Options for consideration |
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HOME ZONE
PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
Options for
consideration
The options here have been set out to help identify the most popular
and appropriate combination of measures to improve Holmewood
Neighbourhood. There follows a summary
of valuable information to assist you in creating a fully supported vision for
Holmewood neighbourhood.
To
aid communication, please refer to the differing areas as follows whilst
considering the main topics :
(1) STREETS
• Maplestead Road
1(MR1)
• Holmewood Gardens
1(HG1)
• Holmewood Gardens
2(HG2)
• Holmewood Gardens
3(HG3)
• Holmewood Road
1(HR1)
• Holmewood Road
2(HR2)
• Cotherstone Road
1(CR1)
(2) GREEN :
• Dog Area
• Link Area
• Informal ball
pitch
• Playground
Please
let us have your views on the following possible future ‘HOLMEWOOD HOME ZONE
TOPICS’?
Do
you have any specific locations in mind (Please describe where or indicate on
drawings)?
1. ENVIRONMENTAL IMPROVEMENTS
MVA survey reveals over 50 % of general satisfaction with the
environment, intimate scale and character.
The design of any new features will aim to enhance the character or
appearance of the area, including such things as tree planting, landscaping,
and street furnishing schemes, including floodlighting of buildings where
appropriate; and the reduction of the ill effects of traffic and parked
vehicles. The environment is to be
visually coherent and interesting, human in scale and responsive to the needs of
local people. This includes the pedestrian environment, including street
furniture.
1.1 Street/park comforts
• If further street
furniture is required, which type and location do you identify as most
suitable?
The Questionnaire
revealed particular wishes for :
• More benches to
be located
• Drinking fountain
to be located
• Pond with solar
fountain and frogs
1.2 Greenery
The MVA questionnaire survey revealed the following
:
• Residents (66%) satisfied with presence of
greenery
• Residents (26%) suggest more trees and shrubbery
• Residents (10%) suggest improved maintenance
of park facility
Residents have particular wishes for :
• More flowers,
shrubs and trees to be located at narrow ends, at Brixton Hill entry (gateway)
treatment and at other locations
• Wild garden on
the green
• If further
greenery is required, which type and location (on street and in the Green) do
you identify as most suitable?
1.3 Dogs
• If the dog area
is to be changed, which items/actions would you like to add/take and
where/when?
• A resident
suggested a path through the dog area. Would
you like a linear path or loop, possibly connecting the seats?
• Do dog owners
make enough use of the dog bins provided?
• Another resident
called for more shrubs and bushes?
1.4 Lighting
The
provision of street lighting in home zones on columns 3.5 m high at an average
spacing of 25 m has been found to adequately satisfy this requirement.
(Source : The Royal Dutch Touring Club)
• If further
lighting is required, which type and locations do you identify as most
suitable?
The MVA survey reveals street lighting is a problem area, esp. for
safety reasons. Residents (18%) suggest better lighting in street
and on green is regarded as the fourth most important improvement.
1.5 Street cleaning and rubbish clearance
The MVA questionnaire survey reveals 69 % of residents are satisfied with rubbish clearance. On the other hand, one of the three worst 3
things about the environment is identified as being rubbish by 19% of residents. More bins and street cleaning is third (19%) on the list of most popular environmental improvements.
• If further bins
are required, which areas would you identify as most suitable?
2. HOLMEWOOD’S CHILDREN
2.1 Children’s play
The MVA survey indicates that children most favourite improvement
is a better play area. This was voted by 8
% of the residents. The play area
on the green is the most popular place for children to play, and most requested
are improvements to be made to this. The Planet Earth workshops with children
also revealed that next to the playground, the earth mound and an area called
‘Jungle’ (to the SW corner of the Green) are most popular.
‘Parking
areas can be designed such that they can be used as play areas during the day,
for instance, through the careful use of planting.’ (Source : The Royal
Dutch Touring Club)
2.2 Safer routes to school
The following questions are also geared towards the local school’s
management, esp. Christchurch school :
• Is information
provided to the schools on the effects of school
gate parking and congestion, pollution levels in the school environment and
parental or community responses?
• Would you like to
reduce the ill effects of traffic fumes on children?
• Do the local
schools provide in-school facilities for pedestrians and cyclists (e.g. secure
storage facilities for bicycles, bags and protective clothing)?
• Are sufficient
traffic calming measures provided?
• What do think
about limited speed zones in the schools’
vicinity?
• Are adequate
dedicated school buses or children’s bus passes
provided?
• Are parents
involved with children going to local schools?
