what it’s like to live there: the views of residents on...

What it’s like to live there:the views of residents on thedesign of new housing

Contents

Overview 1

Case studies 5

The challenges 28

Appendix 1 Research methodology 37

Appendix 2Questionnaire for residents’ survey 38

Appendix 3 Template for focus group discussions 40

Published in 2005 by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment.

Graphic design: DuffyPrinted by Ernest Bond Printing Ltd

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,stored in a retrieval system, copied or transmitted without the priorwritten consent of the publisher except that the material may bephotocopied for non-commercial purposes without permission from the publisher. This document is available in other formats on request from the publisher.

CABE is the government’s advisor on architecture, urban design and public space. As a public body, we encourage policymakers to create places that work for people. We help local planners apply national design policy and advise developers and architects,persuading them to put people’s needs first. We show public sectorclients how to commission buildings that meet the needs of theirusers. And we seek to inspire the public to demand more from their buildings and spaces. Advising, influencing and inspiring, we work to create well-designed, welcoming places.

CABE1 Kemble StreetLondon WC2B 4ANT 020 7070 6700F 020 7070 6777E [email protected]

1 Overview

OverviewCABE’s housing audit provides a unique insight into the quality of new private housing getting built in England today. It helpsgovernment, developers, and local authorities understand what is going right, what is going wrong, and why.

The audit is now completed for the three northern regions of England and the three regions of the greater south east. It uses the 16 criteria which make up the Building for Life standard as a benchmark of quality. In making the assessment, we visitedeach of the schemes as well as undertaking wider research tohelp us understand the processes that led to the creation of each development.

However, we recognise that this is only part of the story. CABE knows a great deal about urban design but we are onlytemporary visitors to these neighbourhoods: how do the newhomes measure up for the people who actually live there?

The design of new housing has to be attractive to residents anddeliver on the practical requirements of getting to work, bringingup children and all the other everyday dimensions of our lives. We have therefore tested our professional judgement against theviews of residents: to see if our assessment bore any relation totheir views; and to see which elements they themselves identifiedas good and bad. For this study, we commissioned independentresearchers to conduct in-depth, face-to-face interviews with arandom sample of residents, supplemented with a focus group at each development, using the same themes of the Building for Life criteria to tease out what it’s like to live there. In total, 241 residents from the 11 schemes (20 per cent of residents in total) were asked to give their views on the places where they lived.

This has enabled us to draw comparisons between the scores of the housing audit and residents’ assessments of the sameschemes. The research findings have also contributed to ourunderstanding of the ways in which the actions of planners,architects and developers can contribute to making places where people are genuinely happy to live.

FindingsThe findings show that, in many cases, residents share very similar views to the housing audit assessment. In only two of the11 schemes was there a divergence of more than 20 per cent inthe total scores. However, there are also some differences. In six schemes residents score the scheme in which they live morehighly than the audit and in five schemes residents give it a lower score.

The similarity in the key issues identified by residents in thesouthern and northern developments was also very striking. This suggests there is no great north-south divide in homebuyers’attitudes, just as there is no real contrast in the level of design

People’s choice:what’s it like to

live there?

2 Overview

quality being delivered by housebuilders in the north and south of England, on the basis of CABE’s audits.

In terms of specific issues and concerns, the feedback fromresidents usually emphasised the findings of the audits. But it also added new dimensions. Sometimes these pose a realchallenge to the assumptions of urban designers about what good practice is, and we address how these might be resolved in part three of this report.

The importance of creating a sense of place The lowest scores tended to be awarded by residents where there were few or no features within the development that they felt gave it a distinct identity, although 68 per cent of respondentsacross the schemes rated their development as quite distinctive or very distinctive. In a number of the developments residents told us that a public garden, open space or a river frontage had beeneffectively used to create a strong sense of place and identity for the housing scheme. Where an existing building had beenincluded sensitively within a predominantly new housingdevelopment this appeared to make a significant contribution to whether residents felt the place had real character.

Dealing with the carsThe most controversial aspect of new developments for theresidents was the design of the streets and the provision of carparking. Fewer than half of those questioned in our survey thoughtthe layout of the development for car use was quite easy or veryeasy to navigate. Residents preferred developments where therewas an absence of through traffic, and some welcomed thecreation of cul-de-sacs, which were often associated with a quiet environment where it was safe for children to play.

Car parking provoked heated debate, with only 46 per cent ofrespondents scoring the layout of car parking as good or verygood. This was often less about the design of parking and moreabout the level of provision, which was felt by most people to beinadequate for the scale of car ownership and demands for visitorparking. Attempts to restrict parking spaces as a means of curbingcar ownership were felt to be unrealistic and to have little or no impact on the number of cars a household would acquire.

