What makes a street successful? CABE commissioned research into the design development and implementation of a number of urban streets to find out. Elizabeth Hoehnke reports

It is impossible to imagine a public building being designed by someone with no design training. By contrast, streets have traditionally hardly been designed at all. They are the constant daily backdrop to our lives, yet they mostly ‘just happen’.

Streets are far more than the links between places, or the space between buildings. They are certainly more than the tarmac between pavements, but this is where priority is usually focused – on vehicular movement. The result is that too many streets are noisy and congested, dominated by traffic signs, with people herded behind guard rails into pinch points to cross the road.

Change is round the corner. New design guidance for planners and highways engineers, the Manual for Streets (see also Forum, page 12), aims to deliver safer residential streets designed with the pedestrian in mind, with slower traffic and less clutter. The guidance could apply equally valuably to high streets and other urban roads.

Streets and public spaces are hugely important as drivers of regeneration. Done well, they can benchmark the kind of standards and quality which local people can expect from their local environment. In Manchester, for instance, Ancoats Urban Village illustrates the potential for streets to spearhead economic and social aspirations, with distinctive and ambitious designs.

Streets communicate as well as connect. When they are designed for pedestrians as well as traffic they can feel like a breath of fresh air. The way they are configured, for instance with trees and inviting places to sit, can send out a clear signal about the values and aspirations of a place. A pleasant street doesn’t need to be dominated by bollards to feel controlled.

CABE wants to discover the secrets of successful streets so we have studied a number of urban streets, looking at design development and implementation. Good design certainly features but there are other critical factors too, like skills and maintenance, cooperation between a wide range of professional disciplines and local authority directorates, and clear leadership. We have found that urgent agendas such as climate action need to start influencing street design in the UK.

Streets that work seem simple on the surface. This masks immense organisational, logistical and technical efforts – it is rarely possible to call a street ‘finished’. Most streetscape projects require Byzantine diplomacy between different authorities and stakeholders as well as the patient balancing of a multitude of interests. Political timescales, accommodating retail trade cycles such as the sales or Christmas, and infrastructure changes all make street development a very lengthy process.

Bringing the public alongside is usually a task in itself. Adapting or renewing existing streets is hugely disruptive and the public need to have a healthy appetite for change in order to tolerate this. It is not only the noise, dirt and inconvenience: familiar landmarks and points of reference are changed and this matters especially to blind and partially sighted people. The process of change needs sensitive management. With tree replacement, for instance, removing trees in the early hours may make operational sense, but removal ceremonies may make more emotional sense.

Handled well, designing streetscapes can provide an opportunity to improve community engagement and build capacity, so long as it is done creatively. Some of our case studies show the value of skilful public relations, while others benefited from well-presented plans and images. Some established local management organisations and others nurtured forums. When Devizes Market Square, Wiltshire, was being redeveloped, for instance, the council established a community area partnership which brought together a wide range of different interest groups. The gatherings became important social events in their own right.

However, widespread confusion about risk, liability and the role of processes such as safety auditing often constrain fresh thinking. Chief culprits are design policies dating from the 1960s which have long resulted in strict segregation of pedestrians and traffic.

Street design is now moving towards integration and happily there is a growing realisation of how an obsession with avoiding risk paradoxically leads to riskier behaviour. Drivers along Kensington High Street, London, acknowledge that the removal of guard- railings and the changes in pedestrian crossing facilities have improved the safety of the street. But achieving successful integrated street design does require new skills – such as providing navigational clues with tactile paving and level changes.

Britain has no equivalent of the European straßenbauer or street builder –a professional skilled in paving, lighting, drainage and all the interconnected elements of streets. The case studies all show excellent workmanship, but the more widespread achievement of high European standards means developing new techniques and investing in training.

Maintenance is also critically important. Good materials will help – like simple, durable paving to withstand heavy loads –but without day-to-day maintenance the quality of a street will decline anyway. There is too often a gulf between the knowledge, skills and resources of the main contractor and the subsequent maintenance teams.

CABE’s case studies should help with a growing understanding of how to secure more humane, civilised streets. But many important questions still remain. How can all members of society benefit from a more inclusive public realm? And how can the design of streets adapt to and mitigate the problems brought about by climate change?

The urgent need to reduce carbon emissions has yet really to influence street design in the UK. Yet its significance is clear, from traffic speed, lighting and planting right down to details like the selection of paving materials (and their transportation there). Streets will have to cope with heavier rainfall and more storms and flooding, as well as higher temperatures. If inner-city streets are going to work as cooling ventilation shafts for hot summer nights, in a way that they singularly failed to do last year, we will need to find new ways to make them, and keep them, cool, pleasant and sustainable.

The CABE research was carried out by Hamilton-Baillie Associates with Local Agenda. All the case studies will be published by the end of May. Visit: www.cabe.org.uk

Bideford Quay, Devon

Bideford has long suffered flooding from exceptional tides in the Torridge, and these will become more frequent. A large-scale flood protection scheme in the area presented a golden opportunity to transform the function and image of Bideford’s waterfront.

The street was a jumble of highway measures, informal parking and dilapidated street furniture. The regeneration scheme has restored a more formal boulevard character to the Quay and retained the interaction of port activities, tourism, trade, parking and passing traffic in flexible and unfussy harmony.

Achieving this positive result was not easy – the project was complex and there were many different opinions to reconcile, from all the agencies involved and from the public. On top of this, the time scales were limited.

The most emotive issue proved to be the replacement of the randomly planted trees that were of varying ages and species. The local public and the local media were initially opposed to this change, but the council eventually won public support by addressing the issue head on, producing a clear logical argument for replanting the trees and building on the visible qualities of the completed first phase of the scheme. The trees were replaced by a more formal avenue of ash trees.

The regeneration of Bideford Quay is a great example of the role that waterfront public realm plays in the revival of our coastal settlements. And it also tells an interesting story about how necessary steps to protect a region against the effects of climate change resulted in a strikingly contemporary public space and a practical new streetscape.

Maid Marian Way, Nottingham

In 2002 Maid Marian Way was nominated by the public as one of the worst streets in the country. A concrete subway, a sunken plaza and limited pavement space made it unattractive and uncomfortable for pedestrians, while a dominating roundabout created a barrier for vehicles.

The design selected to replace this involved filling in the subways and replacing the roundabout with traffic signals, allowing for wide pedestrian crossings that required no guardrails. The generous new pavement areas were repaved along with the rest of the street, and modern street furniture was installed. New trees were planted along the edges of the boulevard.

Tackling a project of this scale brought a change in the working relationships within the city council leading to a city development team that brought together a wide range of skills and professions. The council was creative in the way it communicated change to the public, with an imaginative series of handouts to explain the logic of the scheme, and a programme of artworks and events to celebrate the new junction.

Maid Marian Way demonstrates what can be achieved by bringing together the skills and imagination of different professions. Locally the project gave momentum to a growing public and political interest in streetscape design.