Video transcript: WOW Park Project 2024

Transcript for the video embedded on the WOW Park Report page.

[Text says: WOW Project – transforming public parks thorugh art and culture].

[Scenes of a leafy, green park appear. Gentle music plays].

[A person appears in the park. They are Emma Bentley-Fox, Street Space Engagement Lead].

Emma says: The project is set in Woodhouse Moor in Leeds, also known as Hyde Park, and it follows on from a piece of research that Leeds Uni did around women's safety in parks across West Yorkshire.

[A quote appears: “When I first came to Leeds it seemed just an accepted fact that women avoid the park at night.”]

[Footage of somebody using a skatepark appears. A quote says: “It’s hard with two small kids using the park without toilets.” Another quote appears: “The spatial distribution of the moniroties and BIPOC people is not well represented in the park. We have to make sure local communities feel like they have ownership.] 

[A person appears in the park. They are Dr Anna Barker, Associate Professor in Criminal Justice and Criminology, University of Leeds].

Anna speaks while walking around the park: So in the national context, we know women are three times more likely than men to feel unsafe in parks, and women are more likely to feel unsafe in parks than they are in other types of public spaces.

So to put that into statistics, one in six women feel unsafe in their local park during the day and four out of five women, that's 82% of women, feel unsafe in parks after dark.

So our research looked in detail at women and girls views. Teenage girls told us that they don't feel that parks are designed with them in mind, and women told us that they felt safer in busier spaces.

They told us that they felt safer at the edges of parks than in the middle of them, because this is where it might be easier to escape.

[Footage of a group of people taking part in a workshop inside the Parkinson Building at the University of Leeds. Text says: Engagement process, March 2024].

[Emma Bentley-Fox walks down a path on a park].

[Emma speaks while footage shows people taking part in the worskhop, having discussions and developing ideas].

Emma says: For this specific project, it's important to broaden out beyond just kind of ideas around safety when we were consulting. So we've been consulting everyone, not just women, on a range of different topics, with the understanding that by increasing usage of the park, therefore it will feel safer and therefore be safer.

We've also recruited a group of about 12 residents.

Over three sessions that group has been co-designing whatever the final thing in the park will be.

And then they've had kind of discussion, we've facilitated some creative workshops to kind of tease out and develop some more of those ideas.

There are some real frustrations in the community that are quite long seated as well.

It's really easy to sit in your bubbles as students or as residents or whatever, and grumble about how annoying it is but actually being able to bring people together, particularly in the collaborative design group, and have students and longer term residents sat around the table, I think was really great, and everyone was really open and honest with each other about their frustrations, but also like listening to each other and hearing other people's perspectives, and I think having that understanding goes quite a long way to just like lessening some of the frustrations as well.

[Footage shows blossom on a tree. A quote says: “My first thoughts were just around lighting, but it’s been great to hear other people’s perspectives on this and take a more considerate approach.”

[Various scenes appear of the park. A quote from a co-design participant says: “I liked hearing other people’s perspectives, it’s good to hear different angles and thoughts.” Another quote from a co-design participant appears: “My daily interactions in the park have changed, I have become more aware.” Another quote from a co-design participant appears: “I think designing a space in the park will help my local community, and overall it’s just a really great experience.”]

[A person appears on screen in the park. They are Georgie Hook, PhD student and co-design participant].

Georgie says: The process of co-designing is actually, like a creative intervention in and of itself. I already feel more engaged with the park and with the local community because of it.

[Text says: WOW Park Week, June 2024. Georgie speaks while footage shows activities at the event, including people playing chess, dancing, a band performing, people taking part in a guided tour of the park, sharing stories and doing creative activities].

Lots of different ideas for creative interventions from the co-design group. Some of them were sort of focused around encouraging awareness of the biodiversity in the park. We talked about signage for wayfinding as a way to sort of familiarize people with space.

Other ideas focused more on building a sense of community. 

With that, we talked about activating the bandstand area and collaborating with local businesses as part of that.

[Footage shows a ‘little library’ being used – people taking books from a small wooden cupboard on the park].

And we also had the idea of a little library, and that kind of came from speaking about how people often come to the park, for a moment of pause and reflection.

[Gentle music plays. Footage of other community activities and a quote from a female University of Leeds student appears: “My friend’s visiting from London, so i was taking her to see Hyde Park and the uni. We saw the signs and the library, it’s really lovely.” Another quote from a local resident says: “It’s good to meet other people, other community groups. It’s good to connect, but so hard to do, so it’s been great to have this chance.” Another quote from a Muslim Youth Forum stallholder says: “It’s been a quiet event but really intimate. A really good chance to meet people and talk about the project.”]

[Footage shows handwritten ideas and comments tied to a tree and people dancing in the park].

[Text says: Thank you to our partners, Street Space, the local residents and all the organisations that participated].