Woman's Hour - Safe city design, Victoria Atkins, Do men and women garden differently?

Episode Date: March 16, 2021

After Sarah Everard’s murder, there are calls to make the streets safer for women. So, how can that be done? And how can town planning reduce the risk for women when they’re walking alone? Dr Ellie Cosgrave, a lecturer in Urban Innovation and Policy at UCL, describes her vision of safe cities designed with women in mind. Yesterday Boris Johnson's Criminal Justice Taskforce came up with a series of new measures to help protect women and girls, including better street lighting, CCTV and a new idea of sending undercover police officers into pubs and clubs. These are welcome measures to some, but for others this package misses the mark. There are also plans for a register to monitor serial domestic abuse and stalking perpetrators, and a push to make misogyny a hate crime. Does this add up to real change ? Emma speaks to Home Office Minister Victoria Atkins, whose brief covers domestic abuse, violence against women and sexual violence.As the weather warms and if you’re lucky enough to have a garden, it’s time to start thinking about the first mow of the season. A perfectly manicured lawn can be something of a status symbol and - as Monty Don recently put it in a recent Radio Times interview - a peculiarly male obsession rooted in a desire to control the environment. Pippa Greenwood from Radio 4’s Gardener’s Question Time and the lawn consultant David Hedges-Gower discuss lawns and whether or not men and women have a different approach to gardening.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning. What would it take? What would feeling safer on our streets mean for you? What would it look like? What would actually shift the dial? I asked because the Prime Minister hosted a meeting last night with Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, the Home Secretary Priti Patel and others to try and figure out how to help women and girls feel safer on our streets. More security cameras, better street

lighting, sending plainclothes police officers into clubs and pubs when they reopen. This is all in England, I should say, seems to be the upshot. We can discuss in more detail those plans with our Home Office Minister, Victoria Atkins, in just a moment. But what would do it for you? And what do you make of these measures? A lot of reaction, I can safely say already. Text us on 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate. Or on social media, where many of you have already been kind enough to get in touch and share your views your experiences at bbc women's hour or email us through our website i'll come

back to those messages many of them very powerful indeed in short order also on today's program we'll be discussing feminist town planning what that means and what it would look like with an expert in the area giving us examples from around the world where things even like benches have been thought about in a different way, how stairs and ramps play a part, underpasses, thinking about them in different ways. We're also today going to be catching up with one of our coronavirus diarists, Pauline, a year on from the Prime Minister first asking us to stop non-essential travel and contact with others. She's had quite the year, and I'm sure some of you will be able to relate to that. And gendered gardening, does it exist? What would you say it is or could be about men and lawns?

We'll come to all of that later in the programme. But there is no doubt that the murder of Sarah Everard and the outpouring of anger that has followed has shone a light on the issue of violence against women and girls. We should say that today the police officer charged with the kidnap and murder of Sarah Everard, PC Wayne Cousins, will appear at the Old Bailey. Yesterday, Boris Johnson's Criminal Justice Taskforce

came up with a series of new measures to help protect women and girls, including extra money for the Safer Streets Fund, better street lighting, CCTV, and a new idea of sending undercover police officers into pubs and clubs. Welcome measures to some. But for others, this package misses the mark.

Yesterday, the Lords backed plans for a register to monitor serial domestic abuse and stalking perpetrators, which we heard about on yesterday's programme. And there's also a push to make misogyny a hate crime. Does this add up to real change? I'm joined now by Home Office Minister Victoria Atkins. Her brief covers domestic abuse, violence against women and sexual violence. Good morning. Good morning. The Safest Streets Fund, if we start with that, just to look through some of these proposals,

as have been announced, it's been doubled from 20 million to 45. How quickly will this fund be made available for councils? Good morning and thank you so much for featuring this today because it's really important that we get the message out to women and girls that we're listening very, very carefully to their concerns about street safety. You'll know that on Friday, we reopened our survey, our public survey on tackling violence against women and girls. And those responses will help shape our longer term piece of work of tackling violence against women and girls strategy that will be published in the summer. And I'm amazed to say that we have had 84,000 responses since Friday evening. So this is clearly an important issue and people I'm so grateful are feeding their views. In terms of the announcements last night, I do want to make the point this isn't our only answer to tackling violence against women and girls. Please don't think that. What we've been trying to do,

