Active Travel England will issue new guidance in 2026 and run spring training for local authorities on designing streets that feel safer for women and girls. Announced on 25 March 2026, the programme supports the government’s Safer Streets mission and the stated ambition to halve violence against women and girls within a decade. YouGov polling released the same day reports that 88% of women have felt unsafe walking at night and 71% have changed their route in darker months, with one in three young women discouraged from walking locally.
The guidance will explain how applying a gender lens to active travel planning can reduce common barriers. Practical measures flagged include better-specified street lighting, improved sightlines and visibility, and prioritising established walking routes that are busy and overlooked by homes, businesses or CCTV. Training sessions for council officers this spring are designed to support scheme design and engagement with local communities.
Local authorities are expected to use the material to review winter and after‑dark routes, refresh maintenance standards and reassess proposals that rely on subways or poorly overlooked paths. Ministers and officials have emphasised lived experience, encouraging councils to work directly with women and girls when testing options and setting priorities.
Local Transport Minister Lilian Greenwood framed the work as turning discussion into delivery so that women and girls feel able to walk, wheel and cycle after dark. The Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls, Jess Phillips, positioned the programme within a decade‑long goal to halve VAWG and to place responsibility on safer spaces and behaviours rather than on those at risk.
Examples already funded or underway illustrate the scope of interventions. In Worksop, Nottinghamshire’s Safer Streets programme installed 27 CCTV cameras where women reported feeling unsafe, upgraded 200 streetlights in key hotspots and delivered training for taxi drivers on addressing misogynistic behaviour. Milton Keynes City Council has introduced bystander champion training for male night‑time economy staff and created a designated, better‑overlooked route to the rail station.
Liverpool has introduced ‘Halo Points’ across the city centre-well‑lit, highly visible locations linked to CCTV and emergency services. In the North East, Mayor Kim McGuinness has announced £7.1 million for new and upgraded bus shelters and stops, including improved seating, clearer timetable information and new lighting at more than 170 locations.
Street layouts that replace underpasses with surface‑level crossings are also being adopted. Leicester filled in the Strasbourg Drive underpass and installed a street‑level crossing to support safer journeys to nearby schools and workplaces. Greater Manchester removed a large underpass on the Mancunian Way and replaced it with pedestrian crossings in 2020.
The forthcoming guidance will also reference international practice. Amsterdam is evaluating the design of places specifically at dusk and in darkness to understand how spaces feel for young women. In Vigo, Spain, request stops allow passengers to alight between official stops at night, reducing the final walking distance to homes.
Across transport, the Department for Transport has set out nine commitments under the cross‑government Violence Against Women and Girls strategy. These include improving CCTV connectivity at train stations, mandatory training for bus drivers to recognise and respond to VAWG and anti‑social behaviour, and a strategic package for roads policing. Delivery is underway alongside the new street design work.
Funding will be drawn from existing Active Travel England allocations. Councils can use part of ATE’s £626 million active travel pot to address identified issues-from lighting and sightlines to redesigning crossings and routes-where these support walking and wheeling by women and girls.
The immediate operational focus for authorities is to nominate officers for ATE’s spring training, audit current schemes and hotspot locations after dark, and plan engagement with women and girls to confirm priorities. General enquiries can be directed to Active Travel England at contact@activetravelengland.gov.uk.
The timetable is relevant for 2026/27 programme planning. With training commencing in the spring and formal guidance following later in 2026, councils preparing capital bids or reshaping local transport plans have a limited window to integrate safer‑streets measures consistent with the polling evidence and ministerial direction.