Category Archives: Inspiration and Innovation

It’s time to call time on the Black Dog model

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Exeter’s Stagecoach bus services are still in meltdown, but that’s not the only problem. The whole county network needs rethinking.

For at least a year now Exeter’s bus services have been not fit for purpose. I wrote a piece in Exeter Observer about this and won’t repeat that here.  There may be more to say after the Traffic Commissioner’s enquiry into Stagecoach South West planned for 27 October in Bristol.

Meanwhile, bus planners could do worse than rethink their whole service pattern.  The bus industry is not renowned for radical innovation – doubtless in part due to the expressions of outrage from many bus users when faced with change – but there are other approaches to services in Devon that could usefully be, at least, explored.

As noted in my Exeter Observer article Devon County Council (DCC), as the local transport authority, has committed to carry out a review of the network. This is significant because DCC funds many bus routes, particularly in rural areas.

The other important bit of context is that getting public transport into a state where people will prefer it to their cars is a priority if any of Devon’s – and particularly Exeter’s – net zero carbon targets stand any chance of being achieved.  The county’s Bus Service Improvement Plan stated that increasing usage was key,

Which means making it more attractive to use the bus rather than the private car.

Here’s one suggestion: Replacing linear rural routes with circular ones to increase service frequency.

Most bus services in the Exeter hinterland are linear, that is they run from a specific place in a broadly straight line to the city centre. Because of the current lack of patronage these services are infrequent, sometimes only one service each way each week. 

The 679 Black Dog to Exeter service, operated by Dartline and funded by DCC, is one of several examples. Its timetable is here. If you want to go to Exeter by bus you have to travel on a Wednesday morning and come back the same day at lunchtime. Er, that’s it.

Who on earth is going to abandon the car in favour of a bus with a service like this? DCC and operators need to increase frequency to multiple services every day, if modal shift – and the consequent reduction in cars entering Exeter – is to stand a chance.

(For those unfamiliar with Mid Devon this map may help understand what follows.)

Such an increase is not impossible if the Black Dog linear service is reimagined into a circular route, serving not only all the villages on the existing 679 timetable, but connecting at Crediton with the every-15-minutes Stagecoach 5 service to Exeter, then continuing on to Shobrooke, then on to the A377 west of Cowley – again connection with Stagecoach 5 – and then north on the route to Thorverton and Cheriton Fitzpaine (currently one daily Exeter service on each of Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday)  and Witheridge (currently Wednesday and Friday only), whence it would go on to Black Dog and the circle begins all over again.

Based on the existing timetables, the circle should be achievable in about 2.5 hours, which would allow 2 buses – one in each direction – to make a minimum of 3 trips each day.

A real attraction could be the addition of a 4th round trip timed to give an evening out in Exeter.  This need not be every day.

I don’t know nearly enough about the economics of running bus services to be able to cost any of this.

So what are the local advantages of better bus services?  First, they would connect up more villages to one another, strengthening community links.  In turn, this should increase the market for local retail businesses – if I live in a village with no food shop, why go to Exeter if I can get to a nearby village by bus?

Second, having more buses gives greater flexibility in travel choices.  Excluding Crediton, the population of the settlements joined up by this route is around 8,300 [1]. So there is a market to be tapped.

This proposal won’t on its own solve Stagecoach’s Exeter problems in the short term – yet another set of city service changes comes into operation at the end of October. But it could be a step toward the wider BSIP objective of increasing bus use, which would if achieved:

  • reduce car traffic in Exeter
  • speed up the buses (fewer traffic jams)
  • reduce carbon emissions and air pollution, and
  • make services less dependent on public subsidy (which is not a “good” in itself but is going to be part of a necessary trade-off for as long as we have barking mad governments in London).

Note 1   This is a back-of-envelope figure based on the 2011 Census figure of 8,200.  The general uplift of population in the Mid-Devon district shown by the 2022 Census (detailed village results are not yet published) is 6.5%, though much of this will have occurred in the larger towns such as Crediton, Cullompton and Tiverton.  So a fairer uplift figure for the circular route villages would be nearer 1%, giving an estimated 2022 population of 8,286

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Vision on

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Exeter City Council’s Chief Executive has given an important and valuable lead in setting a new direction for the city.

The Legacy

Like many other English towns and cities Exeter’s growth and development has been erratic, sometimes managed and sometimes not.  The post-war reconstruction of the High Street was actively managed by the current council’s predecessor, Exeter Corporation, though the subsequent 1970s saw such developer-driven fortresses as the Guildhall Shopping Centre car park which wrecked Paul Street, and the unloved addition to the riverside in the form of Renslade House.  More recently, the build-what-and-where-you-like approach that passes for central government’s planning policy, combined with a weakness in Exeter’s own Local Plan, has allowed the city to sprawl eastwards in a series of uninspiring housing estates made up by volume housebuilders’ standard designs.

The City Council has had aspirations to change course, but has lacked both the powers and the political will to do so.  In 2011 it published A City Centre Vision for a Green Capital.  Included in its guiding principles are such worthy aspirations as:

  • Principle 3: Any new development in the city centre will respect the city skyline and reflect the underlying topography.   Well, the mushrooming of purpose-built student accommodation blocks around the bus station area has put paid to that.
  • Principle 6: Create an exciting mix of contemporary design and historic buildings.  Um.  Princesshay Mark 2 is good, but there’s not much else to make the heart beat faster.

There’s some good stuff in it but, at the end of the day, the vision appeared to be just that.  To some extent it informed the following year’s Core Strategy element of the current Local Plan, but there was little impetus to deliver it and no real visualisation as to how it all fitted together.

The new vision

On 26 February 2019 the City Council formally accepted a recommendation from its Executive group to adopt a new spatial vision for the development of the city [1].  There are some similarities with the 2011 vision, notably in the illustrations of how specific parts of the city could be redeveloped, perhaps not surprisingly because both visions were commissioned by the City Council from Exeter-based but nationally-active LDA Design.

But the real difference between the two visions lies in the drivers for implementation.  The 2011 vision had as a key (perhaps, the key) aim to provide a context for future transport planning.  The officer report presented to the Executive on 6 December 2011 stated:

[…] there was no clear vision for the City Centre that could assist decision makers in grappling with specific issues and site specific interventions. A long term vision for the City Centre should drive the traffic management strategy rather than vice versa.  […]  Explicitly the work has been commissioned to: Provide a development context for a City Centre Transportation Strategy and other potential studies and projects in the City Centre; and form the basis of a vision for any future City Centre Action Area.

Unfortunately, responsibility for the transport and traffic strategy lay, as now, with the unimaginative Devon County Council.  So the City Council had produced a vision to guide a strategy over which it had minimal influence.  That lack of impact is visible today.

