Tim Gill

Tim is a global advocate for children’s outdoor play and mobility, and an independent scholar, writer and consultant. He is the author of ‘Urban Playground: How child-friendly planning and design can save cities’ (RIBA Publications) and ‘No Fear: Growing up in a risk-averse society’ (described in the New York Times as “a handbook for the movement for freer, riskier play”). 

Tim is a Design Council Ambassador. His consultancy clients include public bodies, NGOs, universities, and corporates in the UK and around the world. He has spoken to audiences in over 25 countries across five continents. A former director of the Children’s Play Council (now Play England), Tim went freelance in 2004. 

In 2017, Tim was awarded a travel grant from the Churchill Fellowship to study child-friendly urban planning in North America and Europe. He holds degrees in philosophy and psychology from Oxford and London Universities and an honorary doctorate in education from Edge Hill University. He is honorary patron of the UK Forest School Association. 

Tim writes for the mainstream media, trade and academic publications, and appears regularly on radio and television.