both with reopening the survey, but also the meeting last night, some of these measures, these are very, very quick measures that we want to introduce to help to make people feel safe, as safe as possible. So in terms of the Safer Streets Fund,

we're just working through the details, but we very, very much want this to be happening quickly because we need... How quickly? Could you give us any timeframe for councils who are thinking, do you know what, I've got that tunnel, it needs a light, I've got a camera I need to put somewhere. How quickly do we think? Well, we are literally working on the details. The meeting finished at half past eight last night,

so we are working on the details. We will be contacting councils and PCCs very, very quickly with this fund, because we get the urgency. And this is but one measure that we're putting forward, as I say, much, much longer term pieces of work that I hope we'll be able to discuss both in terms of the tackling violence against girls strategy, but also importantly, our end to end review of the criminal justice system when it comes to rape convictions and rape prosecutions. We will get to all of that, but you do understand that our listeners would expect me to go through what has been announced and ask some questions

about that. So if I could just stick with that for a moment, because regarding cameras and what could be done there in the addition of them, if that's how the councils choose to use the funding. London, as an example, which is, of course, where Sarah Everard went missing, is the third most surveilled city already in the world. And Sarah Everard still went missing. How do even more cameras help? Well, again, this is a measure that has to be read in the context of all the other work that is going on in government. So we are recruiting 20,000 more police officers. We have already exceeded our target for this year. They are a critical part of our work to ensure that women feel safer on the streets. Only last

night, the Met Commissioner was in the meeting with the Prime Minister as well. And the impact of having those extra officers will have a benefit, both in terms of CCT surveillance, but also, of course, officers on the streets. And this is also, you know, we want this lighting and these CCTV and other security measures. We absolutely want this to be directed

towards those parts of towns and cities where women do not feel safe. So just to be clear, you are going to redeploy either new officers or the officers that already exist to look at these additional cameras because it's pointless, as one of our listeners pointed out, to put in extra cameras if you haven't got people monitoring the footage. Yeah, so CCTV, there are a number of ways in which local areas run their systems. So for some, it will be council run.

For others, there will be police, you know, will be a joint effort between councils and police officers. We will very much give local areas the flexibility to decide how they continue to do that. But certainly the presence of extra officers will help. And this is also the point about Project Vigilant in Thames Valley. We're wanting to roll that out because we know that it works. And as the nighttime economy will start up again, as these lockdowns are eased, we want to be preparing for that.

Because what we don't want is if places are opening up and so on. We want women to know that that planning is already happening now. But part of that planning, just if I can come in on this, part of that planning is with the nighttime economy reopening, is the idea of putting undercover police in pubs and clubs, plain clothed officers to try and see what's going on in those spaces. Have you thought this through? Yes, most definitely. And indeed, this is an internationally acclaimed policing project. And so the way in which Thames Valley do it,

I'm clearly not going to reveal operational details, but we are very, very confident that this project works and it makes a real difference on the streets around and about those parts where the nighttime economy is working. Because I'm just, again, going off our listeners, getting in touch with their questions. So, you know, they'll want to have confidence from what you're saying. One says, I wouldn't trust any man in a bar if he said he was a plain clothed police officer, no matter what badge he was carrying. Another one here, every predatory man in every club in England is going to be going, it's okay, love, I'm actually an undercover police

officer. Surely this is a dangerous response. What would you say to those two women who've got in touch? I'm really pleased I've been given the opportunity to explain how this happens. That's not how this project works. We do have a great deal of understanding and insight into how perpetrators work. These are officers who are there to see what is happening in pubs and clubs. The intelligence is shared with uniformed officers. And then if there are, for use of a better word, troublemakers or people that they are suspicious about, then the police, wider policing network moves in. So this is not about people walking up to other people saying, I'm an undercover officer, clearly, not least because that blows their undercover nature.