In contrast the 2019 vision is described as a “Vision for a Transformational Housing Delivery Programme”.  Authored by the Council’s Chief Executive, Karime Hassan, it challenges the assumptions that have underpinned Exeter area planning since the days of the Regional Spatial Strategy [2].  Specifically it is intended to provide a strategic context for:

  • redevelopment of the City Council’s assets (which are extensive);
  • the production of Site Planning Statements to clarify developer expectations on sites offering scope for redevelopment;
  • investigating options resulting from the Government’s removal of the cap on local authorities’ borrowing to fund the delivery of new council housing, and
  • assisting planning responses to an acute housing land supply problem in Exeter [3].

The driver here is finding practical solutions to the city’s serious housing shortage, over which the City Council as both local planning authority and social housing developer has some clout.  Exeter is required to ensure an additional 13,100 homes over the next 20 years.  The Council has recognised that leaving everything to the private sector is no longer an option if any sort of green city is to be achieved, a point explained in a previous blog post.  This housing-driven vision looks forward to 8 specific projects, based on naturally occurring communities in the city, which would be designed with the right mixes of land for homes, shops, leisure, work space and community services (eg schools).  The smallest of the projects – South Gate, based around the top of Western Way – would generate 300 homes; and the largest – reinventing Marsh Barton to use the wasted spaces above the single storey industrial units – is to provide 5,544 homes.  These projects would be designed to encourage walking, cycling and public transport use, leading to reductions in car use.  They would move us from wasteful low density to higher housing densities, as previously advocated by this blog.

Moving things forward

The new housing-driven vision is an exciting prospectus.  It puts the City Council into a leadership role for place-making which would be a step-change from simply reacting to county-imposed transport policies (or county inaction) and to the volume house builders.  It aims to influence the much-delayed Greater Exeter Strategic Plan, so that we don’t end up back where we were with the old Regional Spatial Strategy.

You don’t have to agree with every detail in the vision.  Its aim is to set a direction, a new development context.  If achieved it would greatly improve the quality of life for a vast number of Exeter’s present and future residents. But if discussion about it gets steered towards practical objections from day one, it will fail.  Already the sceptics are complaining about the idea of one of the bridges in the Exe Bridges gyratory system being turned into a pedestrianised garden bridge, the chief objection being that the remaining bridge won’t cope with the traffic.  The response to that is there will be much less traffic to cope with, despite Devon County Council’s ill thought-out draft transport strategy for Exeter.

And, if the vision doesn’t cover everything, that’s because its focus is a spatial one, particularly for housing and communities.  It will sit alongside – and support – other policies, including air quality improvements, reducing cars and congestion, and other elements of a climate change strategy.

It’s an understatement to say that achieving the vision will be far from easy.  Setting aside the obvious need to lever in money, the City Council – and I mean councillors themselves – will need to adopt two essential approaches.

First, replace the understandable desire to pursue short-term and/or opportunistic projects with a commitment to a firm discipline to act only in support of the vision and to do nothing that makes its achievement more difficult.  This does, of course, assume that when councillors adopted the vision on 26 February, they meant it.

Second, get out into communities and explain why all this important. Arrange local public meetings and start a dialogue.  Explain what the vision is (more housing and a better place to live) and what it is not (a planning blueprint).  Listen to what people say about it and how it could fit in with their own aspirations.  Be ready to make changes, refine the vision. Leaving everything until the planning applications roll in is too late – we all know from experience that many people feel threatened by development and so oppose it.  We all need our elected representatives to start being grassroots advocates for our city and to encourage a shared vision for its future.

NOTES:

[1]  The City Council has set up a useful web page which brings together some key visioning and planning documents, including both the 2011 and 2019 vision documents.

[2]  Regional Spatial Strategies were produced by Regional Assemblies and Regional Development Agencies in the heyday of the Blair government’s love-in with the concept English regions. The fact that the south-west region ran from Penzance to Cheltenham and Bournemouth illustrates the nonsense of trying to plan on that scale.  For those who are curious or who would just like a wallow in nostalgia, the draft south west RSS can be found here. It was never formally adopted, because the coalition government elected in 2010 immediately dismantled the regional apparatus.

[3]  The officer report to the Exeter City Council Executive on 12 February 2019, available at http://committees.exeter.gov.uk/mgAi.aspx?ID=45692


Put out some flags!

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Two important decisions this month show that Exeter City Council could at last be facing up to the real challenges confronting the city.

First, building more homes

After a long – very long – gestation period in the shadows, the Council’s proposal to set up a housing development company has burst into the sunlight.  Put simply, the plan is to set up a series of Council-controlled linked companies to build houses of the sort the communities need rather than what the volume housebuilders are prepared to offer.  To fund the housing, the companies will first of all build houses on Council-owned land, sell them at open-market prices and use the profits to fund what will be in practice public sector housing development, for sale and for rent [1].

Setting up a housing development company is not new: other councils have done it as a solution, even if only a partial one, to our housing crisis. But it is very encouraging to see Exeter City Council coming forward with a practical well-thought through plan of action (and not just another “strategy”).  There will doubtless be wrinkles to iron out, but the proposal deserves widespread support.

Second, beyond more homes and into wider development

The Council’s Executive had a busy meeting on 10 July.  Apart from the housing plan, they also considered a paper with the mind-numbing title of “Sustainable Financing Model for Exeter Infrastructure” [2].  But the content is quite the reverse of dull.  What is proposed is the creation of a publicly-owned City Development Fund to pay for infrastructure that will address congestion, urban sprawl, and inchoate development on a scale far greater than can be achieved with the housing development company.  The central idea is that the Council and public sector partners pool their land and other assets against which significant finance can be raised as borrowing.  Savings can be made by pooling overall control of projects, which reduces the need to spend on professional services for individual schemes (remember the £5 million and rising on services for Pete’s Pool before even a foot of tarmac is dug up!)

Senior councillors have agreed the officer recommendation that the model should not be based on partnerships with the private sector on the grounds that experience shows that the private sector ends up calling the shots in such arrangements.  For those of us concerned that Exeter could end up with something like the Haringey Development Vehicle [3], this decision is a profound relief. As with housing, the private sector cherry picks sites for development that will generate an average 20% return on the investment, money which goes to distant shareholders rather than be reinvested directly in Exeter.

The officer paper recognises that there is much more work to be done in fleshing out how the fund will work.  The major risks are recognised.  Questions that immediately occur to me include:

  • Given that planning policy controls in Exeter are weak, how does the Council plan stop private developers carrying on cherry-picking?
  • The fund is said to be available to cover Greater Exeter. Are the surrounding Tory-run Councils bought into a proposal intended to make life difficult for their private sector friends?
  • Will the City Council have enough assets of their own if other public sector partners won’t play?
  • How will the Council engage communities in its development plans?

