Home Zones - United Kingdom

Holmewood Home Zone

The Holmewood Neighbourhood Association had been campaigning for traffic calming for ages in 4 Victorian terraced streets arranged around a small triangular park called Holmewood Gardens in south Brixton.

It has a couple of rat runs between the A23 and the South Circular and a number of primary schools in and around the area. The area has a diverse population in age and ethnic origin.

The area was selected to be part of Lambeth's bid to the DETR and was privileged to become one of the 9 Pilot Home Zones.

Since then we have been working to ensure the participation of the local community in the design process through Planning for Real and other community planning techniques.

We have drafted and finally agreed a questionnaire survey which has gone out to all household asking about the area. We have proposed that the 'participation process' should consist of:

1. Finding out what people think of their neighbourhood - what are the problems, what they like/would like to preserve and what they think could be improved.
2. Getting expert input on how we might go about solving the perceived problems.
3. Involving the community creatively in designing what they want to see implemented.

We hope this will create a true sense of ownership in the local community. We have proposed several possible local design/consultation teams and the selection process has begun.

We have raised £2,400 towards making the 'participation process' successful and representative. Lambeth has commissioned the traffic engineers MVA to do exhaustive 'before' data gathering and surveying of the area. We have fortnightly meetings with the Lambeth Project Team and fortnightly Progress Meetings with the local community.

If you would like to know more about the Holmewood Home Zone project e-mail Duncan Law (Chair of the Holmewood Neighbourhood Association) at 114603.13@compuserve.com or join the Homezones.org discussion list.