1. introduction and context

01_introduction & context

This work has been commissioned by and for the residents of the Commonhall Street area in central Chester – an emerging colourful and vibrant community with a strong sense of pride in where they live and with strong views about their neighbourhood and its sense of ‘place’.

The residents commissioned Andy Farrall Limited to undertake the work. MONIKA Studios, based in the neighbourhood, have injected their brilliant graphics abilities. It's a ‘thought leadership’ piece with a clear message about creating a more liveable city centre neighbourhood. So, let’s not get too hung-up on the detail – it’s all about the underlying concepts of creating a more liveable neighbourhood.

The area contains three active community groups – one for each of the neighbourhood main streets. The White Friars Residents’ Association led the work for the collective. The work involved the active participation of the residents including a residents’ workshop. This area masterplan is community-led and community-driven. It’s their vision of the place in which they want to live - welcoming, vibrant and sustainable.

city centres have changed

It is increasingly acknowledged that city centre ‘side streets’ need to be reimagined, particularly in historic cities. The centre of cities like Chester are becoming attractive places to live – not just for smaller households, but also for families.

In the last century city centres were depopulated through movement to the suburbs and through ‘slum clearance’ programmes, plus many houses were converted to offices. The former residential streets off the main retail dominated high streets, became little more than service areas to access the rears of high street shops and offices. The need for large vehicle turning spaces, service bays and employee parking meant that side streets became fragmented, forgotten and unattractive. In Chester – the main retail streets were seen as paramount – but the side and rear streets were forgotten and seen as unimportant. There’s a classic quote: ‘Chester’s face is its fortune’ - if this is the case, then its beauty is only skin deep – a Row-street veneer.

Things have changed over the last decade and the pandemic has accelerated this: Chester’s side and rear streets are becoming residential again. White Friars is leading the way in this transformation. Gone are the offices – these have been converted back into homes and renovated to a high quality. Families with children are now living in White Friars.

The future of city centres is about reimagining them as vibrant and colourful mixed-use neighbourhoods, with people living in them. The Cheshire & Warrington LEP and the Council see Chester city centre as a real priority for city-centre living. Reports such as the recent CBRE’s ‘Chester, Reimagining the High Street’ and Chester Smart Mobility clearly see that residential development will be the key driver for the regeneration of the city centre.

Further, it is being acknowledged that redevelopment and regeneration sites such as Northgate 2, Grosvenor Precinct, Quicks, Linenhall, etc. will be redeveloped with residential being a major part of their mix.

At a time where climate change is high on the agenda with the desire to move from fossil fuel powered cars to more sustainable forms of mobility, why are Chester’s city centre residential streets dominated by on-street car parking spaces that anyone can use, encouraging cars to drive around ‘hunting’ for a free on-street parking space through its residential streets? Residential side streets such as White Friars are being used as rat-runs for private hire and delivery vehicles, trying to avoid ring road junctions and traffic lights.

In Chester this is even more bizarre with the existence of an established Park and Ride network, and the recent construction of a large new car parking structure at Northgate, together with a desire on the part of the Council to make the city centre car free.

Smart mobility will become increasingly important in Chester. Mobility hubs, car-pooling and car clubs, micro EVs, together with on-street EV charging for city centre residents (where offstreet EV charging opportunities will be rare) will mean that Chester’s residential streets will need to change and evolve further.

Likewise, where open space is at a premium within individual properties, families will look to utilise the street outside their houses as extensions of their homes – to play, meet and enjoy a healthy outdoors. In such cases streets will inevitably become mini parks. The concept of liveable streets pioneered in the Netherlands and their UK equivalent - Home Zones, is now common place.

If the city centre is increasingly becoming a place for families to live and enjoy as an authentic residential neighbourhood, then side streets that have become residential areas and those that will become so, need to be reimagined. They need to become ‘people places’ – healthy, safe and enjoyable- places for families to enjoy, where they want to live, look after and make their own. Such streets will have a different utility – driven for the residents and the families that are increasingly becoming the predominant users.

a pilot for urban living in the centre of Chester

The White Friars area is typical of this – perhaps it is leading the way in thinking about this change. It is now predominantly a residential street with families living along it. What businesses are left within the street have their own off-street car parking within their own sites. White Friars is not a key servicing street, nor is it part of the wider network of the city-centre through routes. Then why is it open to through traffic and rat-running? Why are there on-street car parking spaces along it, available for anyone to use? Why is it a street for the car and not a street given over to the residents who live along it? There has been no thought about how smart mobility can transform the utility of the street and its adjoining areas. There are no car-club spaces that would allow residents to hire or share vehicles, and there are no on-street EV charging points. Where do the children who live on the street play in safety?

The residents of the White Friars area want to positively change their streets – they want to make them theirs. They want a more sustainable, healthy, safe, pollution free and enjoyable place to live. A place that they will look after and take pride in. They are keen to be a pilot for city-centre living in Chester – an exemplar that can used to transform residential streets across the city centre and for those streets that will become predominantly residential in the future. They want to help shape policy and practice, and to work positively and in partnership with the Council to enable this – real ‘community-leadership’.

image via Cycling Ambassy

this is not new

Creating more liveable streets and the measures that can be employed to do this is not new – it has been successful in many places: Woonerfs, Home-Zones, Play Streets, Living Streets, neighbourhood traffic calming initiatives, etc. have been commonly employed in the UK and in other countries, even in Chester. However, the more recent rise in town and city-centre living and the increasing momentum of initiatives such as ‘Loveable Neighbourhoods’ in many London Boroughs by Transport for London, is raising the profile of this positive trend.

image via DutchUrbanIndex Twitter