Unlike the housing development company, this is untried ground for a local authority.  But there’s huge potential, both for our environment and our democracy if we get this right.

So what’s changing?

Both these proposals are inspiring.  They recognise that the self-interest of private sector has for too long given priority to shareholder expectations and failed to respond to what communities need and want.  We’ve had nearly 40 years of governments peddling neo-liberal economics as the default position, and now our local authority is turning round and starting to restore a civilised approach to development.

NOTES

[1]   The details, including the business case, are set out in a Council paper at http://committees.exeter.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=112&MId=5310&Ver=4 item 14 of the agenda.  The full Council is due to rubber stamp the proposals on 24 July.

[2]   As note [1], item 10 of the agenda

[3]  See for example https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/lendlease-warns-haringey-council-over-planned-development-vehicle-cancellation-57185

Reclaiming our main roads for residents

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It’s not only our side streets that can be made people-friendly

Traffic restraint on residential streets is not new – humps, speed limits, barriers, residents’ parking schemes, pedestrianisation, and so on.  Some of these measures have become discredited because of their impact on driving behaviour: for example speed humps encourage breaking and acceleration with consequent increased fuel consumption and noise.  Nonetheless, there seems to be a general recognition that residential streets are for people and – for as long as we have them – their own cars, even if action to develop this belief into practicable schemes is thin on the ground.

Those who live on the main roads into cities fare less well.  The A30 at its London end – the Great South West Road – was one of the capital’s inter-war major road building schemes.  Today it is a grim industrial three-lane dual carriageway corridor, with Heathrow Airport on one side and industrial buildings or open spaces on the other.  By contrast, what was the A30 at its Exeter end is the narrow East Wonford Hill, Heavitree Fore Street and then (surprisingly) Magdalen Road.  Apart from the centre of Heavitree, the road is mostly lined on both sides by housing.

Although the through traffic has alternative routes, vehicles heading for central Exeter have no choice but to use one of the main arterial roads, built for an age that could not foresee the growth of motor vehicles.  Heavitree Road has substitiuted for Magdalen Road, but Pinhoe Road, Cowick Street, Topsham Road and Alphington Road (the latter two are signposted routes from the national network) have no such relief.  All these roads are primarily residential, with some parts such as East Wonford Hill and the city end of Pinhoe Road having the houses very close to the road itself.

In my post Tackling congestion won’t make our streets liveable I suggest that tackling air pollution from traffic congestion is an essential but short-life issue.  It should not dominate our thinking at the expense of making our streets, including the main roads, liveable for people.  Yet we need, for the foreseeable future, ways of continuing to allow buses, trade vehicles and residents’ private cars to enter and exit the city centre; and until the public transport offer is improved, commuter traffic will still be with us.

Typically, an Exeter main road looks like this:

Roads1

The characteristics of such roads are:

  • High volumes of traffic at peak hours, making crossing the road other than at lights or zebra crossings difficult or unsafe.
  • Traffic noise and fumes.
  • Random use of either the pavement or the road by cyclists and mobility scooters.
  • In some places (eg on Polsloe Road, Blackboy Road) the pavements are so narrow that it is impossible for people to pass without unacceptable intimacy or one of them risking life by stepping onto the road.

Separation schemes are already in use – see the cycle lane against the traffic flow on Paris Street.  However the lack of physical barriers enforcing separation weakens their impact.  The new cycle lane being built on Cumberland Way near the Met Office has such physical separation and is a welcome step forward.  Cumberland Way is wide enough to allow two lanes of traffic in addition to the cycle lane.

Yet this doesn’t do much to make the road more “liveable”, to overcome the adverse characteristics of main roads highlighted above.  For that, we need something like this:

Roads2

What you see here is a primarily (but not solely) one-way street for motor traffic, with generous two-way provision for everyone else.   Vehicle drivers who live locally, ie in a side street off the main road, and who are arriving against the main flow of traffic, won’t want to drive around a large one-way system (see the final part of this post) to get to their homes, and nor should we want them to generate extra noise and fumes by having to do so.  Hence the idea of an airport-style car park barrier with vehicle licence plate recognition technology: residents simply provide proof of residence to the local authority to register their vehicle and the barrier lets them through.  A fixed barrier at the far end prevents vehicles from rat-running, and they may need to drive onto the “non-vehicle path” to avoid larger vehicles coming the other way or to unload/pick up.  An exception to the fixed barrier may be needed for buses to pass against the main traffic flow.

But what of those narrow main roads that can only manage two lanes of traffic as they are?  How do we bring in separation schemes there?  Take, for example, the west end of Pinhoe Road, so narrow that parking is prohibited on both sides.  This is a major route in and out of the city centre, so it clearly needs to accommodate traffic.  A possible solution is this:

Roads3

In other words, the same principles, but with one of the “non-vehicle paths” taken out.

By now, readers’ objections are mounting.  Two issues in particular are nagging away: parking; and the evils of one-way streets.

Let’s take parking.  None of us has the right to park outside our house on a public road.  Sometimes there isn’t room without obstructing traffic.  Or there’s a double yellow line.  Or another car is parked there.  So the absence of parking provision on these new-style roads is not adding to challenges that already exist.

Next, one-way streets.  Much beloved of traffic planners in the 60s and 70s, main road one-way streets became more like race tracks, with pedestrians hemmed in behind safety barriers.  Drive into central Brighton from the north if you want a taste of it.  But those one-way streets are a nightmare because they were designed to speed up traffic.  What we need now are one-way streets which allow the traffic to flow, thus avoiding congestion and fumes, but to flow at controlled low speeds of say, 20 mph maximum.

And below is how part of a one-way system might work.  The aim is to reduce volumes of traffic on individual main roads – by making them one-way – and to improve the environment for residents of those roads by reducing the space for motor traffic and increasing the space for other users.  Barriers would be needed in side streets to prevent rat-running to escape the one-way restrictions.

ROADS$a

OK, this is not fully worked out.  It’s a possible model to add to the options for making our cities and towns places where motor vehicles are less important than liveable spaces.

Up for a transport challenge?

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The Exeter City Futures challenge fund approach to making the Exeter area congestion-free is not for the faint-hearted.

Exeter City Futures (ECF) is a community interest company with a mission to make Exeter and the surrounding area sustainable for the future.  Their first goals are to make the area congestion-free and energy-independent by 2025.  Not much time then, so it’s good to see a concrete initiative coming forward.

ECF has just launched a specific challenge as part of the congestion-free goal. The website [1] states:

A group of employers based at Exeter Business Park have expressed a requirement for an alternative transport choice for commuting to their offices so they can reduce the number of private cars arriving at site.