• What do you think
should be done to cut car use for school journeys and for other journeys?
• Would footpath
widenings and a speed table at the busy T-junction near Christchurch school be
acceptable to improve visibility for crossing pedestrians by preventing
obstructive, indiscriminate parking at the junction (envisaged cost £5500.oo-6500.00)?
• In case illegal
parking on mandatory zig zag is likely to occur or is occurring, what would you
think about introducing a plug’ No Entry’ at the secondary T-junction; or at
the new pinch point, thus allowing a turning point at the school entry itself,
if agreeable.
• What about
encouraging drivers to ‘park and walk’ : ie, park away from the school gate and
walk their children the rest of the way? Or just providing a drop off point and
closing Cotherstone Road from the secondary T-junction onwards? Are there any locations, esp. near Christchurch
School/Church where you think a drop-off point may be appropriate?
• What about
footprints to guide the children along the preferred safe walking routes?
• Is there a
sharing scheme for school commuters?
• What do you think
of the idea of children designing a sign board at road entries treatments? This has successfully been implemented at
other schemes.
• Some children
thought traffic calming and pedestrian/zebra crossings are a good idea? What do
you think?
Part of the outcome of the Planet Earth School’s Programme
indicated most children are taken to school by cars. This may be due to a lack of safe walking routes to local
schools. The most popular routes were
indicated on plans. There was some concern regarding undesirable consumption of
alcohol/ and or other drugs on the seats provided in the link area. It appears that a number of children and/ or
adults feel unsafe passing through the link through the park due to the
proximity of some drug-abusing people using the seats. Would you prefer to have these seats
repositioned elsewhere as a way of avoiding future conflict?
3. COMMUNITY
Public meetings are identified
as a suitable forum for identifying the interests of residents (Source :
The Royal Dutch Touring Club).
The MVA survey questionnaire explains overall residents are happy
with community aspects of the Holmewood Neighbourhood. Prostitution is one of the main 3 problems
in the area. 71% of resident respondents feel safe in the area. At night 43% said they feel safe and 39%
feel unsafe.
‘The local
crime prevention officer, fire and ambulance services should always be given
the opportunity to contribute to the assessments. Residents views will be of special importance when determining
priorities for action. Proposed
solutions should be presented pictorially to give a realistic impression of the
intended additions and alterations.’ (Source : D.O.T.)
‘The more
people there are, walking and cycling, sitting and playing, the less there will
be a problem with crime. Home zones
make sense from many angles : traffic safety, community safety and personal
safety.’ (Source : Martin Hemenway of the North Yorkshire Police)
• Is there anyone
interested in organising a reclaim the streets party/ car free day, for example
on the ‘have your say day’?
• What measures
would you identify as appropriate in dealing with prostitution in the
neighbourhood?
4. HOME ZONE
MVA questionnaire results state that over a third of residents
said a reduction in traffic and speed of traffic would be an advantage of the
home zone. Other positive attributes
were a safer environment and better sense of community. Fewer disadvantages were suggested although
more than a quarter (26%) feared
parking spaces may be lost.
(See also 1. ENVIRONMENTAL IMPROVEMENTS above and 5. TRAFFIC
below.)
5. TRAFFIC
The MVA survey explains speeding cars are found to be one of the
worst 3 characteristics of the area. It also states residents general
dissatisfaction with crossing roads the amount of traffic and through
traffic. Traffic calming reached the
highest score in terms of improvements to the neighbourhood.
20 Mph
traffic calmed zones don’t increase levels of street activity, but lower speeds
(10mph) in home zones may do.
The
provision of adequate physical measures will reduce speeds close to 20 mph and
is likely to reduce the incidence and severity of accidents. To significantly change the function of a
street, more stringent measures, such as a road closure or changing the nature
of the road to reduce speeds to 10 mph or less, are needed. Home zones may be more appropriate to change
the function of a street
(Source : Urban street activity in 20 mph zones : emerging
findings. Hodgkinson and Whitehouse,
Allot and Lomax 1999).
‘It is
important to find ways of discouraging through traffic and restraining vehicle
speeds whilst providing convenient vehicular routes for residents and those who
provide services. An area-wide approach
is needed when determining what action to take.’ (Source :
D.O.T.)
5.1 Cul de sac conversion (environmental road
closures)
Speed
restraints along residential roads will often cause sufficient inconvenience
for drivers to ensure that non-access traffic keeps to the distributor roads. Measures
like culs de -sac and tortuous routes may be needed to exclude through traffic
from the site-either altogether or in some directions only (D.O.T. Design
bulletin 32).