But some men could do that who are not that. Well, again, this is why having this discussion is so helpful, because we can get the message out that that is not what should be happening. Just as happens with the code word scheme that we started earlier in the year for domestic abuse survivors, it's about getting the message out to the people who need it about how the scheme works. This is about helping the police understand whether there are people wandering around with drinks and other substances who are perhaps looking to take advantage of people in pubs and bars, perhaps even spiking their drinks and so on. This is about making sure that there is a policing element there. Isn't one of the riskier things about what you're saying is that you think women trust the police. Let's get into that, shall we? Because what is your view that one of the Met's own police officers

has just been removed from duty, guarding the very site where Sarah Everard's body was found, for sharing offensive material on WhatsApp about Sarah Everard's kidnap and murder with his colleagues? That is absolutely disgraceful. I won't, I hope you appreciate, I will not comment on the wider case. Of course not.

But that is a specific case of one of the Met's own police officers. The papers today have it right now. So if I just make this point, the papers have it today that the Met are understood to have referred itself to the police watchdog seven times now about incidents, including this one that I just mentioned to you and our listeners, following the murder of Sarah Everard. You are a Home Office minister. What is going wrong?

So in relation to that WhatsApp allegation, and I only know what I've read in the newspapers. So, you know, that is an enormous caveat. I don't have any other information. But my understanding is that as soon as that message was circulated on whatever group it was, other officers said this is not acceptable and that is what led to the matter being referred to the IOPC. So I think if the allegation is accurate, then it is a disgraceful situation. But in fairness to the other officers, they seem on the newspaper reports to have reacted quickly.

And then the Met as a whole has reacted very quickly in terms of referring to the IOPC. And I think that's a very important point to stress. We have a lot of police officers who listen to this programme who've also been in touch to talk to us about, for instance, their disagreement with how the Met handled from other forces. The Met handled Saturday evening at Clapham Common. Perhaps we'll come to that in just a moment. But I bring it up because it is that particular WhatsApp message. If that allegation is true and we have no reason to doubt it in the sense of how it's been referred. And also it was fellow police officers that have referred the individual. Isn't it indicative of what some people, and I'll say women in this particular case, speaking on Women's Hour, fear that some parts of the police really think about women? Well, I think, you know, the police have got to explain those instances. I agree. I've said throughout the weekend that the police, of course, are operationally independent, referring to the matters on Saturday night.

But it's right that where there are upsetting incidents such as we saw on Saturday and indeed now with this WhatsApp allegation, it's right that the police explain what their actions have been, but also what their responses have been to it. And if I may, I really don't want us, please, to tar all officers with that example. You know, I've had the pleasure, as I've said before, of working with police officers throughout my career, both as a minister, but also in my previous career working in the criminal courts. And I've never seen this sort of behaviour. And I've met some truly, truly extraordinary individuals who keep us all very safe. And it's very important to keep that in context. But could I ask you in the context of what has happened here with this particular allegation and then those other incidences, do you understand why some people, especially perhaps some women right now, don't feel much like they do have faith in the police at this moment? And may I ask, as a Home Office Minister and as a woman, do you trust the police? I do trust the police. And the reason I was explaining about my previous career is precisely because I have seen them. You know, I've worked with officers, amazing officers, who have done some extraordinarily difficult work. If you think of what some of

our officers have to deal with, whether it's violence against women and girls, or whether things like child sexual abuse and exploitation, these are horrendous, horrendous matters that the police have to deal with. And they do so, the overwhelming majority of them do so with great professionalism and with great compassion and care. Of course, and I think it's just there's a hot spotlight right now and a lot of people feeling a lot of things

about what happened with Sarah Everard. And it's just in this particular instance alone, there has been seven referrals. We understand it. So that's why I had to ask you about that. If I could just move you on, because it's actually what you're saying there, I think, is also what a lot of our listeners are getting in touch with. Is that, as one person put it, Sally got in touch to say your announcement today is all icing and no cake. Why not call it for what it is, which is how to deal with these men and boys, not all men and boys, who are violent towards women. It's got to be more than this.