We’re offering an amazing opportunity for an early stage start-up to develop and deploy a service that is as attractive and flexible as the private car and presents a viable and investable business model for growth.

Can employees travel to work via a responsive, on-demand minibus service? Can it take you from where you want, to where you want, when you want, all for the price of a bus fare?

Are you up for the challenge? If you have a concept that has potential to deliver a successful service, then apply now.

The website gives details of the support available to the selected concept, which is significant, including £15,000, a 17-seat minibus and lots of mentoring and access to data.  The plan is that the concept is worked up into a saleable proposal (“incubated”), with the potential to scale up.

Now I’m far too relaxed to be pitching for this sort of thing myself, but it strikes me that the prescriptive nature of the invitation might be designed to attract only those who like a mission near-impossible (and why not?).  In particular, why is a minibus service the preferred solution?  It seems to rule out alternative packages such as a Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) [2] approach involving different transport modes and providers which could achieve the same goal, if the right partners could be found (though perhaps the idea of Stagecoach participating in a MaaS is a bridge too far [3]).  Less elaborately, what about a simple behaviour-change model in which staff at the business park are charged for parking but receive a bus season ticket in return?  OK, the half-hourly B bus doesn’t quite meet the “on-demand” requirement.

So, seen in that light, the minibus service outlined in the invitation is a worthwhile goal in its own right, however tough.  If I were judging the final proposals – whether they’d been through the incubation route or submitted direct – I’d be looking for the following assurances:

  • A business plan that makes use of smart technology to keep costs down and customer convenience up, so that the service offers a real alternative to the private car.
  • A method of generating income that enables the operator to manage troughs in demand.
  • An operating model that demonstrates reliability in the service, including the use of smart technology to maximise the efficient use of minibuses in line with customer requirements.
  • Similarly, a model that demonstrates resilience: number of minibuses, responsibility for operating and maintaining the fleet.
  • Non-exploitative employment conditions for staff and/or contractors.
  • Regulatory issues identified and resolved, eg need to involve Traffic Commissioners, use of bus lanes.
  • Potential to scale up so that large parts of the city would be covered by this transport model, which requires a good understanding of commuting and other travel patterns.
  • Who other partners – customers and providers – in scaling up might be.
  • Realistic assumptions about how many private cars could be taken off the road at each phase of expansion.
  • And, as a prejudice of my own, the opportunity for developing a social enterprise rather than shareholder value business.

There’ll be other issues to resolve.  It all sounds great fun, but also very hard work.  Let’s hope the bright and savvy people out there will make a go of it.  And congratulations to the Exeter City Futures team for generating the opportunity.

NOTES:

[1] https://www.exetercityfutures.com/programme/open-for-application/

[2] For an explanation of MaaS, see http://maas-alliance.eu/

[3] That said, it’s encouraging to see Stagecoach South West moving in the right direction with the introduction of a smart phone app through which passengers can buy day tickets and just show them to the driver on the phone rather than scramble for cash (and delay the bus).  Details at https://www.stagecoachbus.com/news/south-west/2017/january/mobile-ticketing-launched-across-stagecoach-south-west

Small but significant: Exeter City Council’s energy measures

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I didn’t pick it up at the time, but a recent Exeter City Council report reminds its readers that the Council won a national award earlier in the year for its Renewables and Energy Efficiency Programme.  The Local Government Chronicle’s Environment Award was won by the Council for an “ambitious programme of projects to achieve energy reduction, to generate renewable energy and to be an energy-neutral council” [1].

Somewhat bizarrely, typing the programme’s name into the search engine on the Council’s website generates a “no results found” response, but progress reports to members of the Council show that the programme is being effectively delivered through a small team of two people. Solar PV on roofs of council-owned buildings such as car parks and the livestock centre have made a particular impact.  Work on battery storage, to build on this, is planned, as is the use of smart metering [2].

In the great scheme of things this is small beer.  But it is an important signal: the Council is giving a practical lead on climate change issues, as well as achieving some small financial savings.

Senior management have said that if the team could be expanded, much more could be achieved.  It would be a good use of our money if Council members agreed.

 

NOTES:

[1]   https://www.lgcplus.com/home/lgc-awards-2016/environment/7002814.article

[2]   The latest progress report can be downloaded from http://committees.exeter.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=634&MId=4843&Ver=4 item 13.

We need new approaches to mobility, now

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In a previous post I suggested that our mobility patterns – driven by past and current spatial and transport policies – were contributing significantly to a range of environmental and social problems.  I questioned whether incremental changes based on current transport models would deliver the radical changes needed if Exeter were to become a clean, healthy, vibrant and sustainable city.

It’s clear there is no magic bullet.  We have to start from where we are now, with a legacy of spatial planning that has allowed the city to sprawl (to accommodate the types of housing housebuilders are prepared to build).  The sprawl has been accompanied by a planning policy which seeks to avoid creating competition to the commercial interests of the city centre, thus ensuring that people living in the outlying areas have to travel to the city centre for much of their shopping and employment needs.  Even if there were the political will for an immediate change in spatial planning policies in favour of housing design and location which reduce the need to travel, it would still be decades before the legacy ceased to be a constraint.

So what can we do?

We have no real alternative but to retrofit mobility polices to what we have now.  What follows is more of a mind dump than a comprehensive plan [1].  But then this is only a blog post.  These are however the types of issue we need to consider as viable ways forward, and not simply dismiss them on cost grounds.  Austerity won’t last for ever, so all the more reason to plan now.

First, start seriously reducing demand for travel. 

It’s ludicrous to think we can go on as we are.  In 2013, almost 70% of the UK workforce commuted to work by car during peak times, with the average driver spending 124 hours stuck in gridlock annually. One estimate sets this to rise to 136 hours in 2030, equivalent to 18 working days a year [2].  Not only does this waste time and money and consume natural resources in the way of fuel, it also damages our health.  Government calculations suggest 169 people die in a year in “Greater Exeter” as a result of air pollution from particulates – the stuff found in traffic fumes [3].  And then there’s the impact on traffic-driven infrastructure on our public realm, of which Western Way – separating the Quays from the city centre – is probably the worst example.  So, no pressure, then.

We can and should reform spatial planning with a new emphasis on higher density living to reduce sprawl and easier and/or nearer access to services and jobs – my post The Compact City is relevant here, and I’ll develop the ideas in a later post.  Relocation of essential services and recreational facilities in parts of the city which are badly served will also contribute.

Second, make it more difficult to travel by private car into the city. 

