Festival of Place: "Bringing together the best of people to share ideas, play and leave feeling energised"

 

With the revised NPPF in the works, there was a lot of talk about reshaping policy to influence places for health and wellbeing.

 

In a session on healthy places, Michael Chang, Associate Town Planner (Healthy Planning Lead), NHS Property Services hit the audience with the stark reminder that professionals need to move beyond viewing planning as a land-use and housing delivery exercise, and to confront its role as a determinant of population health.

 

Rebecca Hall, Senior Development Manager, Lendlease who attended the session said: "It reinforced the importance of looking beyond the vertical build and considering the wider social, environmental and health outcomes our projects can influence."

 

Another talking point on the day was the need for inclusive and accessible places to ensure social impact is shared equitably. 

 

 

“Placemaking is not just about buildings, streets and masterplans. It is about who places are for, who gets heard, and how we turn good intentions into delivery,” says attendee Nick Riley, Managing Executive Director, Whittam Cox Architects.

 

Speaking on a panel about the NPPF with MHCLG Deputy Director of Planning Capacity and Capability, David Waterhouse, Rachel Fisher, chief executive of the RTPI said: "Good planning is necessary but not sufficient to create places that feel (and actually are) safe for children and young people. You need continued stewardship and curation of places."

 

Alice Ferguson, Co-founder of Playing Out who spoke on a panel about child-friendly policy, said: “We have the technical know-how to create streets that work for children and young people. What we need now is political urgency - the realisation that every day we allow the status quo to continue is actively causing harm.”

 

 

Children are a great unifier for establishing policy, said cycling legend, Chris Boardman CBE, in his morning keynote on active travel: "Parents in every community, across every demographic, across the political spectrum, want their children to be able to get to school safely."

 

Boardman also stressed the "cost of doing nothing" when trying to transform the built environment: "Here is what continues if we don’t act. Here are the children who don’t get to walk to school. Here is the town centre in five years’ time. Here is the health budget." 

 

Reflecting on this talk, attendee Ben Ferguson, AtkinsRéalis felt the power of communicating with partners and locals: "Using the right engagement tactics and choice words can make a huge difference with winning over even the most sceptical of critics.”

 

The importance of language also features in a discussion on feminist cities with Leslie Kern, author of Feminist City: Claiming Space in a Man-Made World, which has been translated into over 15 languages.

 

“So great to get to fangirl over Leslie Kern and Holly Bruce at the Feminist Cities talk," says Sophie Gwynne, Senior Placemaking Consultant, Fourfold Studio. "My favourite quote from Leslie Kern was ’and I suddenly thought — hang on, is this bus schedule sexist?’. It perfectly captures those small realisations we have every day that the rest of us are living in a world designed to meet the needs of only a small group of people"

 

"It was a privilege to hear — in person — an author who changed the way I look at and think about cities. But what stuck me most was Holly Bruce’s story. As a councillor in Glasgow, she advocated for feminist urbanism and got it written into the City Development Place, the policy that every single planning application in Glasgow is now assessed against. And with that, Glasgow became the UK’s first feminist city," says Camilla Schneider, Chevening Scholar and MA Candidate, IDS Sussex, on attending the session.

 

Kern also expressed her appreciation for the session, one of the most popular of the day, writing on LinkedIn, "Whenever Christine Murray invites me to Festival of Place, it’s an immediate yes, and this year more than ever because she brought me together with Holly Bruce and Sarah Shaw to help city builders see that it is possible to turn feminist city concepts into policy and placemaking practice. 

 

"Thank you to The Developer and Festival of Place for consistently giving a platform to ideas that push the convention of place making and encourage our cities to do better." 

 

 

Delving into another aspect of inclusivity, one of the workshops on the day explored designing for neurodiversity with Professor Nick Tyler, professor of civil engineering at University College London in a session sponsored by Vestre. 

 

“We explored how to understand neurodiversity in design and how to create spaces that reduce the cognitive load, produce predictable patterns, and provide spaces of refuge,” says attendee Inés Hart, Communities Officer at Wychavon District Council. 

 

Christopher Martin, co-founder of Urban Movement, one of several co-leaders of the neurodiversity workshop, said the session explored several key questions: “What does a neurodiverse street actually look like? How do we design public spaces that reduce overwhelm rather than create it? Can streets be calmer, clearer, more predictable, and still feel vibrant? Where should refuge, transition, and quiet sit within the public realm? And how much of today’s urban design unintentionally excludes people?”

 

Quantifying and qualifying social value was also a strong theme throughout the day. To build on Stride Treglown’s work to embed social impact measurement into each stage of a project lifecycle, the practice hosted a fishbowl to invite the audience to join the stage and share their own experiences.

