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A place to stop and talk to friends
Dumfries Street Design Programme saw the regeneration of Queen Street and surrounds improved with feedback from the local community
Local residents creating planters which will add greenery and slow down traffic through their street
Have you ever thought that your neighbourhood could be a better place to live, work, shop, go to school, socialise and play?
And how often have you thought that schemes which do come forward could be designed with the people who will be using them and benefiting from them?
Sometimes it feels like we can’t do much as individuals to influence where we live and work. That we can’t change our public streets and spaces in the ways that we’d like. But we can.
Communities up and down the country are daring to dream and think big about how their neighbourhoods can and should be improved. When it comes to liveable neighbourhoods, communities are leading the way and politicians are starting to realise this.
In London, funding is to be allocated for major community backed schemes to transform neighbourhoods. The Mayor and Transport for London (TfL) have recently announced a new multi-million pound funding programme to transform town centres and neighbourhoods into more attractive, accessible and people-friendly public spaces.
The new £85.9 million Liveable Neighbourhoods programme gives borough councils the opportunity to bid for funding for schemes that encourage walking, cycling and the use of public transport, in line with the Mayor’s Healthy Streets approach. This is a long-term funding programme and boroughs can submit bids at any time. Submissions for each financial year will close in October (20 October for 2017) with announcements of the successful bids made each December.
The recently elected Metro Mayors and other politicians may follow suit, or announce similar initiatives themselves. Interestingly, Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has recently followed London’s Sadiq Khan in appointing Chris Boardman to the role of Cycling and Walking Commissioner for Greater Manchester. The move has been coupled with a recent pledge to spend £17 a head on cycling in the city region, matching the figure proposed in London.
And following discussions with local authority leaders, the National Infrastructure Commission has tasked Andrew Gilligan, former Cycling Commissioner for London, to work with local councils and local organisations to create a vision of what is required for cycling to become a ‘super attractive’ mode of transport in Oxford, Milton Keynes and Cambridge.
Significantly, with the new Liveable Neighbourhoods programme, the London Mayor and Transport for London are looking for a wide range of community-supported projects, potentially including the creation of green spaces, new cycling infrastructure, redesigned junctions and the widening of walking routes to improve access to local shops, businesses and public transport.
Projects demonstrating a large amount of popular support are most likely to receive a grant. This is because getting community backing is the best way of capitalising on the wealth of local knowledge and expertise that exists in local groups; it encourages dialogue and collaboration and – crucially - achieves community buy-in for schemes early on, often with much better outcomes. The London Mayor and TfL know this.
So community schemes can help London boroughs attract this Liveable Neighbourhoods funding year on year. And they would support the Metro Mayors and other politicians and councils seeking to emulate London and improve our neighbourhoods in this way.
Change doesn’t have to be instigated solely by local authorities. Communities are promoting their own transformational neighbourhood schemes, too. It’s not as challenging as it sounds, because funding is available to help communities translate their ideas into schemes that have been properly designed and costed.
Community devised schemes can be materialised through the neighbourhood planning process.
Neighbourhood planning was introduced in 2012 under the Localism Act 2011 and updated by the Neighbourhood Planning Act 2017.
Communities can set out a shared vision for their neighbourhoods, devising their own policies and proposals rather than commenting on those of others. With well over 200 neighbourhood plans in force and many more in preparation - with more than 1,800 designated neighbourhood plan areas - they are already a well-established part of the English planning system.
Supported by an evidence base, a neighbourhood plan describes how a community wants to shape its local area, whether it’s placing the public realm at the heart of communities, proposing better streets and public spaces or improving local green space and connectivity.
It gives power to local people to come together and really influence how local areas develop. Other proposals can include:
And there are many other advantages to getting involved in neighbourhood planning:
The Holbeck community in Leeds has dared to be bold. A number of major schemes are identified in the recently submitted Holbeck Neighbourhood Plan (2017-2028), including a new pedestrian/cycle bridge over a railway and the creation of a greenway, using a disused Viaduct, to connect to the city centre.
These are ambitious proposals to bring about transformational change. Holbeck is a densely populated, inner-city area, encircled by motorways and railways, with industrial estates next to tightly-packed terraced streets. There are limited amenities and the local centre is not well used by pedestrians due to heavy traffic flows and narrow footways. Connections to the city centre and neighbouring areas are difficult.
Yet the Holbeck neighbourhood plan is focused on overcoming these barriers and making the area a more attractive and healthier place, with policies to link and improve local green space, reduce through traffic and improve the attractiveness, accessibility and safety of pedestrian links and cycle ways.
If you’re interested in changing your neighbourhood, why not find out whether a neighbourhood planning process has started in your area? You may be surprised. Check out map of neighbourhood planning areas online. If not, why not think about beginning the process?
There are lots of resources available to help and support communities including, for example, advice from the DCLG and the Forum for Neighbourhood Planning.