There are at least three audiences to address here: inward commuters from outside the city; people coming from outside and from the suburbs to the city centre for shopping, leisure and eating (and don’t all those new processed food eateries in “Queen Street Dining” make you want to ….?); and people moving around inside the urban area.  Hopefully the Commute Exeter study being led by the University of Exeter [4] will generate some useful data on commuting to inform judgements on the scale of the measures required.  But some simple steps would send out important signals as well as have an immediate impact.  For example:

  • Block off more streets, particularly residential ones, to through traffic. Apart from cutting down rat-running, limiting cars to residents’ own vehicles will give priority to pedestrians and cyclists, and lead to an immediate improvement in the local quality of life and of the environment.  Cost: capital works and signage.
  • Reduce the width of main roads available to cars, by installing a mix of bus lanes, wide cycleways and broader pavements (the last being increasingly necessary to cope with personal mobility aids). Cost: capital works.
  • Cut the number of car-parking spaces in the central area (and ensure that residents’ parking schemes in the surrounding areas are enforced to prevent displacement of car parking). The brutalist multi-stories could be demolished and converted into much-needed affordable housing or green space, as could the open-space car parks. Think of the transformation in the Paul Street/North Street/Mary Arches area!  Cost: self-financing
  • Increase car parking charges for the remaining car park spaces, but with a discount or free pass for cars operated by car clubs. Cost: nil.
  • Use available powers to introduce workplace parking levies, not just in the city centre, but beyond, with the revenue going to support transport improvements, including a “Boris bike” cycle hire scheme for Exeter [5]. A workplace levy scheme is already in operation in Nottingham, with one planned for Cambridge [6]. Cost: administration, to be financed from the scheme.
  • Enforce existing traffic restrictions, with exemplary fines: drivers are increasingly ignoring exclusions of vehicles from particular streets which were put in place to stop rat-running through the central area. Cost: additional enforcement staff, to be paid for from fines.
  • Change traffic light priorities so that cars are held up while buses are given priority. Cost: minimal

Key benefits of making life difficult for the private car are a reduction in pollution and congestion and an improvement in the quality of the public realm.  But it also takes us further down the path of reclaiming the streets for people, whether as walkers, cyclists or using personal mobility aids.

Third, improve the bus transport offer. 

This is a major undertaking, but is now urgent.  A recent report identifies the weaknesses in the current deregulated bus service model which operates in England outside London [7].  In brief, the model pits private sector profit maximisation against the public interest, and guess which currently wins, with poor value for money for the taxpayer and the bus passenger.

Specifically:

  • There needs to be a rebalancing of the relationship between local authorities and near-monopolistic private bus operators. The Bus Services Bill currently in Parliament will enable certain local transport authorities to introduce franchising of bus services, thus giving communities greater influence over service provision.  The rub is that franchising can only be introduced if the bus operators agree.  Local authorities are prevented from setting up their own bus companies, but not-very-arms-length social enterprises could be feasible.
  • Speed up bus services. This means cutting down on private car-led congestion (see above) but also putting in bus priority lanes and speeding up boarding and disembarking (see below).  A culture change to the continental model of trusting people to buy tickets (and hitting them hard with fines for cheating) rather than checking everyone on entry would also help.
  • Conventional buses are generally unattractive. Most are uncomfortable – try sitting in an airline seat on a city bus without bashing your knees.  They can be crowded, slow, late, erratic and infrequent.  The Park & Ride buses, with better seats, a regular and frequent service interval, and with limited stops appear generally successful – though P&R itself is not a panacea (see my post on this).
  • City buses need to be redesigned to allow faster entry and exit for passengers, and to make standing easier, as well as increased accommodation for mobility aids and buggies. This may require some differentiation of buses for particular passenger groups.
  • More flexibility of routes is highly desirable. It’s great if you live on or near a bus route, but no fun if you don’t.  Evening and Sunday services don’t reflect the fact that people want to travel at these times as well.
  • Country buses will only attract people out of their cars if they are more frequent and more flexible. Bearing in mind the rural nature of the Exeter hinterland, imaginative approaches such as minibuses (or even cars) circulating around villages and feeding into a fast bus service to the city (or a train) have a role here.  Secure bicycle parks at feeder points should encourage those who are fit enough to cycle from the remoter places.

Future innovation

There is no shortage of more radical approaches.  The driverless vehicle is attracting considerable enthusiasm [8], though I’m still sceptical enough to see it as a technology fix in search of a problem to solve.

Of greater interest is the concept of MaaS – Mobility as a Service.  In this vision of the future, both individual private car ownership and reliance on a single transport mode fall away to be replaced by a menu of personalised multi-modal travel options, using data to provide information about the fastest or cheapest or least congested or disablement-friendly way of getting from A to B [9].  Ever-innovative Helsinki has plans to move down this road [10].

 

NOTES:

[1]  This post focuses on Exeter’s roads and not on rail.  Though this opens up a charge of non-joined-up thinking, there are serious constraints on the ability of the rail network – even with new investment – to make a major difference to our mobility challenges.  I’ll review this in a separate post.

[2]  From a study by INRIX and the Centre for Economics and Business Research Economic and Environmental Cost of Traffic Congestion in Europe & the US.(2014) – see http://inrix.com/press/traffic-congestion-to-cost-the-uk-economy-more-than-300-billion-over-the-next-16-year

[3]  See Public Health England statistics at www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/332854/PHE_CRCE_010.pdf page 17.  The figure is a total for Exeter, Teignbridge and East Devon districts.

[4]  See www.commute-exeter.com

[5]   Now known as Santander Cycles – https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/cycling/santander-cycles. The estimable Co-Cars, a social enterprise car club based in Exeter is setting up an electric bike hire scheme – see www.co-bikes.co.uk. This will be great for those of us who’d like to cycle but are put off by the city’s hills.

[6]  Nottingham: http://www.nottinghamcity.gov.uk/transport-parking-and-streets/parking-and-permits/workplace-parking-levy/  Cambridge: http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/cambridge-8217-s-8216-workplace-parking-levy-8217/story-29316857-detail/story.html

[7]  Building a World-class Bus System for Britain by Transport for Quality of Life, May 2016, available at www.transportforqualityoflife.com/ .  The Extended Summary is excellent.

[8]  A report on pilot schemes is at www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30316458

[9]  For a useful introduction to MaaS, see a July 2016 report from the Transport Systems Catapult, Exploring the Opportunity for Mobility as a Service in the UK, available at https://ts.catapult.org.uk/intelligent-mobility/im-resources/maasreport/

[10]  www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/jul/10/helsinki-shared-public-transport-plan-car-ownership-pointless

 

A Tale of Two …urban extensions

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In my post on the Compact City, I noted the different choices made by Freiburg and Exeter in their approaches to balancing the need to provide new homes against the need to protect the natural environment.  To illustrate how these choices played out in practice, what follows is a brief study of how the two cities have managed urban extensions.