Culture, education, porn, making misogyny a hate crime. We need cake, not just icing. I've got two very straight questions for you. Our time is slightly running out. Are you, Victoria Atkins, going to support the idea of a national register to monitor violent men who are repeat offenders? Labour forced the amendment to the Domestic Violence Bill going through the Lords yesterday. Are you going to support it? There's a huge amount of work going on in the department, which is wider than that. So the system that you're looking at at the moment is very technical.

It's the MAPPA system, and it is a decade old. We have been working for some time on ensuring that that system is up to date and that it takes advantage of some of the digital and technical innovations that we have. And so what I want is an absolutely whole system approach to mapping dangerous people. We have some of that already in place. But I think what I'm very concerned about, this idea of separate registers, is that people will fall between the cracks. And so the work that we're looking at is a very much a whole system piece of work. It can't be dealt with, frankly, in an amendment to the DA Bill. And if anyone wants, and you know, I would very much... So there might be something different coming,

but you might not support it quite how it's phrased in that bill. I think, you know, we've got to make sure that these systems work. So you don't think the amendment as it is, is fit, you're going to be working on something else? We are going to be listening to the debate and looking at that very, very carefully. So I don't want anyone to think that, you know, we're hiding away from this. We're absolutely not. But what I would like to reassure people is that we have been working on this for some time and I very much want us to have a system

where people, you know, if we have separate registers, if someone appears on one register because, I don't know, they're suspected of stalking behaviour, I want that person to be recognised across the system as being someone who is dangerous. And whilst they may have been caught for their stalking behaviour, do we know what they're doing in their own home in terms of domestic abuse? You want one big system we need to look at. OK, so one bigger register to take all of that in is a potential solution here. We're looking at the... We already have measures in place.

And again, I don't want people to think that this is somehow new. No, I know. It's just I'm trying to understand where it's going to end up because you talked about doing things quickly and I wondered where this was going to end up. Yeah, so we are looking very much at the management of offenders and have been for some time. It is very, very complex. No, no, we know all of that.

We do that here every day on Women's Hour. Are you going to add or create a new register? I don't think so. As I've said, I think pretty clearly, my worry about creating separate registers is it silos offenders. Sorry, so I know what your worry is. So what's the solution? If a domestic abuser is in fact also stalking someone, I want them to be caught by the entire system, not by some siloed register. I understand the concern. Sorry. So just in a sentence, are you going to enlarge the register that exists or create a new one that takes in? I actually don't understand what the

answer is. Okay. Well, as I say, we are at the moment working through this programme of work. I think the best answer I can give you at this moment is that we are working through this. I don't believe that separate registers are the answer. We've discussed this at great length in the Commons during the Bill. I think it's at great length in the Commons during the bill. I think it's much better that we take this very holistic approach. I understand what you don't think is the answer. I just don't understand what is the answer. Is it just that you don't have it yet, which is fine,

and we hope you come back and tell us more. Yeah, I look forward to that when that system is in place. But as I say, this... Okay, so I have to leave it there purely for our time this morning. I'm so sorry, but thank you very much for your time today. I hope we do get to talk about that in more detail. And as you say, the broader piece of work. And we appreciate you coming on this morning. Home Office Minister Victoria Atkins there.

Thank you. Many of your thoughts, I hope, reflected there. I'll come back to your messages. After Sarah Everard's murder, there are calls to make the streets, whole cities, towns, villages safer for women. But how? For instance, yesterday it was reported that Bristol is set to become the biggest city in the country to ban lap dancing clubs. The council leader says the move could help tackle sexist abuse, casual street harassment and violence against women.

What about in your town? Are the streets that you wouldn't walk down areas that you're scared of? Dr Ellie Cosgrove is a lecturer in urban innovation and policy at the University College London. Good morning. Good morning. Your reaction first, the additional 25 million for better lighting

and CCTV that we've heard about from the Prime Minister last night. I, of course, welcome any funds that are going to go into making cities safer for women. I'm quite concerned about CCTV as a solution. We know that crimes, harassment in public space is not actually illegal, that it goes under-reported and unprosecuted.

