Pete Owens wrote:Spot on report.
It is actually more depressing than the report makes out. It is not that developers are forcing car orientated development that the planning authorities are unable to resist, but planning policies forcing developers to design that way.
One of the settlements mentioned in the report is Chapleford in Warrington. The developers were genuinely motivated to do something different with a design that focused on people rather than cars. It was to be high density and mixed-use with the estate roads leading into informal plazas surrounded by shops. Minimum parking standards were to be dropped (this was before maximum standards became official goverment guidance) The busier bus routes through the estate were to be single-lane-duals to keep speeds down and prevent overtaking buses with a 20mph zone throughout, and the whole area was to be permeable on foot.
The planners were having none of it and resisted every non-conventional element. The single lane duals became wide dual carriageways (albeit encompassing cycle lanes), the plazas were dropped in favour of roundabouts - the shops had to be zoned by a huge dedicated car park. Individual residential parking spaces were insisted on, the speed limit was not allowed (though it has subsequently been adopted as borough policy). The housing plots have tended to be isolated cul-de-sac style. Mixed development was also out (even when this became national policy the local planners still got round it by creating zones for employment and residences miles apart claiming that it was "mixed use on a wider area scale"!) .. oh and they built a spanking new junction on the M62 to serve the area.
The estate is still recognisably different, but those differences are superficial rather than functional.
In order to make a real change a developer will need the single-minded determination to resist all this pressure from the planners plus the political clout to override them - which is probably why they managed to get away with it at Poundbury.
Despite Warrington BC having a LCWIP policy they still make little or no provision for cyclists. The recently made changes ( I won't use the word improvements) to two roads in Warrington. One got cycle lanes, but the other got no cycle provision. But they did manage to find the space to create car parking bays! On a different note, I live on an estate in Warrington. A lot of the residents use the pavement to park their cars on. No doubt these are the same people who complain about cyclists on pavements!