Freiburg

Within Freiburg’s southern city boundary is the district of Vauban, built on the site of a former French army barracks about 3km from the city centre [1].  Planned and developed between 1994 and 2014, with building work starting in 1998, the district was designed to be an exemplar of sustainable living.  Its population at the end of 2014 was 5,600, or 2.5% of the city’s total population.  Covering some 40 hectares, the whole district is easily walkable from one end to the other.

The city council bought the land from the German federal government, and so had effective control over land use decisions.  In planning the development, however, the council worked in a formal partnership with communities, through a purpose-built organisation known as Forum Vauban, a vehicle for articulating community views and for influencing the types of housing, traffic and energy plans and ensuring the development of a community centre for social services.

The City Council and the Forum took steps to ensure that the Vauban community was indeed “green”.

  • Energy-efficient housing was mandated, including over 100 buildings to PassivHaus standards. Solar energy is a major contributor to energy needs, and was designed into some of the buildings from the start.  Rainwater is captured on flat roofs.
  • Preference was given to co-operative housebuilders. Though there was some privately-built housing, the major housebuilding firms were excluded from Vauban.
  • The district is designed to provide some 600 jobs: in shops, schools, businesses and community services. This does not appear to have stopped commuting, but it is a better jobs to houses ratio than in many other places.

160628 Vauban Mitte

Transport planning has been managed seriously and proactively.  In particular:

  • Cars are not banned, but they must be parked in a community car park on the edge of the district, not beside houses and apartments. Households without cars don’t have to pay towards the community car park upkeep.  Car-sharing through a car club is on offer.
  • The excellent tram service was integrated into the development at an early stage, with services running from 2006. Trams to the city centre and beyond run on dedicated tracks along the district’s main central road, every 7-8 minutes.  The trams – and the buses – are run by a municipally-owned company.
  • Bicycles are in common use. The whole district is flat, there are few cars to create conflicts with cyclists, and ample parking for cycles both at the main tram stops and in residential areas.

160628 Vauban culdesac

Vauban looks modern but it doesn’t “feel” like a new town.  Its main street has ample shops and businesses, there are plenty of people walking and cycling.  The architecture is varied and well located around green spaces.

Though not designed to the same green standards, another major urban extension in Freiburg is the district of Rieselfeld [2].  Larger than Vauban, at nearly 10,000 residents on a 70-hectare site, it was also built on brownfield land – a former sewage works – without breaching the city boundaries to encroach on green space.  In Riesefeld too, the tram system was an early piece of infrastructure and now runs at the same frequency as in Vauban, taking 15 minutes to the city centre.

Both these developments are real expressions of Freiburg’s planning policy “It is quite clear: the more residential areas constructed on the outskirts of a city, the greater the negative ecological consequences. The prime directive of the city of Freiburg is therefore to keep the need for new areas to an absolute minimum.” [3].  In pursuing this goal, the city’s planners have not been afraid to plan for high-density living:  Vauban’s population is currently 137 people per hectare, the highest by far of any of the Freiburg city districts, and the density in Rieselfeld is 100 per hectare.  The average for the city as a whole is 49 [4].

Exeter

The policy response to Exeter’s housing need has been, reasonably enough, to get more houses built.  The key planning document, the Core Strategy (no longer as key as it was, but that’s another story), commits to an increase of at least 12,000 dwellings within the city boundaries between 2006 and 2026.  As a result, major developments of several hundred houses have grownn and are growing up on the city’s fringes, particularly to the east, pushing against the city’s administrative boundary.

Many of these developments are housing-driven, with little by the way of the services that make life tolerable.  In a growth area in the east of the city, a proposal for a shopping centre was refused by the city council on the grounds that it could have an adverse impact on trade in the city centre.  To be fair to the council, the proposal was a bit OTT, and plans for a more modest district shops and services centre would probably have been approved.  Meanwhile the residents are as far away for easily accessible shops as ever, yet another example why planning is too important to be left to “the market”.

A characteristic of Exeter’s housing developments is that they sprawl, often onto greenfields.  Despite fine words in planning documents, it seems to be impossible to impose any sort of density requirement on house-builders through the planning system, and to prevent the gradual (and not so gradual) erosion of unprotected green space.  It’s common knowledge that housebuilders prefer building 3-4 bed “executive homes” with garages and gardens, because they will make greater profits than from building 1-bed apartments.  It’s also common knowledge that they prefer building on green space rather than brownfield – previously developed – land.

One consequence of Exeter running out of developable space has been a new settlement, Cranbrook, over the boundary in East Devon.  Started 5 years ago, currently at 1,300 homes, it is planned to quadruple in size over the next 20 years, all on greenfield land.  This new town has very little to do with East Devon’s own housing need, and everything to with Exeter’s: as late as September 2015, a report to Devon County Council concluded that decisions needed to be taken on “whether Cranbrook would constitute a standalone development in the future or an urban extension of Exeter, linking with other developments taking place in its vicinity as part of a wider growth corridor” [5].

Cranbrook is modestly described in East Devon’s Local Plan [6] as follows: “[the} efforts in delivering this self-sufficient, low-carbon new town, the first stand-alone settlement in Devon since the Middle Ages, have won national acclaim.  A sustainable community located close to real employment opportunities, among them a significant number of highly-skilled jobs, will be an exemplar for green travel.”

Ho hum.  A quick, and admittedly not comprehensive, comparison with the green district of Vauban raises a few questions about these claims.

  • First, and crucially, there are no car restrictions in Cranbrook. Almost every house has a garage or a car parking space, so there is no incentive for the residents to use public transport.  This is not surprising because, second comparison, public transport is sparse.  There is a train once an hour from the new station – opened two years late – west to Exeter or east to Honiton and beyond.  The bus service to Exeter is half-hourly most of the day.

160807 Brooks Warren(1)

 

  • Cycles are a rare sight. On a weekday morning there was one parked at the railway station.

160817 Stn bike park weekday(2)

  • Vauban has its central spine, walkable from one end to the other in 10 minutes, but the overall shape of the place is rectangular.  Cranbrook is a linear sausage, planned to become even longer in the future.  Both are the products of the site allocated by the planners:  Vauban based on a former barracks, Cranbrook squashed in between a railway line to the north and a former trunk road to the south.  The planners’ density assumption for Cranbrook is 40 dwellings per hectare (excluding green space) [7]

Like Vauban, Cranbrook has a district heating scheme, which is laudable.

Cranbrook’s housing design has been largely left to the developers and house builders.  Apart from the broad locations of housing set out in the Local Plan, there is – perhaps surprisingly – no development plan for the town.  East Devon District Council is currently preparing one, which won’t be adopted until mid-2017 [8].  There is something to be said for not designing a place in full until there are sufficient residents to generate worthwhile public input; but it leaves a great deal to house-builders at the outset.  And, unlike Vauban, the big house-builders are all that’s on offer: Bovis, Taylor Wimpey, Charles Church and Persimmon all strut their stuff.

