs are shaped BY young people, not simply FOR
Viability and Scalability: How are you setting your initiative up for success, and what is your plan to ensure operational sustainability of your solution and its impact? What are your ideas for scaling your initiative to the next level?
WWCT will manage the project, drawing on in‑house experts already working on wider improvements in Islington. This provides a defined programme, strong relationships with council officers, and ensures the work is embedded in a real public‑realm transformation. Build Up brings delivery expertise in youth‑led design and construction focused on movement and play, ensuring all phases are youth‑driven, safe, fully risk‑assessed and replicable. Islington will provide long‑term maintenance, and WWCT’s existing partnership with local schools offers a strong foundation for future opportunities. Scaling requires navigating highway‑delivery complexities and challenging the narratives around youth involvement. Working directly with Islington and contractors will build confidence and show that youth‑led design can be delivered safely and to a high standard. This pilot is a proof‑of‑concept, reducing perceived risk, demonstrating that involving young people is not tokenistic but improves outcomes. Our ambition is to use learning from this project to raise Islington’s expectations for youth‑initiated design and inspire more movement‑focused public‑realm interventions. Embedding the Youth Advisory Group will ensure the right council staff are engaged throughout. Two additional workshops with Islington Council will help shape future approaches and practices around child‑friendly public‑realm delivery focused on movement and play. A coherent communications plan, including materials, case studies, presentations and targeted meetings with key stakeholders, will ensure the model is accessible, manageable and ready to be championed and replicated by other local authorities and community groups to support lasting mindset and practice change around youth‑centred projects.
Roles and Responsibilities: Describe how responsibilities are shared among your team or partners.
Our project will be delivered with the collaboration of four key partners: BuildUp Foundation, the City of London Academy in Islington, Islington Council, and Walk Wheel Cycle Trust. 1. Walk Wheel Cycle Trust (WWCT) will manage the overall project, holding responsibility and risk for delivery, overseeing the programme and the delivery of all workshops, build, and activation events with partners and being the key contact point for Go London, including reporting. WWCT currently holds all the individual relationships with other partners and will act as the liaison and coordinator. WWCT staff will include engineers and urban designers, project managers and engagement specialists. WWCT designers and engineers are already working closely with Islington Council on the wider St Peter’s Area improvements and are very familiar with internal processes to deliver work on the public highway with Islington. This in-depth knowledge and experience of the area and live project ensures that our project with the young people is smoothly embedded, maximising impact. The collaborative design process will be designed in partnership with BuildUp to ensure a smooth transition into the collaborative build phase, ensuring young people are centred in the process. WWCT and BuildUp will also oversee the learnings and dissemination of the project experience with all other partners, ensuring visibility and replicability in the future, particularly with other organisations. WWCT will hold overall responsibility for the monitoring strategy and evaluation, with techniques and approaches fed in from both organisations’ extensive experience - have a dedicated strategy, evidence and impact team who will work with the Youth Advisory Group WWCT will also be responsible for overseeing project documentation, the production of communication highlights and dissemination on social media platforms and to key stakeholders to maximise project exposure and impact (e.g TfL, other local authorities, Active Travel England, transport and urban design focused coalitions, organizations focused on young people’s involvement in etc), organising learning and next steps sessions WWCT will hold principle designer role from a CDM (construction design management regulations 2015) perspective across the project - having liaison with Islington officers and contractor WWCT will also oversee activation event planning with young people and execution 2. BuildUp (BU) is the main delivery partner, with a team of youth coordinators, project managers and builders. They will oversee the co-design process and young people's involvement throughout, ensuring the project is truly youth-led rather than consultative. They will also design and deliver the build workshops with the pupils and will be responsible for managing construction, installation and risk in the public highway based on extensive experience. BU will set up and Youth Advisory Group based on their youth advisory board experience, and will oversee involvement at key points in the project BU will lead on technical design for the Go London project elements BU will take on designer role, as well as the principal contractor role on site in relation to CDM 3. Islington Council is the key decision maker and landowner, with responsibility over the public highway and the overall St. Peter’s area improvements and transformation. The team includes the St. Peter’s project managers in the transport and healthy spaces team, as well as their highways engineers and maintenance teams, drawing on expertise from heritage, public health and other council teams through the Peer Review Design Panel. Islington Council is on board with the Go London project, and will coordinate internal conversations within council teams, as well as provide the necessary permits to do work on the public highway, street closures for activation events, and liaison with their appointed term contractor to facilitate the Build sessions with BuildUp and the pupils. 4.Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School and The City of London Academy in Islington (CoLAI) are a key stakeholder invested in shaping the local area and public realm around their school. They will take charge of the coordination and participation of young people, mainly from the school, including providing the necessary supervision with teachers. WWCT, CoLAI, and Islington engineers have successfully delivered a workshop and creative walking tour with pupils in the past, providing a good basis for further collaboration. The school is already on board with the project and potential workshops and build sessions taking place, providing a unique opportunity to pupils. CoLAI will provide facilitation of all workshops within the school, as well as outreach to the school community (e.g. parents, teachers) on the programme and particular events, such as the final activation event/movement festival. The four partners are integral in the successful delivery of the project, and early conversations have already taken place to ensure buy-in and alignment from all groups, including flagging early constraints and risks if we were successful.
