BRISTOL
The City of Bristol College, part of which is located in a complex of five massive blocks of former orphanage buildings dating from the 1870s, has decided to relocate about 60 per cent of its teaching accommodation to a new purpose-built campus in Bristol’s Harbourside.
The college authorities sought to finance this project by demolishing three of the former orphanage blocks and replacing them with a medium-density housing scheme. The designs were unveiled at a public meeting. The idea was to ‘fast track’ the project to obtain funding for the College. The local community’s reaction was hostile because
the proposals seemed alien to the locality in layout and appearance as well as being high density; and
it meant the loss of a landmark, both in physical and social terms, when demolished, and the ‘boarding up’ of windows and general dereliction prior to redevelopment.
PROCESSES
Taking an initiative
Following the hostility of the reaction, the College and their architects decided to rethink their approach and proposed instead an ‘urban village’, incorporating sustainable principles as far as possible. The urban village would consist not only of housing but a focus for the wider community in the form of a mixed-use centre.
The ‘Sustainable Settlements’ team was approached to advise on the plan for the project. It was decided that rather than design a detailed masterplan, a brief for developers would be compiled, based on sound principles of sustainable development and urban design and with the full and continuous involvement of any interested local residents. It was also hoped that the Local Planning Authority might become positively involved in the writing of the brief, but that proved difficult to arrange.
Working with stakeholders
A working group was established, consisting of the College Accommodation and Relocation Manager, the urban designer of the Sustainable Settlements team, backed up where necessary by other specialists in the team, a representative from the architects for the College for the initial stages, and interested residents who numbered from four to about ten at each meeting.
Others with interests in the project, such as the local planning and highway authorities, local councillors, the adjacent County Cricket Club, the Protest Group who wanted the preservation of the
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Figure 3.14
Typical 1–3 storey blocks of the nineteenth-century former orphanage
Figure 3.15
Map of the neighbourhood with the college buildings outlined with a bold line. The site
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The working group met fortnightly for 11⁄2years. The meetings were open to all with no formal committee structure. ‘Chatham House Rules’ forbidding disclosure of sensitive information outside the group were agreed. This meant that residents were privy to every stage of the negotiation process with planners and developers.
It is a tribute to the mutual trust that was built up between members of the working group that no approach was made to the local media regarding confidential information exchanged in the development process. Consequently, residents’ representatives were included in direct negotiations with prospective developers.
Understanding the locality
The first task of the group, at the suggestion of the Sustainable Settlements team, was to conduct an audit and appraisal of the locality, involving the local knowledge of residents. A picture emerged of its character, its potentials, local issues and networks of activities, local businesses and services. The possibilities of reopening and dismantling the railway halt within 500 m of the centre of the proposed neighbourhood was explored, as was the potential to rescue the buildings and the salvage of building materials from demolished outhouses, etc.
The planners’ response to local concern about the future of the college site was to recommend the listing of the buildings and the designation of a conservation area tightly drawn round the circumference of the college site.
Creating a neighbourhood plan
Most of the time was spent in developing an urban design framework which would form the basis of a development and design brief for the site. The brief was to become both a basis for the planners to negotiate with applicants and the basis for company developers to submit bids for developing the site on sustainable urban design principles. Briefly the framework proposed that
the listed buildings be converted
new buildings would form streets and blocks the streets would have built-in traffic calming
pedestrian routes would tie in with a local centre and bus stops; and
the green space would be ecologically managed.
Making it happen
Four shortlisted teams of architects and developers, complete with outline schemes based on the brief, gave presentations to a representative panel of the working group. It is interesting to note that the successful team not only produced the highest bid but most closely followed the spirit of the brief and had the most credible track record of working with communities and working with sustainable urban design principles. At the time of writing a final amended scheme, drawn up in consultation with the working group, is being assessed by the Local Planning Authority.
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Figure 3.16
Exhibition, at an interim stage of the planning and design process, reports on progress and invites local residents to ‘post’
their views on the exhibit boards This case study demonstrates that residents of a neighbourhood can make a positive contribution to neighbourhood planning if they are fully and continuously involved in the decision-making process.
Northampton
ENQUIRY BY DESIGN
This case study describes a specific planning exercise called Enquiry By Design, which was applied on an experimental basis to the proposed south-western extension of Northampton.
The objective of the technique is to consciously plan for an urban extension to a neighbouring settlement in a way that supports sustainability of both the existing and new development.
