285,000 women in East of England don't feel safe in parks, charity finds

More than one in ten women and girls don't feel safe in parks in the East of England, new figures show.

A YouGov poll, carried out on behalf of the charity Keep Britain Tidy, revealed that 285,000 women in Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk disagreed with the statement that they felt safe in green spaces.

The charity's now calling on local authorities and landowners to improve access and security, by taking on board recommendations from a recent University of Leeds report informed by over 100 women and girls.

Some of the recommendations include:

• Parks managers provide a single point of contact about safety concerns, and how to report harassment or violence against women and girls in parks through multiple channels of communication, including on park signage.
• Local authorities and the police collect and share data on safety concerns and incidents of violence against women and girls in and around parks to feed into holistic, multiagency responses (e.g. via the ‘Street Safe’ app31).
• Parks managers work with police to develop strategies to empower park users to be active bystanders willing to intervene in the event of witnessing harassment or problematic behaviour in parks.

CEO of Peterborough Women's Aid, Mandy Geraghty, said: 'I think all the responsibility is being put on the victim: Don't run in the park at night-time, take a rape alarm, run with one earphone in so you can hear someone coming up behind you. We should instead be looking at how men and boys can make women feel safer.'

'Last year we had 585 women come to Peterborough Women's Aid wanting to support, and that figure is increasing every year.'

'We're really strong believers in education around what domestic abuse and violence against women and girls is; looking at how society portrays the roles of males and females, but also empowering women as well, and saying these behaviours shouldn't be tolerated.'

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• violence against women and girls