Upcoming Milestones: Please provide an overview of the milestones that are required for your initiative to come to fruition/to grow.
The milestones and stages we envision for the project to take place are as follows, along with indicative timescales: 1- Project & engagement planning (September 26) Intended outcome: Bringing all partners together to agree on approach, constraints and considerations, timescales, expectations etc, as well as set the tone for the engagement events. Set up Youth Advisory Group and conduct the 2nd session with Islington Council staff (First session took place as part of capacity building in early June 2026). 2- Early collaborative design workshop with young people (September-October 26) Intended outcome: Early engagement of young people around movement, play, understanding restrictions and creating space for reimagining the street environment. Focus on core themes of sport, and perceptions of movement and play. 3- Collaborative design workshops with young people (Nov 26) Intended outcome: Focused workshops thinking about the design of specific features, what these features are and where they will be located, children’s vision for increasing play and movement on the street through design. 4- Youth panel to council officers (Nov-Dec 26) Intended Outcome: Young people taking part in workshops presenting their ideas and plans to the council officers and having a chance to be heard and discuss the importance of play and movement in the public realm. 5- Design Refinement (Dec 26-Jan 27) Intended Outcome: Refining students’ designs into buildable working designs. 6- Build preparation workshops with young people (Feb-Mar 27) Intended Outcome: With the pupils, planning out together how the build will take place, allowing pupils to participate in the construction planning. Plan around half term in Feb 2027 7- Build delivery (April 27) Intended Outcome: A series of hands-on building workshops centring young people in the delivery of their ideas and designs. Approximately 8 workshops over two weeks 8- Activation codesign with young people (May 27) Intended Outcome: Workshop with young people to shape the celebration event and decide what kinds of movement-focused activities they want to run/have 9- Activation event delivery (June-July 27) Intended Outcome: Delivery of a celebratory event at the space focused on involving the wider community and giving young people the opportunity to be recognised as active designers of their surroundings. Also, an opportunity to evaluate the project. 10- Final post project monitoring elements: Conduct explicit post project monitoring activities (n.b most monitoring will take place at multiple instances throughout the project and embedded in design and build workshops). These include: interviews with council staff and councillors, Youth Advisory group reflection session on systems change 11- Learnings + practical visual publication (September 27) Intended Outcome: Consolidate all experience and learnings from project implementation through discussions and conversations, including with the youth steering board. Create a small practical guide for other stakeholders and local authorities interested in implementing similar projects to provide reassurance and consideration of risks and learnings. Develop all post-project communications material,case study, presentations and visuals. Online dissemination, and targeted dissemination to selected organisations and bodies, meetings and site visit
Capacity-Building Participation and Support Funding: If you were to make it as a finalist, you will be required to participate in an 8-week capacity building programme. If funding/ cost is a barrier to your participation, we may be able to offer up to 10,000 GBP of grant money available to support you. Please break down below, if it is the case, what costs you would incur and you would need covered. (Please note that there are restrictions on how the grant money may be used; please refer to the T&Cs for further details.
