Some Thoughts on EV Infrastructure
Much Electric Vehicle ownership is currently concentrated in hands of suburban residents who have off street car parking. Ownership of EVs in denser Urban Areas is considerably more difficult, although some people do seem to be charging on “back lanes” typical of some Northern English Cities. The model being promoted…
Walking Catchments
Walkable catchments crop up again and again in both transport and real estate markets. A healthy UK High Street has over 50% of it’s trade arrive on foot, so understanding just how many potential customers there are (density) and how far they are prepared to stroll is key to understanding…
Dissington Garden Village – Exemplar Design
After a lot of work from all involved the planning application for the Dissington Garden Village is now live, and being considered by Northumberland County Council. The project delivers a new village of 2000 homes, as well as nearly half a million sq ft of community, education, and employment space. A…
Press Reaction to Garden Villages
On bank holiday Monday DCLG announced the first 14 Garden Villages, as well as 3 more Garden Towns. Reaction in the press has been questioning but positive. The Independent are slightly sceptical of “Lush greenery, bounteous employment, plentiful and fast transport links” but largely pro St Cuthberts near to Carlisle. The Sun…
Smiths Dock
It’s not often that something interesting in housing and development happens on our doorstep, but Places for People and Urban Splash are in the process of building 34 prefabricated “hoUSe” homes at Smiths Dock North Shields. These are the first of up to 850 houses and apartments on a brownfield…
Autonomous Vehicles
Open a newspaper these days and you’ll see prediction after prediction that “Driverless Cars” are set to take over the world in the next 5-15 years and create a market worth up to $2.6 trillion a year. Why is this relevant for sustainable development, after all it’s just more cars,…
Lessons From The New Towns
Last night I went along to a talk by Carlton Reid and Graham Grant on urban cycling organised by Recyke y’bike. The focus was mostly on Newcastle, given we were at the city centre café – The Journey. Debate did touch on the experience of the new Towns with cycling, and…
Garden Village Guide to Active Travel
I went looking for a guide to building walking and cycling networks in new settlements, and found there wasn’t one. The guide below is a working draft, comments and contributions so far have been welcome and positive. Version 3.0 includes detailed case studies.
A Trip to Poynton
Unusually this blog comes to you from a service station on the majestic M6 in the heart of the Lake District, in some ways scenic, in others not. As I sip a tall Starbucks and the car gulps Ecotricity there’s time to get a few thoughts down. This afternoon I…
Defining the challenges: Creating Streets For All
I’m currently working on the Masterplan for a “Locally Led Garden Village”. In some ways it’s early days, the site boundaries for new housing won’t be fixed until latter in the year after spending some time talking to the public. In other ways the thinking on how we get this…