 

The panel questioned the standard definition of social impact, pushing beyond metrics to share how long-term, meaningful value is generated, recognised and evidenced in practice. Session chair and journalist Harriet Saddington says, “There were some powerful examples shared of how a simple story or message can be the catalyst to connect and unlock things that metrics cannot."

 

Speaking on the panel, Sizi Sibanda, Social Value Manager, King’s Cross Group, shared how her team evaluates impact by looking at the tangible changes in people’s lives, careers and well-being over time.

 

Karyn Williams, Stride Treglown was happy with the results: "Best of all — no jargon, an honest space for reflection and listening and a mutual passion within the audience to work collaboratively in delivering more meaningful project impact."

 

 

Over on the Town Hall stage, in a session on designing for legacy, chair Wesley Ankrah, director of Social Value at Savills examined how thoughtful collaboration and early decision-making on land use can create truly resilient places that ensure long-term success for the community.

 

Attendee Shauna Blanchfield, a muralist and placemaking artist, says it was refreshing to hear about embedding partnerships and sustainability from project inception: "Great examples of how investing in local organisations and groups to be the future stewards of your developments [to] keep places alive long after the developers leave."

 

Further stressing the need for communication, a session hosted by Turley tackled the question: Are we truly brave enough to be place-led?

 

Reflecting on this challenge, Ellie Buchanan, Head of Regeneration, Newark and Sherwood District Council said that to be place-led you need to engage with the community: “It can be a struggle but I think it’s really important to remain consistent in your messaging. Make sure that the language used is understandable and tailored to them.”

 

Being place-led can mean letting the people in those places take control and shape the space slowly and on their own terms.

 

“You should provide people with the spaces before they are finished. They don’t have to be perfect. The more gritty and grimy they are, actually the better,” said Niamh Hession, Director of Design, Turley.

 

 

Also on the mainstage, Lucy Musgrave, Founding Director, Publica, talked about the changing nature of places and allowing the people who live there to evolve a place over time. The session featured a bonus Cartwheel for a Cure - supporting this national campaign, which aims to raise £200,000 to fund vital research into kinder, more effective treatments for Acute Myeloid Leukaemia.

 

Responding to Musgrave’s talk, attendee Blanchfield says: “Really interesting insights on how to centre children and young people’s experience, embed ability and diversity in policy decision, let people design their own space and the treat the city as a collaborative project."

 

The day opened with James Riddell, CEO of Quintain, who welcomed attendees to the wider Wembley Park site, ahead of the walking tours which Quintain hosted throughout the day as Festival of Place sponsors. 

 

Taking a more in-depth look at how to create a 365-day neighbourhood, Matt Slade, Retail Director, Quintain, shared that at Wembley Park, "Key to this has been the curation of our ground floor spaces to drive perception change and create a new community with partners that are destination ready and neighbourhood friendly."

 

 

Learnings, discussions and relationships lasted well beyond the close of sessions with many taking the opportunity to relax and reflect at the afterparty.

 

Murray thanked all attendees, speakers, leaders and more: “Your insights and expertise truly brought everyone together. We loved seeing so many inspiring conversations happen, and look forward to seeing the partnerships, collaborations and connections grow from here.”

 

“I loved hearing about your aspirations, strategies and shortcuts for creating places where people thrive.”

 

 

In her top takeaways, Rachel Bell, Director of Partnerships at Stride Treglown stressed that “Language and framing matter: How we communicate ideas to politicians, communities and professionals, is as important as the ideas themselves.”

 

"A truly inspiring day spent learning alongside colleagues, and a great reminder of the role we all play in shaping places that genuinely work for communities and the legacy we leave behind," says Rosie Edwards, social value officer at Notting Hill Genesis. 

 

"One thing that really stood out for me was the importance of spending actual time in the places we’re designing for - that means get out of your office!" says Carol Boyd, Central District Alliance BID.

 

"The level of energy and collaboration in the room made it difficult not to leave feeling both optimistic and re-energised about the role our sector plays," adds Rebecca Hall, Senior Development Manager, Lendlease.

 

"One of those days which you don’t want to end…... Inspiring, exciting, delicious food, uplifting people, interesting location and generally all round awesome," Bell added. 

 

The Festival of Place was proudly supported by Quintain, Savills, Stride Treglown, Vestre, Turley and Furnitubes.

 

Find out more All 8 sessions from Town Hall/Beatbox stage are available to watch back in our talks library. Tickets are on sale now for Festival of Place 2027 at the 2026 rate. Get yours now at this limited time offer. Join the conversation - Get in touch to connect with peers, share your festival takeaways and help shape the 2027 agenda.