So I don't see the link between CCTVs and making women safer. I'd much rather do a community consultation, community action, community empowerment. Women in cities understand and know very well where they feel safe and where they do not feel safe. So let us listen to women. There are all sorts of women's safety auditing methodologies. Fund them to be done. We can look at our streets and towns, listen to what they have to say, elevate their voices and take action based on that,

not on. Yes. I mean, so that's your reaction to that. I mean, could you give us some specific examples? I was talking about benches before when I was thinking about our conversation where,

where things have changed. Because we should also say at this point about men being also attacked, not for the point of evening it out for the sake of it it but we do know men are also attacked in dark alleyways and everybody would benefit wouldn't they if this the towns were designed with safety in mind for all yeah absolutely this is something that um that creating high quality public realm signals to all of us that a space is cared for, watched over, maintained, and therefore that we are cared for as people. And so it's really important that we do that. And there are things that we know that already that work and things that don't work. Things that work, understanding where to put benches, as you mentioned, in public spaces.

When we put benches in high trafficked areas, that's, of course, really important for accessibility, for elderly people, for all sorts of people who need to sit down and rest. However, that often means that the people who feel safe to congregate in public spaces, which generally globally is men, women are not necessarily socialized to believe that a city is a space that they can stop and rest. It means that we often get congregations of men hanging out in public spaces, which then create intimidation factors for women passing by and walking in the street. However, if we have benches in green spaces um and other kind of spaces that are designed for rest then um they are they tend to be much more used by women as well as men so that's that's how you could think about that differently are there other examples that you

think for kind of different town planning that maybe haven't been considered? Well, yeah, there are all sorts of ways. If anyone wants to nerd out, I'd go to look at the case of Vienna. Vienna has been working for over 20 years in gender mainstreaming in their city. And what they've looked at is, one example is the use of public parks. So they did a study, and I recommend that we use data analysis to understand men's and women's use of public spaces. But they did a study looking at how boys and girls use the parks differently across the ages. So they found that when they were under eight years old, boys and girls used the parks at a similar rate. After age eight, it tended to be that the girls start to disappear from the parks and it's predominantly the boys and men. This is because the activities that are being undertaken in the park were things like football. And when you have pure open spaces, it means that the space has to be socially negotiated

between the boys and girls or men and women. What they did was to create different areas of the parks designated for different types of activities. So there would be sports activities within designated areas and spaces that were set up for that. We hope that men and women will use those spaces equally, of course. But when you separate those types of activity, it means that women can use or people who aren't using the parks for sports activities are able to gain access. And when they made those changes changes you start to have equal use and access to

the parks that's so fascinating that that how children use parks differently could change how you plan and make things feel safer well it's it's it's the fact that somebody or people the local authority took the time to understand the social dynamics of the public space and do the surveys, do the data collection, speak to people about what would work for them and implement it. And this is why I'm really glad that lighting has been considered as an action to take. But you can't just shove a light in and hope that the public space will be better. Lighting is actually an incredibly complex dynamic within a city. If you overlight a space, actually that can provide a lot of distress to people who are

getting lamps shined into their homes. But also if you overlight some areas of the city, other areas of the city feel much darker and therefore less safe. So you can't just put a light in and expect that the change will happen. You have to have a cohesive urban lighting strategy. And that's not just shining lights. relations or art that shows that the space is a place of social and cultural interest that makes you feel safe and seen, not just a kind of white LED light that kind of can sometimes feel very clinical or, you know, not very community oriented. So there's all sorts of things that we can and should be doing. I was just looking, we had a message quite early on uh from somebody got in touch david actually said street lighting only

deepens the shadows you know and and that can mean on several levels i'm sure but but the idea of course of one area being known as a lit area therefore other areas also becoming known as darker areas as you're you're talking about there and you know the there's also the example given over the weekend, I was reading in the papers of the claustrophobic design of the old Hungerford Bridge walkway across the Thames, where Timothy Baxter, a 24-year-old law student, was murdered in 1999. He was beaten and thrown into the river. But the Golden Jubilee bridges that replaced it in 2002, by contrast, open, well lit, a direct example of something being swapped out.