Environmental
road closures should always include cycle gaps and could be designed with
turning areas (Source Traffic Advisory Leaflet 1/87). If environmental road closures are introduced, necessary
vehicular journeys are possible, but shorter journeys might be quicker or more
convenient by walking or cycling (Source : The Traffic Advisory
Unit).
• If streets are
chosen to be diverted and /or closed, which one(s) do you believe are most
appropriate?
• Which access
routes should be retained if desired, whilst the aim is to cut through traffic?
Travel time
losses are likely to be one or two minutes and thus are not a consideration
which should be allowed to influence the creation of ‘woonerven’ (Source :
Royal Dutch touring Club ANWB, Woonerf).
Roads
serving between 100-300 dwellings should retain 2 points of access or the inner
road layout should form a circuit (Source : D.O.T., Design bulletin
32).
• Would you like to
try and obtain consent to test try such measures for a few days or a week to
see if residents like it or not?
5.2 Road function (switch to home zone
10mph)
• If the function
of a street is to be changed significantly into a home zone, which one(s) +
generate and discuss options ?
Shared
surface/use roads can be used to create very attractive living areas, where
pedestrian’s right to use the road equally with vehicular traffic is made
obvious by the design, and as a result vehicles are driven at a safe, sensible
speed
(Source D.O.T., Safer by Design, a guide to road safety
engineering).
Vehicular
speed in home zones is limited by chicanes, humps and short sight lines. (Mike
Biddulph, Planning Lecturer at Cardiff University)
• Are appropriately
placed traffic calming measures without diverters, environmental road closures
with cycle gaps and cul de sacs sufficient to limit through traffic?
Streets
which carry heavier loads, than just local residents are not normally
appropriate. Through traffic without a
destination or origin in the home zones should be excluded. This does not mean that it should not be
impossible for through traffic to drive through, but sufficiently inconvenient
so as not to be used by much other traffic than local traffic.
Dutch
experience suggests that the limit of flow of traffic is 100 to 300 vehicles
per hour during peak periods, but this is a function of both the width of the
street and the distribution of traffic flow over the day (Source :
The Royal Dutch Touring Club).
The limit of
traffic flow is to be 100-200 vehicles (Source : Mike Biddulph, Planning
lecturer at Cardiff university).
MVA recorded highest average hourly flows for all roads below 200
vehicles.
A home zone
generally benefits from serving a limited number of dwellings. This may imply that the roads could benefit
from separating by means of street diverters or environmental road closures/cul
de sacs (See 5.1 above). This may also
imply that in this case access routes such as Maplestead Road and Holmewood
Road may possibly be better converted to 20mph zones, whilst Holmewood gardens
could potentially be turned into a home zone (Source : The Royal Dutch
Touring Club).
• Is one way
traffic desirable?
It is
possible to reduce through-traffic by reducing its speed. This sometimes includes the creation of a
one-way system or narrowing of the road (Source : Pieter Van Loon, Dutch
design, Landscape Design journal Dec. ‘95)
One way
traffic is neither desirable, nor necessary.
The layout and design of home zones usually provides adequate
opportunities for vehicles to pass each other in opposite directions. (Source : The Royal Dutch Touring Club)
The D.O.T. supports the latter view.
5.3 Traffic calming measures (switch to 20mph
zone)
20 Mph zones
need to be backed up with speed-reducing features such as chicanes, pinch
points and raised junctions. Evidence
suggest that they can be very useful in reducing accidents and casualties (Source
D.o.T. , Safer by Design, a guide to road safety engineering).
• If traffic
calming measures are to be introduced to change the street into a 20mph zone ,
which one(s) + generate and discuss options ?
-horizontal
deflections : build-outs, pinch-points, chicanes (or staggered parking on
alternate sides of the road), islands and overrun areas, traffic islands,
change in surfaces, environmental road closures, cul de sacs and diverters.
-vertical
deflections : raised junctions, humps.
-entry
treatments (See 5.7 below)
-signage
(See 5.9 below)
• How do you feel about the existing
traffic calming measures? e.g. Road narrowing in Cotherstone Road, some entry
treatments and build-outs, including pedestrian island refuge at junction of
Holmewood Road and Holmewood Gardens?
5.4 Road function (no changes)
• If the function
of one or more streets or parts thereof is not
to be changed, tell us why and discuss options?