That said, there have been serious efforts to provide affordable housing.  In the first development phase, 300 houses were offered at social rents or on shared ownership terms, and a further 100 at below market prices on the grounds that their rooms are 20% smaller than average. [9].

It’s probably unfair to judge the “feel” of Cranbrook at this stage.  It’s still being built, and it’s dwarfed by housing.  Yet I’ve met people who live there and rave about it.  Let’s just say it’s got a very long way to go to be a green exemplar, though with intelligent planning and strong local leadership it could get there.

 So what?

These differences between Freiburg and Exeter reflect in large measure wider social and political differences, in particular the embracing by the UK’s – or at least England’s – political classes of market-driven doctrines over the past 30 years.  This contrasts with the “managed social economy” approach prevailing in Germany and much of the rest of the EU.  Whether England’s bosses will ever realise that the market is not the solution to everything is at present unanswerable.

Meanwhile there are lessons in the Exeter-Freiburg comparison, which I will elaborate in future posts: how plans are developed, and community engagement; the relationship between local government and the private sector, and the former’s relationship with central government; the involvement of social and co-operative enterprises; and investment in transport.

 

NOTES:

[1] The website www.vauban.de provides a wealth of information about the origins of the district, some of it in English (though much needs updating).  Freiburg City Council’s website is authoritative but mostly in German: for Vauban, see http://www.freiburg.de/pb/,Lde/208732.html. The Google translation tool at [..] makes a valiant if not wholly successful effort at rendering German planning-speak into English planning-speak.

[2] See the entry in Freiburg City Council’s website at http://www.freiburg.de/pb/,Lde/208560.html (in German)

[3] English text available at http://www.greencity-cluster.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Dateien/Downloads/Environmental_policy_Freiburg.pdf. Page 9 refers.

[4] These figures refer to population per hectare of developed land (“besiedelter Fläche”), so are less prone to distortion from large areas of greenspace in an area.. They are from page 34 of the 2015 edition of the excellent 300-page compendium of statistics published by Freiburg City Council, available at http://www.freiburg.de/pb/site/Freiburg/get/params_E1938626907/906571/statistik_veroeffentlichungen_Jahrbuch_2015-NIEDRIG.pdf  .

[5]  See para 9 of the report at http://www.devon.gov.uk/cma_report.htm?cmadoc=report_cs1519.html

[6] Available at: www.eastdevon.gov.uk/planning/planning-policy/local-plan-2013-2031/

[7]  http://eastdevon.gov.uk/planning-libraries/evidence-document-library/chapter8.1-housing/hsg012-cranbrookexpansionoptions.pdf

[8]  http://eastdevon.gov.uk/cranbrook/

[9] More detail at http://www.exeterandeastdevon.gov.uk/cranbrook-new-community/

 

The Freiburg Charter

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Freiburg’s experience of becoming a green, sustainable city owes much to its governance and political continuity.  What is being achieved there has been distilled into 12 principles, developed by the City of Freiburg and the Academy of Urbanism.  Published in 2012, it is known as the Freiburg Charter, and I reproduce it below.

There is much in it that is already practised in Exeter, and more that could be.

 

THE 12 PRINCIPLES

Spatial Principles

I. DIVERSITY, SAFETY & TOLERANCE

Encouragement of a balanced age and social profile within functioning neighbourhoods, with the provision of appropriate workplaces for all sectors of the population and the encouragement of innovative residential models.

The provision of facilities in public and private infrastructure for all generations with the provision of well-managed places balanced with free spaces.

The provision of a full range of facilities, especially for very young and very old citizens.

The integration of all strands of society irrespective of ethnicity, gender or age.

II. CITY OF NEIGHBOURHOODS

Decentralised governance, with a defined degree of empowerment and personal responsibility, is indispensable for cities and should be actively encouraged.

Decentralised governance is of particular importance in: residential living and working, social infrastructure, education and culture, recreation and management of green spaces and networks.

The protection of a city’s identity is a precondition for sustainable urban planning and development.

III. CITY OF SHORT DISTANCES

Existing facilities should be enhanced and new ones introduced in such a way that they are in accordance with the idea of the Compact City.

Accessibility to all infrastructure networks on foot minimises car traffic and leads to an improvement in environmental quality.

The development of public transport and pedestrian and bicycle networks should be given priority over the use of private motor vehicles.

IV. PUBLIC TRANSPORT & DENSITY

Public transport needs to be closely integrated with the urban design vision and, as a general principle, must always be given priority over car traffic. Increased urban density along public transport routes should be brought about in a sensitive and sustainable manner.

Land uses with civic function and high frequency of use should be located in close proximity to public transportation nodes in order to increase urban intensity.

Content Principles

V. EDUCATION, SCIENCE & CULTURE

Schools and universities, research facilities and cultural institutions make a significant impact on the attractiveness and the quality of a city. They have a strong influence on public life and can have a decisive influence on the planning culture of a city.

A city has to create opportunities for personal development and life-long learning.

VI. INDUSTRY & JOBS

The most important task for the future is the conservation of existing employment and the development of groundbreaking and innovative businesses. In order to achieve this, we must fully tap into every opportunity that enables the city to maintain existing jobs on the one hand, and to develop new ones on the other.

The trend to greenfield development and ‘edge city’ has to be counteracted with a concentration on the regeneration of existing urban fabric. The proper application of these principles is indispensable.

VII. NATURE & ENVIRONMENT

The conservation of biological diversity, the wise use of resources for the benefit of future generations and the protection of a healthy and liveable environment are key objectives for urban development.

All areas of planning have to be evaluated for their impact on the environment prior to implementation, in order to safeguard the habitats of animals and plants as well as historically-important cultural landscapes.

VIII. DESIGN

Most planning decisions shape the appearance of the city for generations. These decisions must therefore support and enhance the character of a city by promoting the highest qualities of design.

Public spaces play a key role: together with their neighbouring buildings they form the public face of a city.

Public property rights and the authority for disposal of public space must remain with the body politic in order to mediate between different interests and to counteract undesirable development.

The development of key building projects has to be led by the planning authority from initial concept through to realisation on the ground.

Tools such as architectural design competitions, multiple commissioning and expert panels should be employed as a general principle, in order to find solutions for important buildings and public spaces.

The structure of the plot plan – as a starting point for diversity – plays a very important role.

Processes of urban redevelopment will be of special importance in the future.

Process Principles

IX. LONG-TERM VISION

Consistent urban planning and development needs to follow a unifying vision that refers back to the city’s past and projects forward several decades.