Working with stakeholders
The technique brings stakeholders and urban design professionals together for an intensive period of joint work outside the normal procedural context. Using a creative design-driven process they seek to find ‘win–win’ solutions for sustainable development. In Northampton the participants included the landowners (English Partnerships), the Borough Council, the planning department and representatives of major house-builders. Councillors and
community representatives attended the opening session and the final presentation. It was vitally important that
all the key players were involved and accepted the principle of development, though not necessarily its scale or nature attendance was by invitation and application, and the process was not seen as one long, open public meeting
the exercise was led by independent facilitators with a deep understanding of sustainable development and collaborative decision-making
skilled urban designers were involved in developing ideas and presenting schemes graphically during the workshop.
Understanding the locality
One of the potential advantages of the exercise is that the inherited assumptions and positions of stakeholders may be changed as a result of working together on the problems and aspirations in the context of a thorough neighbourhood appraisal.
It is essential that key parameters are understood before embarking on the exercise.
Creating a neighbourhood plan
The outcome of the process was a draft masterplan which changed the inherited plan in a number of ways:
Integration of the neighbouring hospital site with the English Partnerships land to achieve more coherent development.
Higher average densities and more developable land, so that
The exercise was carried out at a workshop organised by the Prince’s Foundation 19–23 July 1999. The workshop was led by the Australian-based consultancy Ecologically Sustainable Design. For further information see Prince’s Foundation 2000
SOURCE: IMAGES REPRODUCED FROM 'SUSTAINABLE URBAN EXTENSIONS: PLANNED THROUGH DESIGN' COURTESY OF THE PRINCE'S FOUNDATION, DETR AND CPRE A N E I G H B O U R H O O D P L A N N I N G P R O C E S S
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Figure 3.17
The by-the-rules plan, assuming a standard masterplanning process
Integrated, compact development with clear open-space strategy, rather than the previous rather fragmented pattern.
Mixed-use development with many more local jobs and facilities to encourage shorter trips and less car dependency.
Traditional street patterns replacing the previous pattern of segregated main roads and culs-de-sac.
Making it happen
One advantage of Enquiry By Design is that it can short-circuit years of convoluted negotiation and uncertainly. However, it cannot solve all the problems, and needs to be followed up by further appraisal and testing, which should be transparent and keep all participants involved. Follow-up roles and tasks need to be explicit before the workshop ends.
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Figure 3.18 The Enquiry By Design plan
people
community
chapter 4
4.1
PURPOSE AND SCOPEThe essence of sustainable development is providing for people’s needs, now and in the future. This chapter takes the people of the neighbourhood as the starting point. It gives guidance on the way to approach questions of new housing provision and social mix. It looks at ways in which local community networks are undermined or promoted. It examines the way decisions about land use and location affect the access people have to local jobs, shops, schools and open spaces. And it introduces the planning of local movement and the public realm.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES
The over-arching goals are health, equity and quality of life, now and for future generations. The ‘neighbourhood design principles’
set out at 2.6 are developed here from the viewpoint of providing for local need.
Stakeholder involvement
The surest way to understand different needs and aspirations is to ask the people involved. The obligation to try to understand and then take account of different interests rests with all stakeholders – public, private and voluntary sectors. Note that the principles of participation have been elaborated in Chapter 3.
Increased local autonomy
Neighbourhoods cannot be – and should not attempt to be – self-sufficient in work and services. But there is tremendous value in increasing the proportion of daily and weekly needs that can be satisfied locally. Surveys find that the availability or otherwise of local facilities is a key issue for residents. Where local facilities are available then people generally choose to use them, even in areas of high car ownership. Local use has benefits in terms of health, social inclusion, economic vitality and environmental sustainability;
but local provision will only work if the preconditions of quality, accessibility and viability are right.
Social stability and choice
In the face of increasing fear of violence, people are retreating behind locked doors. The goal of sustainable development is to create opportunities for social contact, social stability and
‘community’, which depends in part on shared local activities and life on the street. The object is to open up choice in every field:
choice of housing type and location, options locally for
CONTENTS
4.1 Purpose and scope
PEOPLE AND COMMUNITY 4.2 A balanced population 4.3 Developing social capital 4.4 Housing mix
4.5 Working for local housing needs ACCESS TO JOBS
4.6 Local work
4.7 Homeworking and the informal economy
ACCESS TO LOCAL FACILITIES 4.8 Catchment flexibility and
accessibility standards 4.9 Town centre vitality 4.10 Local shops and services 4.11 Schools
4.12 Supporting community health 4.13 Recreational open space
PLANNING FOR MOVEMENT 4.14 Basic principles
4.15 Planning for the pedestrian 4.16 Planning for the cyclist 4.17 Public transport operation 4.18 Planning road traffic
CASE STUDIES 4A Gorbals, Glasgow
4B St Augustines, King’s Lynn