A key challenge we face when initiating youth-led place shaping projects is cultural and institutional barriers amongst staff in local government and the built environment sector, which can result in resistance to youth-led and centred design. While these barriers often reduce over the course of a project through shared learning and positive experiences of new ways of working, important decisions have frequently already been made at the detriment to young people’s needs. Through the Go London Capacity Building fund we were able to develop a new way of working - directly led by young people to support changes in attitudes and systems from the very beginning of project work. Over the last few weeks we have delivered: The capacity building programme supported the delivery of a bespoke and targeted training programme to strengthen Council and partner capacity to deliver child-friendly, youth-led public realm improvements as part of the St Peter’s project and more widely. The sessions will build practical skills, increase cross-sector collaboration, and develop youth-led approaches that can be embedded into future Council-led public realm and transport projects. Delivery of three specialist capacity-building sessions Three structured sessions will be delivered between May and June 2026, focused on: ● highways/public realm delivery learning ● child-friendly urban design ● youth-led engagement and co-design approaches These sessions will bring together council officers, young people, delivery partners, and external experts to share practical implementation knowledge and strengthen internal capability. Session 1: Highways delivery site visit Date: Wednesday 27 May 2026 – 10am to 1pm Lead facilitators: Luke Billingham and Hackney Quest A site visit and workshop focused on the delivery of the Homerton public realm project delivered by Hackney Quest and Build Up. Exploring implementation processes, partnership working and delivery challenges, followed by learnings and thinking about approach for St Peters project. Format and outputs: ● 2–3 hour in-person session in Homerton ● Guided site visit to the completed scheme ● Facilitated workshop capturing transferable learning for St Peter’s ● Practical discussion on highways delivery, stakeholder coordination, and community engagement ● Summary notes and key recommendations shared with participants Audience: ● Islington Council Transport team, and Engineering team ● Go London Challenge partners ● Other interested council officers ● Project partners including WWCT and Build Up Session 2: Child-Friendly Design Training Date: Wednesday 3 June 2026 - 9.30am to 12pm, in person (hybrid option available) at Islington Council offices Facilitators: Tim Gill and Dinah Bornat A workshop/training session focused on designing child-friendly streets and public spaces, with Tim Gill and Dinah Bornat, experts in child friendly design and planning. This will focus on rationale, mapping, and techniques approaching street design from a young person’s perspective. Format and outputs: ● 2-hour in-person workshop ● Increased understanding of child-friendly design principles ● Heat mapping approach and workshop ● Discussion of public realm project examples ● Strengthened shared language and approach across council teams Audience: ● Islington Council Highways, transport, streets and design teams ● Project partners including WWCT and Build Up ● Other council officers interested in inclusive public realm design ● 2 X Build Up Youth Advisory Board participants Session 3: Youth-Led Delivery Training Date: Thursday 4 June 2026, 12pm to 2pm - Islington venue in person (hybrid option available). Facilitators: Youth Advisory Board members from Build Up and Youth Coordinator A participatory training session exploring strategies for centring young people in public realm decision-making, design, and delivery processes. The session will be followed by two additional development workshops with the Youth Advisory Board and an expert consultant to begin shaping this learning into a training package for councils. Format and outputs: ● 2-hour hybrid workshop hosted at Islington Council offices or nearby venue ● Practical training on youth-led engagement and co-design ● Facilitated discussion and reflection with council officers ● Development of draft content and structure for a future council training package ● Initial framework for embedding youth participation into council transformation projects Audience: ● Highways, transport planning and streets teams ● Engagement, planning, housing, parks and maintenance teams ● Officers interested in youth participation and co-design approaches ● Project partners including WWCT and Build Up The programme's outcomes have gone considerably beyond our original aims, and has had a far reaching impact beyond the project itself - the youth-led workshop was attended by 48 people from across Islington Council delivery teams, and has received glowing feedback. Fiona Horgan, Head of Traffic Teams, reflected that it was ‘a great session, inspiring to hear new voices and challenge perceptions and bias.’
Now that you've explored what it truly means to put young people at the centre, how are you designing your initiative so that young people are genuine co-leaders and co-creators of the initiative?