Absolutely. I remember walking across that Hungerford Bridge as a child and I remember the fear and very much welcome that. Also, what's really important about the Hungerford Bridge is you can access it by lift, which means that it's actually an accessible bridge. So there are, and we see the way that that whole region around the South Bank in London has been regenerated partly as a product of good infrastructure. A lot of people also getting in touch to say it's not just about big cities, where you live, whether it's a town, a market town, a village,

actually because they're often quieter places, perhaps more thought there as well. Yeah, I mean, there are different issues in different types of urban and public realm. I think the difference in the bigger cities is that often you don't, people don't have access to private vehicles as much as they would have in smaller places which means that your kind of retreat to a safe private space that might be in a in a car where you can reach safety is much more precarious in some bigger cities so it's important that we understand the different dynamics at play of course however if it's a some some villages maybe which are less populated, means that you don't get so much of the natural surveillance of having kind of people, the feeling that you can see what's going on and will be seen if anything happens to you.

In terms of this announcement around Bristol, Bristol is set to become the biggest city in the country to ban lap dancing clubs. The council leader has said the move will help tackle sexist abuse, casual street harassment, violence against women. There's some extra elements around that about culpability of the council, not wishing to be basically sued over things that go on in the city and what a lap dancing club has been shown to do, all those sorts of premises, what they can lead to more on the streets.

What do you make, though, of something like that? Because that's speaking also to the decisions of what does go into a city and what doesn't. This is a tricky one because, of course, we have to understand sexual violence and predatory behaviour on a spectrum. I often have issues when we clamp down on sex workers um uh who are precariously employed women um as a solution to women's safety um i think of course we

this is super complex and and how much we can link um legal um access to sexual content and illegal sexual violence is something that we need kind of more nuanced debates, I think, around for policy. Well, the proposals with regard to Bristol, just to put a bit more detail on this, say, allowing adult entertainment venues increases the risk of the council being sued for failing to eliminate harassment and discrimination.

So, you know, just to say there, as opposed to perhaps what some people may have, you know, read that as, and also we should say lap dancers and not sex workers. But I take your bigger point about how much you can link those two things. But I suppose that brings us to the way, to how seriously councils are taking all of these sorts of suggestions. What is your view of that as someone who lectures in urban innovation and policy? You say, let's look at the data. Is this work being done across the UK? I think not nearly enough. I think we do obviously have to understand the ways in which the pressures that have been put on local authorities.

There is a huge lack of kind of power for action. But in terms of the levels of funding for this type of work. However, there is so much more that we can do if we genuinely engage with communities, ask women what they want and act on that information. And I suppose there's still the overriding view, I'll come to some of our messages now, that even if we had the best streets in the world and the best planning, you know, there'd still be danger, there'd still be shortcuts, because this, of course, comes down to behaviour and to threats and all sorts of things that even the best town planning, street planning can't eliminate. Exactly. I would say that, of course, you can't design or plan your way out of male violence against women. But when you create urban environments that make men feel or enable men to feel safe perpetrating violence against women, we have a problem.

Or, of course, men perpetrating violence against men as well, with that data that we also know. Dr. Ellie Cosgrove, thank you very much for talking to us, lecturer in urban innovation and policy at University College London. So many messages in this morning about what would make you feel safer, what would shift the dial. A message here, cameras are useless if no one's looking at them. Lots of violence and vandalism takes place right under multiple cameras. Victims often need to be dead for any action. Another message here, it's great to hear and see about better street lighting, but let's not forget that we've had cuts to this from the government.

Not sure lone men in nightclubs assuming fake identities, pretending to be someone else's undercover cops, is going to increase confidence and trust in women. Another message here, women are not sexually assaulted by streetlights. The issue is male behaviour. Are you going to say it? Well, we just have through your message, Marjorie. What steps are taken to improve male behaviour?