Sustrans specialises in community led design. We work with communities to create people-friendly places, helping to transform them into attractive, lively neighbourhoods that are safer and easier to travel through on foot and by bike, improving health, wellbeing and air quality.
Our Community Street Design with Lewisham borough council for Rolt Street, Deptford, has been nominated for the Healthy Street Proposal of the Year Award 2017. The scheme addresses fast-moving traffic, poor visibility and sight lines, park guard railings and a lack of safe crossing points. The community inspired design has reimagined Rolt Street as an extension of Folkestone Gardens – a local urban park – with a one-way traffic calmed boulevard to create a better place for people to walk, cycle, play and stay.
So if you want to start transforming your neighbourhood, get in touch with us!
The planning system helps decide what gets built, where and when – decisions that can make a big difference to our quality of life. Neighbourhood planning gives local communities the power to push for schemes that will deliver major improvements.
Proactive action can be taken at grass roots level: if the schemes suggested by your local authority aren’t good enough and don’t take account of issues that are important to you and your community, you can access funding to do something about it. And in London, community supported schemes have the potential to attract millions of pounds of funding through the Mayor’s Liveable Neighbourhoods programme.
So why not grasp this opportunity now?
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Brothers Reuben and Rhys look forward to going back to school by bike
Brothers Reuben and Rhys find cycling to school themselves an adventure
Recently I stopped by for a catch up with a couple of friends – Rhys & Reuben. Rhys is 9, and has a wise head on his shoulders. He’s a kid who is naturally curious about the world around him. Since he’s been old enough to say the word, he’s been unwavering in his ambition to become a palaeontologist.
Reuben is his younger brother, a proper live-wire full of energy and giggles, and willing to launch himself full-tilt into anything if it looks fun or adventurous. They’re coming to the end of two months of summer holidays, and starting to think about going back to school.
I asked the boys if they had learned anything over the summer. This was initially met with a flat ‘no’ from both. Learning is for school, and summer is for holiday, and switching your brain off. But then Rhys remembered that he’d learned how to swim the butterfly stroke over the summer. In fact, he’d taught himself at the pool on their family holiday.
This prompted a stream of recollections from both on the various skills they had acquired in the pool. Reuben had learned how to dive to the bottom of the pool and collect diving rings. Both boys learned to swim lengths, to pull off spectacular dives, and to swim underwater. And as well as learning new skills, they got to pass some on. Rhys and his older brother, Isaac, taught their mum to swim. Reuben, not to be outdone, taught her to blow bubbles and sing underwater. Key life skills to benefit the whole family.
I asked the boys how they were feeling about going back to school, after a summer with so much fun and adventure. At first, they didn’t seem keen on the idea. Rhys said that with school, you always have to be on time, be ready for your lessons, that you can’t just do what you want. The boys seem quite taken with the freedom that summer brings, and the ownership of their time. Something that definitely rings true for me as an adult.
But then they started talking about the good things about school – that you get to hang out with your friends all day, and you can learn all kinds of new and interesting things. They had some great ideas for making school more exciting, and a bit more like summer. Both boys loved the idea of doing more of their lessons outside. Why measure the circumference of a circle on a piece of paper, when you can measure the circumference of an actual tree? Rhys thought that more activity trips would be great fun, because they are such a good experience. Reuben thought that school would be greatly enhanced with built-in nap-time. Smart kid!
Rhys and Reuben both go to a local primary school in Belfast which is part of the Sustrans Active School Travel programme. They’ve been throwing themselves into the various active school travel challenges and activities throughout the year with bags of enthusiasm, and the journey to school has become something that they both really enjoy. Interestingly, when I asked them what they thought would motivate more people to walk, scoot or cycle to school, they put a big emphasis on whole class rewards. Rhys would rather win some extra play time for his whole class than an individual prize that only he can enjoy. That kind of attitude creates a wonderful opportunity for encouraging more children and families to be active on the school run.
Active school travel is a great way for kids to keep learning and reinforcing some of the great life lessons they’ve been picking up through the summer. The boys’ mum, Kelly, feels that the opportunity to cycle to school through the park on their own has been so important in helping her two older boys become more independent – especially oldest brother Isaac, who is off to secondary school this year.
It is teaching the boys to take responsibility for themselves and each other. She also feels that it gives the boys a chance to bond and develop their social relationships without their mum always being around. It’s just a short trip through the park to school, but it is building on all that fun and adventure that the boys have experienced throughout the summer holidays.
Rhys and Reuben have had a brilliant summer, but it’s great to see them greet the new school year with enthusiasm. What I picked up from them in our conversation is that they understand that learning is not restricted to the classroom, but there are learning opportunities all around them.
The fresh confidence they have built over the summer as they learned to swim underwater and dive is something they will keep developing through something as simple as a cycle to school. Confident, independent, equipped and responsible young people with a taste for adventure – whether it’s a day in the pool, or the journey to school, kids are keen for the opportunity to learn new life skills, if we give them the freedom and opportunity to try things out. And in return, they might even teach you to blow bubbles underwater.
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