A recurring challenge in youth-led placemaking is the cultural resistance and lack of confident knowledge that exists among staff in local government and the built environment sector. This creates barriers to youth-centred design from the outset, often resulting in difficult compromises that undermine young people's needs - and significant abortive costs when those tensions have to be resolved mid-delivery. Shifts in attitude typically only begin to emerge towards the end of a project, by which point it is too late to fully realise the benefits. Through the Go London Capacity Building Fund, we have developed a new approach - one directly led by young people - that addresses these systemic mindsets at the start of project work, rather than the end. Building on this foundation, we are now embedding a youth-led system changing programme directly within project delivery. How will we do this? Creating a Youth Advocacy Group (YAG) Through the capacity-building programme, we have already begun to build the conditions for this approach. The initial workshop with Build Up's Youth Advisory Board (YAB) was well-received, with strong engagement from Islington Council officers and clear appetite to continue. We are building on that momentum. Four members of Build Up's YAB - including three involved in the capacity-building programme will form a Youth Advisory Group (YAG), supported by Build Up's Youth Voice Strategic Lead. The role of the group will be to hold the project to account, advocate for young people's voices, train staff and officers in youth-led ways of working, create spaces for forward thinking, systemic reviews of existing approaches and guidance, and practical actions for the council, and ensure these principles are genuinely embedded throughout delivery. Youth influence throughout decision-making The Youth Advisory Group will remain involved throughout the project lifecycle, with funded time to attend key project meetings and review decisions at regular intervals. They will also take part in the design workshops with younger pupils, bringing in ideas and translating experiences. They will advocate directly for young people's perspectives with relevant stakeholders, including councillors, and act as a consistent voice for young people's needs as the project progresses. YAG Workshop delivery for Council Officers The group is responsible for two workshops with Islington Council officers and project partners. The first has already been delivered as part of the capacity-building programme focused on broader youth-led practices and principles. The second will be more specific and project-focused, shaped by project need, and will support officers to apply these principles in practice. For example, it could work through the Council's design sign-off process - such as the Council’s Public Realm Design Review Panel (PRDRP)- exploring how young people's voices can be meaningfully included at each stage, and helping officers to think through what that looks like in practice. Evaluating and improving this systems change model The group will play a central role in evaluation, helping to define what success looks like from a young person's perspective. We have also embedded time for the YAG to help refine the monitoring strategy, tools and approaches. They will also reflect critically on the systems-change approach itself - examining where barriers remain, whether interventions are happening at the right point, whether the right people are being engaged, and how the approach can be strengthened. This reflective practice will feed back into the project and into the wider development of the Young Street Builders model. Youth Co-design and Co-build The heart of the project delivery involves a series of collaborative design workshops aiming to give young people more agency in shaping their public spaces to suit their preferences around movement, and play, and activities they would like to engage in outdoors in their day to day journeys. Workshops will also equip young people with skills and knowledge in delivering their designs through build preparation workshops, and then center them in the construction phase as well, supporting knowledge sharing and a sense of ownership. Part of the philosophy is to also allow young people to safely participate in activities that are considered higher risk (e.g operating a power tool). Bridging gaps between highways engineers, transport planners and young people A big part of the youth led focus is also about bringing people who traditionally do not sit in the same room together and who have little interaction - for example, highways engineers and young people. By involving highways engineers in the design workshops to hear more directly from young people, and create an exchange of knowledge around street design, we aim to pave the way for a more empathetic and understanding approach to public realm delivery, and a soft shift of the power dynamic in these spaces. By bringing in the Youth Advisory Group to key discussions as a collaborator in delivery discussions, this centering of young people’s voices is further emphasised. We have already seen the positive dynamics of this, and shifts of perception, in the first workshop delivered by the Youth Advisory board to council staff, and this will continue in further sessions. Key quotes from the session include: ''I've been working for Islington Council for the last year and this is the most engaging training I've been on'' - James Taylor, Senior Transport Planner. “A great session today, thank you to all involved. I said Inspiring at the beginning and that it was! Inspiring to hear new voices, challenge perceptions and bias, and inspired to share this with others. “ - Fiona Horgan (Head of Traffic teams)
What partnerships and collaborations are most critical to delivering and sustaining your initiative and how are you building/ plan to build them?