5.5 Parking restrictions
• Wherever there is
an excess in the demand for parking which
cannot be met by the provision of
special parking facilities in the immediate vicinity, it is preferable
not to develop a woonerf since the cars will be
parked regardless of parking regulations and thus destroy many of the concepts
integral to the ‘woonerf’ (Royal Dutch touring Company, Woonerf)
The Royal Dutch Touring Club explains :
‘It is
essential to the basic concept of the ‘home zone’ not to permit uncontrolled
parking. The solution of only permitted
parking where a parking space is indicated has been chosen.’ Parking is only permitted where a P is
painted onto the street or displayed.
The draft Planning Policy Guidance Note 3 (P.P.G.3) suggests :
The needs of
people should be placed before the needs of cars in residential areas, that
maximum parking standards should be introduced, limiting parking to 1-1,5 spaces per dwelling and that greater
attention should be paid to urban
design qualities that promote more activity in the public
realm of housing areas.
MVA explains the total volume of cars remains constant at
approximately 200 vehicles. There are
199 houses, the number of households is currently unknown by Planet Earth
Landscape Architects. 74% of households ow at least one car. More
than a quarter of residents feared parking spaces may be lost.
• Do you feel it is
necessary to have parking to both sides of Holmewood gardens? MVA found that 15% of the residents choose parking permits and controlled non
resident parking as most popular improvement.
• If parking
restrictions are to be introduced, which one(s) + generate and discuss options?
• Would you be
prepared to cut/ restrict parking to restrain through traffic?
• Would you have
problems with chevron (one-way streets) or perpendicular parking if they would
form part of a coherent streetscape? If
so, which?
5.6 Road Crossings
MVA survey reveals resident are generally dissatisfied with
crossing points.
• At which prime
locations would you accept a safer crossing for pedestrian and/or cyclists
which would also calm traffic?
5.7 Entry treatments
The D.O.T. explains :
‘Entry
treatments have been developed for use at side roads so that drivers leaving a
major road are in no doubt that they are entering a road of different
character. The design can incorporate a
wide variety of features. These include : build-outs and pinch-points, changes
in surface texture or colour, vertical deflections of the carriageway, bollards
and planting, tactile paving, signing, planting and/or vertical design elements
(posts, pillars, walls, fences, etc.).’
• Please discuss different
options and decide on preferred ones?
5.8 Cyclist facilities
According to John Lee, the London Cycle Network Officer, it is
possible a section of the Lambeth cycle route is proposed to be implemented
through the Holmewood Neighbourhood.
• Are cyclist
facilities, such as bike storage, cycle paths and link routes to wider networks
desirable/acceptable?
• What do you think
about a cycle route through the Green’s Link Area (See Drawing Holmewood’s Pedestrian-
and Cycle route analysis)?
Cycle and
pedestrians links are best overlooked by the front of dwellings? However occasional short links to give
pedestrians and cyclist a direct route is acceptable (Source : Essex Planning
Officers Association, Essex Design Guide).
5.9 Home zone signage
Home zone gateway features are to highlight the change in road
status and priority (design of sign board by children with community
artist). The amount of usually
necessary signage can be reduced in areas with 20mph or home zone status.
This helps to minimise clutter.
5.10 Traffic management
• Which of the
above or combination of the above measures would best suit this neighbourhood?
• How do you
suggest police, traffic wardens & health (emergency) services contribute to
the success of the scheme?
5.11 Materials
Paving with
small elements works best (ie. sets, tiles and flags) (Source :
The Pedestrian Association and the Walkways Service).
• Which materials
would you find most acceptable for street resurfacing, e.g. brick or concrete
pavers, sets, tiles, flags, tarmac, concrete, coloured surfaces,...?
6. MANAGEMENT/ MAINTENANCE
• Which measures
would you see as priorities and would a
level of contribution/ responsibility by residents be expected to keep the
place up to standard?
MVA explains residents are generally dissatisfied with pavement
and road conditions. Also improved
maintenance of park facilities is most popular by 10 % of the residents.
7. IMPLEMENTATION
Implementation may be spread over a number of different
phases.
• Please discuss
what you think should happen first?
8. BUDGET / SPONSORSHIP
The D.O.T. explains in Design Bulletin 32 : ‘Assessment of the
costs and benefits of alternative design solutions will normally be needed to
help set priorities for expenditure.
Costs include those of implementation, enforcement and maintenance.’
• Are there any
local businesses which can provide support?
• Would you like to
assist in fund raising?
Please find as follows guidance notes on costs :
• One traffic
calming hump costs £1.500,-
• One pedestrian
crossing costs £18.000,-
• One traffic
calmed 20 mph-zone costs £ 80.000,-
• One safe routes
to school scheme costs £100.000,-
(Source
: Transport 2000)