Streets ahead Print E-mail
Written by Catherine Dell, 2006   

Catherine Dell reports on the nationwide campaign to declutter our highways and byways. 

Remember Toad in The Wind in the Willows and how he enthused over “the open road, the dusty highway, the heath, the common, the hedgerows, the rolling downs”? Well, if he were out and about today he would notice a difference – and not just an increase in vehicle numbers.

More often than not, that open road is now hedged with hoardings, traffic signs, barriers, communication masts, message screens, as well as notices for nearby campsites, cafés, B&Bs, farm shops and ‘attractions’. Reach a village and the clutter becomes more concentrated. There is a jumble of signs – directional, information, speed limit (with repeaters) plus a hotchpotch of traffic-calming devices such as mini-roundabouts, rumble strips, pinch-points, bollards and bands of coloured tarmac.

Invariably, the situation in towns is even more acute. Many streets are littered with signs, notices, poles, posts, often of differing heights, styles, colours, materials, and are further defaced by aggressive road markings and haphazard paving schemes. The result is a design disaster.So does this visual chaos matter? Yes, and Notes from a Small Island author Bill Bryson gives one reason why: “Nothing says more, nor more immediately, of how a nation feels about itself, than the way it dresses its streets... For people like me, parachuted in from abroad, [this] is the first thing they notice.”

Another reason, the flipside of Bryson’s argument, is that attractive streets have a positive impact on the people using them. A well-designed, well-maintained street puts a spring in our step, whereas cracked paving stones, uneven kerbs and an obstacle course of bollards, bins and utility boxes create a depressing environment. We put a lot of effort into making our homes and gardens look and feel good, so why not take the same approach to streets and roads, which are, after all, part of our living space?

This is the underlying message of Save Our Streets, a campaign launched by English Heritage two years ago. The campaign aims to restore quality and character to our towns and villages by raising awareness of their streetscapes, by encouraging councils to remove unnecessary clutter and by promoting good design and integrated management (at present, as many as 20 agencies are able to install equipment in the street without any control or co-ordination).

For the first stage of the campaign – an audit of street clutter – English Heritage went into partnership with the NFWI and, all over the country, WI members rose to the challenge. Armed with questionnaire and clipboard, they surveyed their neighbourhood, noting every ‘minus’ from pavement-blocking bins and poorly-placed benches to out-of-date signs and out-of-character lighting.

Jersey’s success

One branch that has been particularly successful, in that its report has already resulted in action, is Jersey. Initially, Jersey FWI thought the campaign had no relevance for the island, but, after looking around, they changed their minds. As island WI Chairman Joy Thomson explains: “Until you become aware, you don’t actually realise how many unnecessary signs there are and how badly placed they are... What has really struck me is that no one gives any thought for the overall effect.”

Having secured the support of Jersey Transport and Technical Services, heritage bodies and the Constables, island WI members started their audit in February 2005 and published their findings in the autumn. Although their report did not reveal any overwhelming horrors, it did catalogue many signs that were now defunct, often because the attraction concerned no longer existed, and many more were in need of cleaning.

Other issues raised included poorly-positioned litter and recycling bins, notices set so high they could not be read and the incongruity of siting ultra-modern seats in front of traditional buildings. Transport and Technical Services welcomed the report and, once they had analysed its contents, went into action. Within six months they had removed redundant signs from more than 50 locations across the island and, throughout the summer, they continued to assess signage on a parish-by-parish basis, under the watchful eye of the WI.

Safety issues

On several occasions, the Jersey report identified certain signs as “distracting” or “confusing” and this highlights another vital reason for decluttering our streets: safety. It is easy to assume that signs, bollards, rails and roundabouts all contribute to road safety, but often the reverse is true.

A road junction near Canterbury confronts motorists with 19 signs; one at New Malden has 17 signs – two examples of gross information overload. Blitzed by so many messages, drivers lose concentration and may well miss the one instruction that really matters like “Give Way” or “Flood”.

Clusters of signs in towns and villages are just as confusing and, along with control measures such as traffic lights and guardrails, can actually make streets more dangerous. Increasingly, traffic management experts are realising that, when it comes to road safety, less is more.

The removal of excessive signage, traffic lights, road markings, bollards and rails, encourages motorists to drive more slowly and responsibly. They engage more with the street itself – especially if it has a sense of identity – and with the street’s users. Eye contact with other motorists, cyclist and pedestrians does more for safer driving than a barrage of signs.

Happily the “less is more” approach benefits all road users for, although the UK has managed to reduce driver and car passenger casualties, this has been at the expense of other groups, especially pedestrians. By decluttering streets and opening them up as shared spaces, pedestrians, cyclists and motorists all learn to coexist more safely.

London lesson

The success of this strategy has been demonstrated very convincingly by the new-look Kensington High Street. Early in the Millennium, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea decided to give the high street a makeover – primarily to enhance its prestige as a retail centre, but also to create a better environment for all the street’s users, whether on foot, on two wheels or on four. The council chose a minimalist approach.

Measures adopted included: eliminating hundreds of signs and making those that remained small; removing bollards; increasing parking facilities for bicycles; replacing staggered pedestrian crossings, which people find frustrating, with straight-across ones; and most controversially, by taking down over 600m of guardrail. Without this barrier between them, and the false sense of security it creates, motorists and pedestrians have become more aware of each other. As a result, pedestrian accidents have fallen by 60 per cent over the past two years.

The makeover also featured the use of high-quality, co-ordinated materials: York stone paving plus stainless steel street furniture, with all items coming from the same contemporary range. Kensington High Street is a stunning example of quality design that not only looks good but works well, proving an attractive, safe public space. A street to be proud of.

The use of materials that achieve coherence and distinctiveness is one of the themes highlighted in English Heritage’s Streets For All – regional manuals giving practical guidance on all aspects of street design, with special reference to each region’s traditional elements. These manuals are the second stage of the Save Our Streets campaign. At the same time, English Heritage is also running workshops for highway engineers and urban planners to ensure that first-class street design becomes the rule, not the exception.

By definition, because of the English Heritage link, Save Our Streets is aimed principally at locations with historic credentials. However, its message belongs everywhere and, indeed, for the last couple of years, the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) has been running a very similar Clutter Challenge “to save the countryside from the creeping urbanisation of excessive signs, road markings and poorly designed street furniture”. Both campaigns are calling for streets and roads to be in harmony with “England’s green and pleasant land”. Both campaigns need the public’s ongoing interest and involvement.

Further information
English Heritage Save our Streets campaign – tel: 0870 333 1181 or visit www.english-heritage.org.uk/ saveourstreets

Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) – tel: 020 7981 2800 or visit www.cpre.org.uk
 
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