Our initiative depends on a core partnership between four organisations, each playing a distinct and complementary role. Walk Wheel Cycle Trust (WWCT) leads project management and connects the work to wider public realm improvements already underway in St Peter's Ward, ensuring the project is embedded within a broader programme of street change rather than sitting in isolation. BuildUp leads the youth-centred co-design and construction process, bringing specialist expertise in youth advisory boards, participatory design and community build to ensure pupils are genuinely involved from concept to delivery and not just consulted. Islington Council, as landowner and highway authority, provides the permissions, infrastructure expertise, engineering resource and commitment to long-term maintenance that makes permanent change possible. Their buy-in, contribution of in kind resource, and belief in the overall child centered public realm design with play embedded in the highway, is central to the successful delivery of the project. The wider St. Peter’s public realm also involves significant council funding and resources, both in kind staff time and capital costs, and these improvements will provide a significant boost to the possible physical transformation that can be achieved with the Go London funding, amplifying impactand reach. Surrounding schools, including the City of London Academy Islington, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Secondary School and Hannover Primary School anchor participation by embedding the project within school life, providing consistent access to young people and institutional support for their involvement. Multiple schools ensure the project reaches a wider and more diverse group of young people from across the area. Secondary partners include local businesses and community organisations such as the Co-op and the Ark Community Centre, who contribute to the project's community legitimacy, activation and longer-term sustainability in the neighbourhood. Partnership Building and background work We secured initial commitment from all core partners during the first phase of the project, giving us a strong foundation from which to move into more detailed planning. Since then, our focus has been on deepening relationships, clarifying roles and responsibilities, working through the practicalities of the timeline, programme, and delivery, and aligning all parties around a genuinely shared objective rather than parallel but separate interests. We have spent many hours ensuring alignment between different organisations and their varying needs. For example, how can we bring together Islington council’s constraints around programme delivery and funding with our desire to extend the design phase to ensure maximum meaningful youth design, with the schools' desires to provide skills development and work experience around specific windows. A significant part of this work has been internal to Islington Council, where different teams (transport, highways, maintenance, design)do not always work closely together on projects of this kind, and have varying levels of risk appetite and value for youth centered design. We have held multiple meetings between the transport and highways teams to ensure cross-departmental buy-in, long-term commitment, and dedicated resource, with a particular focus on securing highways engineering capacity, which is critical to translating young people's designs into permanent street infrastructure. A notable milestone has been getting the engineering team formally on board, and approving of BuildUp taking on the Principal contractor role to deliver collaborative build sessions with Young people. (this is additional to Islington Council’s term contractor, which delivers the majority of public realm projects). This opens the door to a new model of delivery and construction. We have also worked closely with the Council's inclusive design officer to shape our approach to youth-focused public space design, ensuring that considerations around inclusion and accessibility are built into the project from the outset rather than added later. To support communication across teams, we developed a project parameters and examples slide deck to help articulate the vision to officers less familiar with unconventional public realm design or child-led decision-making processes. This has also been a useful tool for surfacing constraints (e.g. around materials, fall heights, carriageway interactions and maintenance requirements) early enough that they can be incorporated into the design process constructively, rather than becoming blockers further down the line. Alongside this internal Council work, we have held several joint meetings between BuildUp, WWCT and Islington Council to ensure the Council has a clear and confident understanding of BuildUp's working processes, indemnity arrangements and CDM responsibilities. Transparency around these practicalities has been essential for building trust and ensuring that more cautious stakeholders feel secure in committing to an unconventional project. At a political level, the transport team is presenting the Go London project to Islington ward councillors and the transport and environment committee to secure early political buy-in and steer, supported by the general intention that already exists among councillors to improve the St Peter's area. Capacity building programme and aligning partners A bespoke three-session capacity building programme has been central to bringing partners with diverging professional backgrounds and institutional cultures together around a common goal (delivered in May and June 2026). The programme actively builds shared knowledge, language and values, creating the conditions for genuine collaboration rather than coordination between teams that tend to be siloed in their delivery and approaches. Session 1 brought Council officers and project partners to Homerton for a site visit and facilitated workshop focused on a small public realm project delivered by Hackney Quest and BuildUp. This provided concrete, real-world evidence that youth-led street projects can be successfully delivered within a local authority context, offering practical learning on partnership working, highways delivery, stakeholder coordination and community engagement. The case study format was deliberately chosen to build confidence and precedent among Council officers who may have limited experience of this type of project, grounding the ambition of St Peter's in demonstrable