Another message here with regards to the government measures. Kat says, I feel it's clear that they haven't talked to women's groups. It could have given them some actual useful advice. What about us and those of us, says Oxford Girl on Twitter, who want to go about our daily lives in safety? There are isolated parts of my lovely village where I can't walk on my own in daylight. Rapists do criminalise. When did I last see a policeman? How does that help me? Of course, the whole discussion around rape conviction rates is a very live one. One we'll continue to have here on Women's Hour. These measures might help, but we really need to tackle the issue at its very root.

The way that some men view women, it's misogyny that's the problem, not street lighting. Keep your messages coming in. So many today. Thank you for that at BBC Women's Hour on social media. And in terms of whatever you want to say on text, also you need, the number is 84844. Now over the last year and a year that it has been, at least 3 million people have taken up gardening for the very first time as a way to get through lockdown and to try and enjoy their outdoor space more.

Of course, if you're lucky enough to have some. And if you are lucky enough to have a garden, now it's time to start thinking about the first mow of the season. But if you listen to Monty Don of Gardener's World, you should think again. For the sake of wildlife, the environment, he thinks we should forget about aiming for a manicured lawn. He also says that it tends to be men who are preoccupied

with achieving lawn perfection, and it's about controlling, not embracing nature. Quite a statement. Let's test it with the lawn consultant and excellently named David Hedges-Gower and Pippa Greenwood from Radio 4's Gardener's Question Time. Pippa, I'm actually going to start with you, if I can. Let's just talk about the wildlife aspect. Are you with Monty Don on this one?

He says cutting grass is about the single most injurious thing you can do to wildlife that's absolutely crazy and i just don't know where to you know even how to interpret what he said there because um anything you do in a garden pretty well unless it's i suppose a constant bonfire or a total annihilation of everything with pesticides has got to be environmentally more friendly or less offensive than just about any other pastime you could have. I mean, say you went and played golf. Look at the grass there. That really is very, very expertly cultivated.

But onto that goes, on the whole, a lot of chemicals. But when you look at gardening compared with other pastimes, whether you were doing, I don't know, four-wheel driving or going to the cinema or anything, gardening is out there. It's got plants. It's got wildlife. It's so much less intrusive. And I just think it's such a silly thing to say. I can't get my head around it.

We're happy that you're here to help us navigate this and have you noticed just with with regard to the other part of what he was saying that this is more men's preoccupation with the questions that you get in on gardener's question time is it more that men do get in touch about the lawn and how to control it is that part of what he's saying got a semblance of truth? It's very interesting. People have always talked about a gender divide or gender sway in gardening. And I would say it's changing without any doubt,

but there's also no doubt that it's still there. And I do all sorts of things in my gardening-related life, including GQT, and there is no doubt that on the whole, questions to do with lawns and lawn maintenance do tend to come from the guys. And I hate to say it, I don't know what David's going to say to this, but the majority of people I know that are interested in their lawns tend to be blokes. Most women are more inclined to see them, I would say, as a green backdrop, a foil for the planting often perhaps

with a bit more interest in wildlife but not necessarily but definitely the maintenance and the sort of mowing and the kind of the machinery tangled neat edges tends to be more of a male thing and perhaps i don't know if the machinery plays a role in that david we've got to get you in on this hi good morning good morning do you i actually agree with pepper i've been there to a point yes men are obsessed a little bit with laws i also find in in my business that a lot of females are obsessed with their laws as well but obsession is not not really the the worst thing the obsession i find with uh females is their obsession with sustainability and that's a big thing now now there's absolutely nothing wrong with that you

know we've got um products out there now i mean i i'm just actually launching a feed that's derived from food waste a fertilizer for your lawn it's a great way of actually growing your plant so yes females are really really into keeping the lawn as nature intended men tend to they certainly can be a little bit nuclear i think you know the first bill you know let's go in with a herbicide get rid of the weeds well i i don't think that's necessary in modern day lawns anyway um i think it's, you know, you can have a stripe with lawns in it if that's really what you want. But, you know, it depends on your obsession, I would say.

