Get involved in the biggest ever art and design competition in Leeds<h1>Child friendly city centre</h1><p>Next Steps in Leeds City Centre Competition<br></p>https://www.leeds.gov.uk/childfriendlyleeds/Lists/heroBanners/DispForm.aspx?ID=2

Have you visited Leeds City Centre?

When it comes to child friendly things to do, Leeds is the place to be! Whether it’s days out, days in, new experiences or magical trails. Leeds City Centre is always fun of pop up events and fantastic hidden gems, especially during the holidays. Find out what’s on now:


Child Friendly Leeds - City Centre Working Group

Child Friendly Leeds worked with children and young people to develop the city centre and make it more family friendly. As a result of this, we have a working group of city centre partners all sharing the goal of making Leeds a child-friendly destination. A few of our highlights include:


Child Friendly Leeds City Centre Map

We’ve been consulting with children and young people in Leeds to find out what they would like to see on a city centre map. They have helped to co-produce an amazing map with lots of useful features including:

FREE Wifi
Child friendly cafes
Changing places
Green spaces

Child Friendly Leeds City Centre Map (PDF 1.32MB)

We want to keep everyone updated about the progress being made to make the 10 winning ideas from last year’s the city centre competition a reality – please check out what’s been happening (PDF 0.8MB).

Find out ‘what’s on’ for children, young people and their families in Leeds city centre by looking at the handy events calendar on the Breeze website.


Youth Service provision

For information about Youth Service provision in Leeds city centre, please see the City Centre Youth Provision leaflet (PDF 0.1MB).


Easter ‘Roller Disco’ been and gone

Bringing a 'Roller Disco' to Leeds was one of the winning ideas in the 'Making Leeds city centre more child friendly' competition, which was entered by more than 350 children and young people in 2017.

Chelsey, who was 17 years old when she entered the competition, wanted a low cost, annual roller disco for children and young people in the city centre. Her idea was that it would enable young people to get together, meet new people and make new friends as well as help them to learn how to skate or teach others to skate.

Child Friendly Leeds, Leeds city centre management and Kirkgate Market, with partners Sk8House, made Chelsey’s idea a reality for three days over the Easter holidays. View footage of the event.


Developing a child friendly city centre

Leeds City Council and Child Friendly Leeds are working in partnership with businesses and organisations across the city with the goal of creating a fantastic, child friendly city centre for children, young people and their families to enjoy.

In March 2017, children and young people aged 4 - 18 (25 with additional needs) were invited to enter the ‘child friendly city centre competition’ and share their low cost and no cost ideas for making Leeds city centre more inclusive and appealing for children, young people and families. We also created a questionnaire for parents and carers to complete, which asked for their opinions and ideas on what is currently working well from their perspective and how it could be improved.

The competition had five categories, which were linked to the 12 Child Friendly Leeds wishes and Children and Young People’s Plan:

Built environment
Events and activities
Safety
Travel
People

The response to the competition was amazing. We received over 350 entries with each one putting forward interesting, thought provoking and valuable ideas. The key themes highlighted through the parent’s questionnaire responses were very similar to those developed in the children’s competition entries.

This booklet captures the exciting, creative and challenging ideas and feedback from the competition and questionnaire. Following the competition and consultations in 2017, we worked with colleagues, partners and many of the young winners to deliver over 20 projects in the city centre. Attached is the report of how we have been developing a child friendly city centre in Leeds – one year on.

Developing a child friendly city centre in Leeds - one year on (PDF 1MB)

Making Leeds City Centre More Child Friendly

Over the last few months, Child Friendly Leeds has been asking children and young people from 4 – 18 years (25 with additional needs) to share their great ideas for making Leeds city centre more child and family friendly, via a city wide arts and design competition. We asked entrants to tell us about their low cost or free ideas that would help make the city centre more welcoming for children and young people around five themes: safety, transport, people, activities/events and physical environment.

The response from young people was overwhelming and we received some incredible ideas that will form a valuable resource that we can share with interested people in Leeds. Our judging panel, consisting of adults and Leeds Youth Council members, chose ten winning entries from the 354 that we received.

All ten winners have been invited to attend our Child Friendly Leeds City Centre Business Ambassador event on 3 July. The young people will take part in a workshop, share their competition ideas with businesses and organisations from across Leeds and enjoy afternoon tea in the Queens Hotel. All of the entries will be on display at the event and we hope to display them publicly in the near future.

Whilst there is currently an impressive offer for adults, we want to improve and make the city centre more inclusive for children, young people and families. Feedback from this event will then be used to develop high impact projects for the city centre which will hopefully make some of the ideas a reality.

Download and view the winning entries that were selected by our panel of adults and young people below:

Winning entry 1 (Ella)

Winning entry 2 (Chelsy)

Winning entry 3 (Games Group)

Winning entry 4 (Godwin, Cameron, Joe, Samuel and Simon)

Winning entry 5 (Jasmin)

Winning entry 6 (Leo)

Winning entry 7 (Opemipo)

Winning entry 8 (Rumani)

Winning entry 9 (Will)

Winning entry 10 (Abbie)

​​​​