reality. Session 2 brought in external experts Tim Gill and Dinah Bornat (both nationally recognised figures in child-friendly urban design) to build a shared understanding of child-friendly design principles across Council teams with over 30 attendees. As well as introducing practical tools such as heat mapping, the session focused on developing a common design language and sensibility across officers from different disciplinary backgrounds, which will be essential when navigating the design workshops and making decisions about what gets built. Session 3 focused on youth-led engagement and co-design, led by members of BuildUp's Youth Advisory Board alongside a youth coordinator. By having young people themselves lead the training, the session models the very approach it is advocating for, shifting the dynamic from adults learning about young people to young people sharing their expertise directly with the professionals who shape their environments. As well as building Council capacity with 50 council staff attendees, this session initiates the development of a reusable training package for councils more broadly, extending the impact of this partnership well beyond the immediate project. Taken together, the three sessions function as a coherent programme designed to align people with diverging professional interests and institutional priorities around common objectives: the wider ambition of putting young people at the centre of decisions about street space, and the design of public space that invites physical activity and play. Schools engagement and programme development Engagement with schools has been carefully developed to ensure young people are genuinely embedded throughout the project, rather than involved in a tokenistic or time-limited way. Beyond the City of London Academy Islington, which anchors the project, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School (an all-girls secondary school) has committed to both the design workshops and the build programme, bringing a different demographic of young people into the process and strengthening the project's reach and inclusivity. We are currently exploring how to integrate the workshops and construction into students' formal work experience, which would deepen their involvement, create educational value and strengthen the school's institutional commitment to the programme. The school has proposed February half term 2027 as a potential window for build workshops, which we are working to align with the wider programme of street improvement works in the area. These partnerships are structured not simply as delivery arrangements, but as a system of relationships slowly and deliberately built over time, united by a shared commitment to putting young people at the centre of decisions about their streets, and to demonstrating that this approach can work within, and ultimately transform, the way local authorities think about public realm design.
What are you measuring, how are you measuring it, and what does the data tell you so far (quantitative and qualitative)?
Overview and impact This project’s impact will be measured through both physical and social outcomes. These outcomes are have been carefully created based on the Go London challenge’s overall objectives, paired with the different partners’ delivery goals and theories of change around children’s independence and increased physical activity and play opportunities, youth empowerment and centering in decision making, child-friendly public space transformations, and Islington's child friendly borough action plan. For example, Build Up’s evaluation process aims to collect data to evidence the 3 main outcomes in Build Up’s Theory of Change: Young people develop skills, confidence and power to lead chan, Local people are involved and included in regeneration, and a stronger sense of community is created, now and in the future. These overlapping aims have been built into the project outcomes and evaluation. Outcomes The specific outcomes therefore involve: 1- increased opportunities to everyday movement and play, Increased access to safe, inclusive and affordable spaces for physical activity and play 2- Young people excluded from access to safe inclusive and affordable spaces are engaged while enhancing inclusivity across existing spaces 2- Meaningful youth participation in public decision-making, Youth-led design, delivery, and activation in the development and improvement of these spaces is championed 3- Welcoming, relevant environments for play and physical activity are created, improved perceptions of the space, with stronger community ownership of the street environment 4- Movement and play is embedded into young people’s everyday journeys through the provision of informal opportunities within street spaces. 5- Improved confidence, capability and empowerment amongst public sector staff in the delivery of highway transformations and public spaces that centre young people and promote play and physical activity for young people , outside of formal park and play spaces. 6- Develop institutional ambition and capability for youth-led initiatives, reflected in how council officers interact, respond, and make decisions. 7- A replicable model for youth-led delivery of public space improvements focused on play is created and feels accessible to council staff. Systems Change: These outcomes contribute to the higher level systems change around youth involvement in shaping their environments, and creating accessible public spaces that enable children to move and play. In the current system: - Young people not meaningfully involved in shaping the spaces they use - Low risk appetite of local authorities for impactful street transformations and for embedding play and movement into open public space - Play and movement confined to specific locations (e.g parks, sheltered playgrounds, schools) - Car dominance in highways design The systems change we hope to achieve: - Young people being included as critical stakeholders and design peers from the outset of a public realm project. - Political willingness to invest resources into meaningful youth-centred processes for decisions on the built environment. - Street environments that enable informal play, fun, movement and physical activity - Neighbourhood street environments designed around young people’s needs and movement, prioritising safety, comfort, learning, thriving and spending time, where motor vehicles’ presence is restricted and they are treated as guests Identified target audience for whom the