And in terms of the other side of what he was saying, what Monty Don was saying about the lawn, I mean, what do you make of that? Because Pippa, it couldn't have sounded more shocked and at odds. Which part, sorry? The idea that you shouldn't be controlling it

and it's terrible for wildlife and let it go. Well, I mean, there's a huge amount of wildlife going on below your lawn. Again, it just depends on whether you're prepared to take a nuclear action of using herbicides and pesticides, which, to be fair, you only really use if you're badly sort of educated in lawn care. You know, the first form of weed control, going to the middle of Dartmoor, you know, you'll see an amazing bit of countryside. There won't be any herbicide used there, but you

won't find weeds there either, because they're actually, you've almost got perfect lawns all across our countryside. You know, perfect lawns are thick, dense, growing on their own with the right sort of species of plant. So that's the first form of weed control. So if you want to take a nuclear action and be obsessed with your lawn, that, yes, I mustn't have a weed and I mustn't have anything out of place, I think it's bad education at the end of the day. And there is a lot of bad education on lawn care.

But the obsession, as you put it lot of bad education on law but the the obsession as you put it of women with sustainability presumably you see that as as a good thing in the midst of oh undoubtedly i mean i i've launched a lawn association and it's based on sustainable lawn care you know you've got food waste fertilizers you've got battery-powered lawnmowers you shouldn't need to irrigate or water a lawn. We've got, as you remember, back in 2018, we've got a country that shut down. The grass shut down, it went brown, and it has an amazing adaption. As soon as a bit of rain comes back, the plant starts to grow again. We don't need to irrigate, but equally, if it's self-sustaining water sources, why not?

But I don't believe you should necessarily. Pippa, do you think that when you say the trends perhaps around gendered gardening or what's the difference between what men like to do and women like to do, you say it's closing. What are the other ones that still perhaps persist or you notice? Yeah, I would say veg growing is another classic. People would say that on the whole, it's men that grow the veg and maybe the fruit and women that grow the flowers. And I think if you turn back the clock a good few decades, that was probably the case. But

increasingly again, that's not definitely not the case. And I think as allotments have opened up more and more and also become areas, if you peek over the fence at think as allotments have opened up more and more and also become areas if you peek over the fence at your local allotments if you're lucky enough to have one you'll see that they're not just a whole bunch of and excuse me old codgers with cloth caps they're absolutely riddled with women men kids it's it's wonderful how things have changed. And I mean, I do a thing on my website all about veg growing. And it's incredible. I have, and I actually counted it up before coming on to make sure I had my facts right.

I have almost exactly, and my math is not brilliant, but it's good enough for this. Two thirds of the people that do my veg growing activity are women. There you go. And one third is men. Now you might say that's because women see they need women. There you go. And one third is men. Now you might say that's because women see they need help. There you go.

No, I need to go and do this. I need to look this up. I'll have to enrol you then. Yes. Oh my gosh, you don't know how awful I can be. But I aim to get better. But that is interesting, that whole stereotype of men go down

to the allotment for a break, grow the veg and come home and the women kind of cook it has been changing david i did not know about this again i'm not natural in this area i hope to grow into it but apparently there are competitive lawn competitions is that right and then are men and women equally involved uh probably not i think that again that's the the obsession to to win one you've you've probably got to be doing too many hours in my view and

you're trying to maintain it probably to a standard that that is a bit too obsessive in my opinion you know a healthy lawn can be you know looked after with a you know an hour a month side of things so i i think yes there are competitions uh they're not as big as i think we have one called brit's Best Lawn, but I'd probably maintain some of Britain's Best Lawn, but I've never entered one, not one of these competitions. So I think it's just those people. Well, leave it at that. Yeah, you need to be healthy with this. David Hedges-Gower, Pippa Greenwood, thank you very much for educating us there on a bit of gendered gardening or what's

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