hedgehog

Some may recall my mentioning that the government have signed up to a range of documents, such as the Copenhagen Declaration, committing to the removal of access to private transport and also to the removal of suburban housing in favour of high density housing (read blocks of high rise flats) which can be easily served by public transport. To date they haven't really revealed their hand in this respect but the following makes interesting reading. I think we can now prepare ourselves for Soviet style housing developments:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...265941,00.html

The cul-de-sac comes to a dead end
By Ben Webster

The Government hopes to foster better communities by using a design favoured by the Romans


THE cul-de-sac, a feature of almost every housing development built since the Second World War, has reached the end of the road.
Estate agents emphasise the benefits of living in a dead end with no passing traffic. But it is precisely the lack of passers-by that has prompted the Government to condemn cul-de-sacs in its guidance on street design.


It recommends instead a series of blocks arranged in a grid, a building pattern pioneered 2,000 years ago in Roman towns. The draft guidance, Manual for Streets, says that blocks are more conducive to walking and cycling, and make more efficient use of space.
It says that cul-de-sacs often cause people to make long detours to reach shops and schools, encouraging them to travel by car.
The guidance says: “A dead-end road system of loops and lollipops has been the dominant layout of suburban housing developments for the last 30 years. It could be argued that most housing developments of this type lack any sense of coherent urban structure.
“Many suffer from layouts that make orientation difficult, create leftover and ill-defined spaces, have too many blank walls and facades and are inconvenient for pedestrians, cyclists and buses.”
Andrew Cameron, technical director of WSP Group, the consultancy which helped to produce the manual, said that research in the US had found that people living in cul-de-sacs weighed, on average, 6lb more than those living in grid-type developments.
“The environment within which we live affects not just how we move about but our health as well. The Victorians were good at creating connected networks of streets, like in Clapham or Balham in South London. You get more street activity on these than on cul-de-sacs,” he said.
The Space Syntax Laboratory at University College London found in the 1990s that householders were 30 per cent more likely to be burgled if they lived in a cul-de-sac. Ben Hamilton-Baillie, a street design consultant, said: “People may like the apparent exclusivity of cul-de-sacs, but, like gated communities, they often lead to a sense of isolation.”
Richard Hebditch, policy co-ordinator at Living Streets, formerly the Pedestrians’ Association, said: “If you don’t happen to get on with the people who live on your cul-de-sac, it can be a nightmare. A grid pattern is better at linking homes to a wider community.”
Barratt Homes, one of Britain’s biggest residential developers, defended the cul-de-sac and said that it planned to continue building them.
A spokesman said: “A great many homebuyers like cul-de-sacs — and so do many planning authorities. As well as allowing houses to be arranged so that other houses in the close are visible, thereby improving security, they are not subject to through traffic and are, therefore, rightly perceived to be safer for pedestrians, especially little ones. Our experience is that cul-de-sacs also often help build a sense of neighbourliness and community.”
The guidance manual establishes what it describes as a “hierarchy of modes”, with pedestrians at the top, followed by cyclists then public transport users. Car users are at the bottom of the list.
It concludes: “This hierarchy should be adhered to in the design process — this may at times result in reduced vehicle capacity and increased vehicle delay so that other modes can be accommodated.”

Shark Man

Ever noticed that alot of new build houses don't have space for more than one car? Bit useless in this day and age of useless public transport if you ask me.

I either had it down as penny pinching builders racking and stacking houses to please their accountants, or maybe there is an underlying conspiracy? :Suspciou

_Meridian_

iTrader: (1)

I believe that planning permission is only granted if the housing proposed has a maximum of two car spaces/garages per house. I have heard this is government edict - but I cannot verify.


And IMHO cul-de-sacs are a pretentious middle-class abomination. But I don't like regular grid streets much more.


M

unclebuck

So your solution to urban housing layout design would be what?

Clarebabes

Blame John Prescott for the 1 car per household rule. Near us is Upton One. It is a new development of overpriced townhouses with postage stamp gardens. There are houses there with 4 bedrooms, a tiny kitchen and no dining room going for well over £300K - a mere snip if you live in London, but this is Northampton where the average wage is ****e and a four-bedroomed house with double garage in a nice area and fair size garden is £225-250K.

Where I live (5 miles from town), the bus service stops running at 6.15 every evening and doesn't even run on a Sunday. I use my bike to commute since parking in town costs £7 a day and my company decided I didn't deserve a space any more. I take my life in my hands every day as the roads are pot-holed and in great need or repair. I use the bus lanes as the cycle lanes stop and start in stupid places and are non-existant in places on my route.

When I used to commute by car, there was a section of road I used every morning which consisted of two lanes: a bus lane and a general lane. I only ever saw one bus using the bus lane and it was always an empty school bus on the way back from a school run!

A letter came home from my daughter's school the other day saying that older children's parents will no longer be able to park in the school grounds from September. The solution? We'd have to park in neighbouring streets and **** off the residents. Why can't schools organise a bus which collects children and therefore solving this problem and not upsetting neighbours? This would make it easier to use public transport as parents wouldn't have to use their cars to take the kids to school and use buses to get to work!

I have always said that politicians needs to get out of London and see the problems that people have in places where there is not a bus stop or tube station at the end of every road and then they might actually see how difficult it is when you take away personal transport. Using a car in Central London is madness, in Northampton, it is the only choice!

_Meridian_

iTrader: (1)

Interconnecting streets, just not on a boring old grid. There are more than two alternatives you know...


M

Leslie

This lot in power have extended the policies of their party in that they hate the personal freedom we get from owning a car.

Les