outcomes are relevant: Pupils at engaged schools Young people in St. Peter’s Area Islington Parents and teachers Youth Advocacy group Council officers at Islington Local councilors and council leaders Council officers in other boroughs and wider institutional stakeholders and decision makers Monitoring overview Based on the project outcomes identified earlier we will evaluate key project stages to assess the approach in different contexts and identify critical success factors, through interviews, activity logs, observation, plus surveys and qualitative research with young people. This will establish a range of quantitative and qualitative data for analysis and learnings. Monitoring tools have also been suggested to suit the primary age groups of the target audiences, the nature of the project, and the ongoing on the ground interaction and learning that will take place. Monitoring across all outcomes and target audiences will take place towards the end of the project. A selected number of outcomes, will additionally be monitored and assessed at the start and intermediary points in the project where pre and post project/process comparisons are valuable. Monitoring with young people will be embedded within the design workshops and build workshops as much as possible, with activity logs recorded throughout the project stages. The Youth Advocacy Group will also conduct a reflective practice as part of evaluation to reflect on how this project has worked as a systems change approach and actively find better ways of doing it in the future. Reflective questions will include: What are the barriers to this kind of youth-led approach? How to do it better? Did we intervene at the right time? Are we speaking to the right people to effect change? Do we need to do something differently? For each of the outcomes above, we have identified key indicators, as well as a series of tools to help us capture key qualitative and quantitative data at different instances throughout the Outcome 1: Young people who have previously been excluded from spaces are engaged while enhancing inclusivity across existing spaces. Indicators Increased usage of space. Diversity in young people using space. Fewer barriers in the space. Participation levels in the Young Street Builders project. Participation at activation events Monitoring Tools and frequency: Site visits, surveys and discussions with Young Street Builders embedded throughout design and build workshops with a final survey at the end of the project School pupil survey with wider group of young people at schools at end of the project Outcome 2: Movement and play is embedded into young people’s everyday journeys through the provision of informal opportunities within street spaces. Indicators: Extent to which space encourages movement and play. Fewer barriers to movement and play. Types of movement and play observed. Number, types, ages and genders of people using the space Monitoring Tools Site visits and discussions with young street builders - to take place throughout workshops and build School pupil survey with young people - to take place at the end of the project in July 2027 Stationary Activity Mapping with young street builders throughout the whole project - to take place throughout every activity and build session. Site observation and counts of use and audience before and after the intervention Outcome 3: Welcoming, relevant environments for play and physical activity are created. Indicators: Perception of welcome and representation amongst young people in the space Perception of active things to do in the space Perceptions of safety amongst young people Number, types, ages and genders of people using the space Tools and frequency: Discussions (photovoice) with young street builders School pupil survey with pupils at the end of the project (July) Outcome 4: Youth-led design, delivery, and activation in the development and improvement of these spaces is championed. Indicators: Evidence of youth-led involvement / influence. Positive perceptions of youth-led involvement / influence – council officers/young people. Increased satisfaction from young people with how they are involved/listened to. Tools and frequency: Activity log with young street builders throughout the 3 workshops build prep, build (x8 instances) In depth interviews (individual/group) with Council officers and councillors x 3 to 4 individuals (towards the middle and end of project) Site visits and discussions with young street builders throughout the design workshops and at the end of the project Reflective session conducted by the youth advocacy group in the middle of the project (Jan 2027) and at the end of the project (July 2027) Outcome 5: Improved confidence and capability amongst public sector staff in the delivery of highway transformations and public spaces that promote play and physical activity for young people, outside of formal park and play spaces. Indicators: Increased confidence in delivery of these kind of spaces. Evidence of improved capability amongst staff. Tools and frequency: Depth interviews (individual/group) with Council officers and councillors x 3 to 4 individuals (end of project, plus year 3 and 5) Reflective session with officers conducted by the youth advocacy group in at the end of the project (July 2027) Outcome 6: Develop institutional ambition and capability for youth-led initiatives, reflected in how council officers interact, respond, and make decisions. Indicators: Evidence of support for future youth-led initiatives ie in plans. Evidence of shifts or changes to strategy and/or ways of working. Depth interviews (individual/group) with Council officers Outcome 7: A replicable model for youth-led delivery of public space improvements focused on play is created and feels accessible to council staff. Indicators: Evidence of replicating the model in future delivery in Islington and in other Local Authorities Extent of agreement that youth-led delivery is replicable and affordable. Evidence of sharing acquired skills/knowledge. Monitoring Tools and frequency: Depth interviews (individual/group) with Council officers and local councillors Post-project check ins with council officers in Islington and other local authorities at year 3 and 5 Dissemination of key communication highlights to LAs and analysis of response Reflective session conducted by the youth advocacy group at the end of the project (July 2027)
Long-term impact: what lasting systems change are you seeking to create and how will you know when it has happened?
