Active Travel England (ATE) has announced plans for new local authority guidance on how to make streets safer for women and girls following a recent survey, which found 88% of women feel unsafe walking at night.

The guidance is due to be published alongside training sessions this spring and will outline how local authorities can design safer and more inclusive places.

Key issues to be addressed include the importance of street lighting and visibility, along with establishing walking routes that are ‘generally busy and overlooked by other people and CCTV'.

According to polling conducted by YouGov, nearly nine in 10 (88%) women have felt unsafe walking at night, with seven in 10 (71%) stating they have altered their journeys to avoid walking in the dark ‘during winter or darker months'.

Respondents raised concerns around inadequate lighting, poorly maintained routes and antisocial behaviour, with most respondents stating that they would feel safer walking in their neighbourhoods if these issues were addressed.

This new guidance is also expected to refer to international interventions from places such as Amsterdam, where they have proposed to evaluate the design of places at dusk and in darkness, and Vigo, Spain, where they have introduced night bus stop requests that allow women and girls to ask the driver to stop anywhere along the route, not just at official stops.

Local transport minister, Lilian Greenwood, said: ‘No one should worry about getting to their destination safely after dark, and these stats show just how much work there is to be done.

‘This programme is turning conversations into real change by working directly with the councils who design our streets to ensure women and girls in our communities feel safe to walk, wheel and cycle whenever they want to.'

National Active Travel Commissioner, Chris Boardman, commented: ‘That almost nine out of 10 women say they feel unsafe walking after dark is an appalling finding we should be ashamed of. For too long, we have designed streets that don't work for women and girls. We want to help councils remove the barriers that are stopping women and girls from choosing to walk and wheel – whether that's by providing better lighting, surface crossings over underpasses, CCTV or simply by listening to and acting on lived experiences.'

The Department for Transport outlined nine commitments in the cross-government Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) strategy to ‘drive change across the transport network'.

Included are improved CCTV connectivity at train stations, mandatory training for bus drivers on how to recognise and respond to VAWG, as well as anti-social behaviour and a new strategic VAWG package for Roads Policing.

Local authorities will be able to draw on their allocation from the £626m ATE provided to councils for financial years 2026/27 to 2029/30 to address street safety issues, including improvements that make walking safer and more appealing for women and girls.

Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls, Jess Phillips, added: ‘Women and girls deserve to feel safe simply going about their lives, whether that is walking down the street, travelling, or using public spaces after dark.

‘I welcome this work to design streets that make women feel safer, shifting responsibility away from women and onto the spaces and behaviours that put them at risk.'