The face of the city must not be submitted to short-lived fashions or political whim. Additions to cities that have evolved over historical timeframes must anticipate the needs of future generations (conserve the old and celebrate the new). Only in this way can the uniqueness and the character of a city be developed, maintained and enhanced.

Continuity, quality and awareness of the intricacies of a location are important attributes for a sustainable, future-oriented city.

X. COMMUNICATION & PARTICIPATION

Communities must work continuously on their collective vision for the city through public discourse that becomes manifest in public spaces and in city culture.

Continuous communication must be supported among the protagonists and stakeholders inside and outside the city administration. The outputs should be fed directly into planning processes to help create transparency and to inform political decisions.

All parts of a city’s population must be invited to participate, co-operate and engage through appropriate modes of communication – in all phases of development from initial visioning through to detailed planning, delivery and management.

A culture of engagement should be established, employing a wide range of techniques available to central, regional and local authorities.

XI. RELIABILITY, OBLIGATION & FAIRNESS

A citywide concept, with principles of consensus, creates the proper environment within which all the participants in urban development can act with equal rights.

In order for the city to become a reliable partner for all citizens and investors, urban policy needs to be founded on basic resolutions that have a binding effect on the city administration.

Basic principles need to govern site development guidelines and standards of sustainable construction. Guidelines such as the City of Short Distances have to be enshrined in subject-specific policies – such as the retail concepts embodied in Freiburg’s marketplaces and sub-centres. These principles should be made legally binding through development masterplans.

A level of trust should be created between the protagonists within the city’s administration and those outside, based on continuity and with sufficient freedom to enable innovation and creativity to flourish.

XII. CO-OPERATION & PARTNERSHIP

Co-operation and participation serve to distribute and share the burden of complexity of urban planning and development with many.

Financial support for projects creates incentives for investors and can also serve to guide them.

Exemplary action by the community with regard to urban design can stimulate private action and also help to initiate self-fulfilling processes.

Agreements and contracts with stakeholders, the support of – as well as the demand for – citizen commitments, all make wide-ranging urban redevelopment processes possible.

Scientific institutions, universities, industry and professional bodies are important players in innovative urban development.

The Compact City

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How Freiburg does it, Part 2

We tend to like compact cities.  Why?  Is it because compact is the antithesis of urban sprawl, which has negative connotations.  So negative in fact that fighting it was one of the original aims of the Council for the Preservation for Rural England [1], formed 90 years ago, subsequently egged on by Clough Williams-Ellis’ polemic against sprawl in his 1928 book England and the Octopus.

Or is it something more instinctive?  We like our community to be identifiable, recognisable as a place, with its own characteristics and shared experiences.  “I live in London” says nothing.  “I live in Muswell Hill” says a great deal, at least to London residents [2].

Or it may be a recognition that a compact place uses less resources.  This might be energy, whether in the physical effort of walking or cycling around or in having to light dispersed streets at night.  It might be the protection of natural resources by not building on greenfield land.

Or, even better, a combination of all three.

In 2012 Exeter City Council adopted its Core Strategy, the basis of planning up to 2026.  The document states that Exeter is a compact city [3].  It recognises that this may not endure, largely due to housing pressures generated by the city’s growth strategy.  Indeed the strategy is brutally clear (para 2.15):  “To meet the demand for housing, whilst protecting Exeter’s character, it has been a priority to maximise the use of previously developed land. However, greenfield development has also been necessary […].  As there are limited development opportunities remaining within the urban area, the development pressures on the city fringes will continue.”

No doubt much of the response to these pressures is being discussed in the Greater Exeter Visioning Board, which is so secret that we are not allowed to know what it discusses [4]

Whether it is necessary to build on greenfield land is a matter of political choice, not – as the Core Strategy suggests – an immutable law of nature.  A document produced by the apparently now-defunct Local Strategic Partnership and published at the same time as the Core Strategy, entitled Exeter City Centre: A city centre vision for a green capital [5], draws attention to Freiburg:  “In a similarly exceptional location to Freiburg in south-west Germany, one of the world leading sustainable cities, Exeter could be in a good position to embrace a future as a genuinely green city – benefiting from the lifestyle changes, business opportunities and environmental benefits this status would bring.”

Now there’s a key difference between what Freiburg has done and what Exeter proposes to do in its Core Strategy.  Freiburg’s environmental policy document [6] states: “It is quite clear: the more residential areas constructed on the outskirts of a city, the greater the negative ecological consequences. The prime directive of the city of Freiburg is therefore to keep the need for new areas to an absolute minimum.”

The Exeter Core Strategy is more equivocal.  Among the key objectives is: “8. Protect and enhance the city’s unique historic character and townscape, its archaeological heritage, its natural setting that is provided by the valley parks and the hills to the north and west, and its biodiversity and geological assets” (page 15).  This is a valuable statement, but it sets less of a clear direction than Freiburg’s.

Part of the Core Strategy is a Green Infrastructure Network, developed in a 2009 report [7], and carried through into the final plans as two green corridors, one down the River Exe to the west of the city centre and one down the River Clyst to the east of the city’s eastern boundary.  Neither of these areas could be described fairly as the sort of undeveloped open space Freiburg wishes to protect.

Compact cities are not just about protecting the natural environment.  They have huge advantages for daily living: you can easily do city centre shopping or meet friends without having to take a whole half-day over it; if you fall down in the street the green-and-yellow taxi [8] has less far to come; cultural facilities are close by; bus and taxi journeys are shorter and so should cost less.  And so on.

There is no right and wrong in the choices made by Exeter and Freiburg, though they are likely to have different outcomes.  In a future post I’ll discuss how Freiburg has attempted to maintain its compactness and design sustainability into recent developments, built within the city boundaries, and draw out options for Exeter.  Meanwhile, we need to recognise – as exemplified by approaches to the “compact city” – that planning choices are essentially political.

 

NOTES:

[1]  Now the Campaign to Protect Rural England, www.cpre.org.uk

[2]  For the uninitiated, Muswell Hill is a fairly fashionable middle-class part of North London.

[3]  The Core Strategy is available at https://exeter.gov.uk/media/1636/adopted-core-strategy.pdf   Paragraph 2.26 refers.

[4]  See https://petercleasby.com/2016/05/16/whose-vision-is-it-anyway-part-1/

[5]  I cannot trace this document on the internet.

[6]  English text available at http://www.greencity-cluster.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Dateien/Downloads/Environmental_policy_Freiburg.pdf.  Page 9 refers.

[7]  Available via http://www.exeterandeastdevon.gov.uk/green-infrastructure/

[8]  An expression,  used by those with a dark sense of humour, for a paramedic ambulance.