Shaping a city-region that works for women

Posted on: 11 March 2025 by Catherine Durose and Catherine Queen in Blog

The Feminist City Network based at the University of Liverpool contributed to and chaired a panel on accelerating gender equality in Liverpool City Region at LCR Women Together’s International Women’s Day celebrations.

The Feminist City Network provides a space to share research and practice on how cities are be inclusive, safe and uplifting places for everyone, including women. The panel session used the idea of the ‘Feminist City’ as a frame to think about how Liverpool City Region now and in the future can be shaped by the diverse women that live, work and visit it.

The panel brought together members of the network – including us as co-convenors – along with key individuals from Liverpool City Region Combined Authority (LCRCA) to profile the work of the Combined Authority, share learning from elsewhere, and demonstrate the value of an approach that centres women’s experiences and expertise.

Gary Evans, LCRCA’s Director of Customer and Operations, opened the discussion by reflecting on the importance and limits of formal consultation in hearing women’s perspectives on the issues that matter to them about LCRCA’s work. Gary highlighted the need to continue to push further to ensure that women’s voices are heard and shared the work of the Combined Authority’s four equity panels, which are helping to ensure a sustained conversation with key interests – including women.

Dr. Catherine Queen, as a member of the Women’s Equity Panel, noted the quality of the conversation within the Panel, and its practical impact on the ground. For example, in ensuring that public facilities in the city-region are designed to better cater to the needs of women, highlighting a bus station redevelopment that will now provide seats for young children inside toilet cubicles.

LCRCA’s Senior Investment Manager, Business and Innovation, Dr Jo Leek, talked about how the broader context of devolution was helping to create conditions to advance women’s economic opportunities within the city-region. Dr. Leek noted the role that women’s leadership across key areas of innovation was playing in increasing opportunities for women in sectors where they have traditionally had less presence, and the tangible steps being taken by the Combined Authority to ensure fair employment practices across the city-region.

The conversation also touched on the work of the Combined Authority in addressing women’s concerns about safety in public spaces. Jeanette Townson, Customer Experience, Bus Franchising for LCRCA reflected on the need to listen to concerns, and to draw upon a mix of measures from ‘harder’ interventions within the built environment (such as lighting and CCTV), to broader regeneration, and ‘softer’ measures to address and disrupt inappropriate behaviour.

Dr Fei Chen from the Liverpool School of Architecture drew upon her work on liveable streets in China and high street regeneration in Liverpool, to highlight how we can draw from practice within the city-region and internationally to inspire change. 

The panel voiced the opportunity to reflect the values of Liverpool City Region by positioning it at the vanguard of policy and practice accelerating progress towards equality. In raising questions on matters from closing gender pay gap to creating women-only spaces and the role and responsibility than men must bear to address equality, the audience evidenced their enthusiasm for meeting the challenge.

To find out more about the Feminist City Network, visit our website, join our LinkedIn group or listen to our Original Ideas podcast.