The systems and processes that manage the built environment fundamentally exclude young people. Consideration of their needs is nobody's expertise or priority, decision-making processes have no established route for their involvement, and organisations responsible for creating and managing street spaces lack the working practices, culture, or experience to include them. The result is that attempts to involve young people are treated as disproportionately risky, their needs fall off the agenda, and streets fail to support play, movement, and social interaction. We are seeking to intervene in this system at three levels. 1. Creating a replicable model Street space design currently lacks the tools and working practices to include young people meaningfully. By delivering a permanent new public space through a youth-led process, we will create and evidence a replicable model for youth-led public realm design - one that other organisations can learn from and adopt. 2. Shifting culture and behaviour from the inside Through our capacity-building work, we identified that the biggest barrier to youth-led design is not appetite or resource - it is culture and behaviour, rooted in a lack of knowledge, skills and experience among the staff responsible. Our response is a young people-led training and influencing programme embedded directly into project delivery, shifting attitudes and working practices from the very start rather than working against resistance throughout. 3. Influencing sector-wide practice The physical space will serve as hard evidence of what this model can achieve. We will share our working practices and learning through professional networks, sector events, project visits, and compelling communications - including videography - developed to reach audiences beyond our existing networks. Our staff and young people will speak in built environment spaces, making the case directly to those with the power to change how streets are designed and managed. This will create a mindset change in built environment working practices among those managing and designing streetspaces, both within Islington Council, and the wider built environment sector, to better: Consider the needs of young people Support and initiate youth lead decision making Embed spaces for young people in streetspace design, facilitate play and social interactions We are working towards a world where youth-led design approaches are common and not considered risky, young people can often contribute to street space design and young people's needs are routinely considered as part of public highway design. How will we know if this has happened? During the project: Evaluating our new model and comparing it against our existing approaches: are there less barriers to youth decision making, are young people’s needs better understood? Understanding young people’s experience: do young people genuinely feel listened to? Do young people consider their needs being met? At completion / year 3 / year 5: Interviews with key personnel involved; have attitudes towards young people needs and involvement in decision making positively changed? Do staff have greater knowledge and understanding of youth lead design practices? Review Build Up and WWCT enquiries; are partner organisations receiving more enquiries about Youth Lead Streetspace design? What proportion of enquiries are from youth community organisations, what proportion are from councils and built environment professionals. Understanding young people’s experience: how has young people's use of the streetspace changed, what impact has this had on their lives and communities?
Is there anything else you'd like to share with us that you were not able to share in previous questions?
Detailed responsibility split Comms and Dissemination Plan / strategy WWCT Design CDM: WWCT Principle Designer. Build Up - Designer Phase 1: engagement Stakeholder Mapping WWCT Agree stakeholder requirements and communications plan WWCT EQiA produce and update WWCT Activation events WWCT Stakeholder conversations WWCT Phase 2: breif development Breif development and sign off WWCT Breif sign off WWCT Phase 3: young people design workshops Recruitment and comms BU Initial Student workhshop (July) BU Follow on young people workshop (Sept/Oct) BU Phase 4: concept design development Interepret workshops outcomes BU + WWCT input Development of design information BU + WWCT input Internal QA and update WWCT DWG Register WWCT Design decision Log WWCT RSA safety audit commission and respond + cost of audit WWCT PDRP - Islington WWCT Update concept designs post RSA, feedback from LBI - incl internal QA and update BU + WWCT input Build Up CDM: Build Up: Principle contractor. WWCT: Principle designer. issues H+S file Technical design Technical Design BU Technical Design Sign off BU Construction Planning Build plan BU Cost Plan BU Feasibility and costs review BU Construction Logistics BU Construction Phase Plan BU Coordinate staff and contractors BU Order materials and equipment BU Construction Delivery Health + Safety BU Welfare BU Site Security BU Design / detailing BU Contractors BU Workshops with young people Work placement induction BU Register BU Session debrief BU Safeguarding BU Evaluation collecton BU Sign off Snagging BU Client Sign off WWCT Health and Safety File WWCT Activation Activation Events (post- construction) 1 or 2 activation events designed by young people post construction WWCT WWCT WWCT Review / Learning WWCT + BU input
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