Imagining public space with young people in Stretford

My local area theme

What’s on offer?

A public visioning workshop with young people and stakeholders working in small groups to gather ideas for social improvement and to facilitate social learning. The focus is on assessing what works and ideas for the future in an open visioning process that looks at the Mall as well as surrounding areas (including Longford Park that has recently had National Lottery Funding for improvements).

There will also be several interactive games designed to engage young people in conversations about sustainability with both local and global considerations.

What’s it about?

The Placeholders project is a research partnership between Bruntwood and Creative Manchester. The project aims to create, test, and refine a process for engaging young people in town-centre place-making.

Community participation in the process of place-making can provide a more sustainable basis for stewardship, community trust, belonging, sense of place and ownership and place-holding. It is important to encourage commitment from longer standing communities as well as hard-to-reach younger people within places, as they will have important resources to bring, including memories, identities and lessons, to promote sustainable, collective and community-led improvements of town centres.

Young people, particularly young women, are too often excluded from conversations about public space. We want to involve young people in designing public space that is accessible and inclusive.