5 minute read
Community streets
Photomontage of proposed community street © Calderdale Council / 2B Landscape Consultancy Ltd
With a special focus on engagement, a low-traffic scheme in Calderdale shows how a landscape approach provides integrated solutions to design challenges, and puts local people at the heart of its long-term success.
Amanda McDermott CMLI and Ella King
Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council (CMBC)’s Highways team incorporates good placemaking wherever possible. They recognise that investment in active travel principles gives CMBC best overall value, with benefits spanning the remits and budgets of different council departments. Spaces prioritising walking and wheeling not only increase those activities, but can free up space in urban areas for planting.
Benefits of well-designed community streets include:
Improvements in air and water quality, due to fewer cars and more planting
Biodiversity gain, bringing nature into urban environments
Physical health improvements from encouraging activity and reducing air pollution
Mental health benefits of fresh air, nature and greater interaction with other people
CMBC has taken care to involve the community of Ash Green, Mixenden (an area of Halifax with high deprivation levels), in the scheme from its early conceptual design days, which will be important to its success.
The design brief
The project, funded by Active Travel England and West Yorkshire Combined Authority, proposes to reduce traffic, building a safe and healthy environment for people of all ages to walk, cycle, rest and play in the streets around Ash Green School.
When CMBC appointed 2B Landscape Consultancy Ltd (2B) as project landscape architects, they had already determined the area around Ash Green School as a priority for one of their proposed community streets, and agreed that road closure points would be part of the scheme. 2B developed the idea by suggesting that the horseshoe loop created by the road closures could be converted to a one-way system, liberating a carriageway to allow for wider pavements, and inclusion of planting.
Calderdale suffers from devastating flooding. Even up on the hillside in Mixenden, surface water causes issues in heavy rain. Every little amount held back higher up the catchment also helps to relieve fluvial flooding in the valley bottoms, so it was agreed that wherever possible the proposed planting would be designed as rain gardens.
Stakeholder engagement and design process
With these principles in mind, CMBC and 2B began liaising with stakeholders, including Ash Green Primary School, Holy Nativity Church, The Addy (support services for people with Learning Disabilities), Together Housing (community housing provider), North Halifax Partnership, White Rose Forest (who helped the team achieve funding for street trees), and local councillors. We also liaised with different departments within CMBC, including Active Calderdale, Playgrounds, and Maintenance.
These initial conversations informed a design that considered local issues, such as the need for a hearse to park near the church, and different maintenance regimes depending on which organisation is responsible. Some of the proposed locations for raised crossings (prioritising the comfort of pedestrians as well as reducing the speed of vehicles) were relocated following feedback from a school audit workshop, undertaken with groups of students.
The resulting draft masterplan was publicised, with a feedback survey available on the council’s website, publicised in the local newspaper, and public drop-in events held within the school. Genuine public engagement raised awareness of issues for individual householders and gave important insights that can only be gained by living on a particular street – for example resulting in the relocation of a road closure to further down the street.
Local suppliers
As the design developed, 2B and CMBC worked closely with suppliers, ranging from Calderdale-based international corporation Marshalls, who invited the scheme to trial their developing rain garden products, to nurseries Dove Cottage and Beardsworths, who have contract-grown the plants, lowering the project’s carbon footprint, supporting local SMEs, and ensuring quality and availability of plants. Compost will be used from CMBC residents’ green recycling, and school children will be involved in designing interpretation panels for the rain gardens, through education sessions with locally based natural flood management charity, Slow The Flow.
The narrative of the project has also encouraged Active Calderdale, North Halifax Partnership, UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF), and CMBC’s Playgrounds team to contribute to the refurbishment of the tired adjacent playground, which will be completed following the highway works (intended during 2024).
Stakeholders’ involvement in the project’s journey is also invaluable, with The Addy and the school (with Council support) volunteering to lead the community in providing ongoing maintenance. This enabled the design team to specify interesting and varied planting, including a community orchard and attractive, diverse rain garden planting. With the community invested in looking after the environment, it is far more likely to thrive. They will be the key to success.
Amanda McDermott is a Calderdale-based Senior Landscape Architect for 2B Landscape Consultancy Ltd, and a founding trustee of Slow The Flow.
Ella King is a Project Manager for Highways at Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council, mainly on Active Travel Schemes.