Using public transport Most adult residents said they use a car for most or all of theirjourneys from home. Some admitted to never having walked out of the housing development.

Despite the proximity of bus services to some of thedevelopments, use of public transport was low. Just over 50 per cent of survey respondents thought that there was a good bus service available; but 30 per cent didn’t have a view,indicating how unimportant the service was to a sizeableproportion of residents. Bus travel has a poor image for mostresidents and their perceptions of its lack of reliability andinfrequency contributed to a preference for using the car. There was also an underlying sense in some of the discussionsthat bus travel did not equate with a modern, upmarket lifestyle.

Street life: residentspreferred cul-de-sacswith no through traffic

3 Overview

Meeting the neighboursIn most of the developments there seems to be little or no social interaction between residents. And it appears that this isoften by choice, not simply because the streets and other publicspaces within a development are not conducive to meeting theneighbours. This poses another big challenge for urban designerssetting out to create spaces for people to meet.

Although people often knew of their immediate neighbours, thisonly occasionally extended to socialising on any scale. The lowscores given by residents for the availability of informal spaces to meet, from cafés to places of worship (viewed as good or very good by only 14 and 15 per cent of residents respectively),may help to explain this. There had been attempts in somedevelopments to hold an event, such as a barbeque, but none of these appeared to have attracted others or been described as a success. Many residents felt that they had busy lives withwork and family and they did not seek to make friends or socialise within the development.

Trust and information The study revealed another set of concerns relating to the qualityof service and product homebuyers receive from developers.Despite the satisfaction derived from moving into a new home –with 73 per cent quite or very satisfied with the interior of theirhome – there were concerns expressed by the residents of manyschemes about the standard and quality of the building works. Inparticular, the use of sub-contractors to deliver individual elementsof the building programme appeared to the residents to lackcoordination or proper quality control.

Furthermore, in a number of the developments, residentsdescribed how the marketing literature had listed intendedamenities or services for the scheme, that had never materialised.This illustrates the findings of a CABE survey of 900 homebuyersin 2004, which revealed that only 3 per cent of the residentssurveyed considered housebuilders as very trustworthy sources of information when choosing a new home.

Out and about: butsocial interaction

is rare

4 Overview

This reportAll of the 241 residents who contributed to this report had lived for at least a year in one of 11 housing developments. Five ofthese 11 were located in the South East, East and London regions,and six in the North West, North East and Yorkshire & Humber.They were chosen to ensure that a good range of regions andtypes of location were represented (inner city, suburban, town and village) and that they reflected a range of different overallscores from the housing audits (poor, average, good, very good).The full description of the study’s methodology can be found in Appendix 1.

The survey and focus groups with residents using as a structurethe Building for Life themes and criteria addressed four mainareas in assessing the features of new developments:

sense of place and character

streets and parking

design and construction

environment and community.

The rest of the report sets out the detailed findings for each of the 11 developments, before moving on to draw out the key lessons and challenges posed by them.

As this report is a companion to the two housing audits, we do not make a full set of recommendations here for government orthe industry – these are dealt with in the other reports. However,when specific issues are raised we do highlight where change is necessary.

We believe that by drawing on the experience of residents, this research adds a critical dimension to the charged debatesurrounding the design quality of new private housing. Thefindings do not always make comfortable reading for architects,designers, developers or policymakers. But they add a richness to our understanding of where schemes can be improved, andfundamentally, of what homebuyers want.

Positive outlook:but our audit does

not always makecomfortable

reading for theprofessionals

Case studiesThis section considers the 11 case study schemes (five in the south, six in the north).

Residents were questioned through an in-depth survey and focus group to establish their views on design quality in theirhome and neighbourhood. This process mirrored the audit in which the design professionals scored each Building for Life criteria.

Each case study presents:

comparative scores, including a breakdown of scores in the four themes identified in Chapter 1

key issues articulated by residents, illustrated using quotationsand related photos of each scheme.

Harrisons Wharf

Region South EastLocation London Road, Purfleet, EssexSetting SuburbanDeveloper Bellway plcSize 103 homes

The key feature that gave residents of Harrison’s Wharf a clear sense of place and identity was the locationof the blocks of flats along the riverfrontage: ‘The view is what makesthis place different’

Some residents commented thatgreater use of glass would havemaximised the benefits from theviews, as well as the space and light: ‘The views win it. It mightcompromise the design but thereshould be more glass because the view is so good and it is whatmakes this place so different fromanywhere else we’ve lived’

A brick wall encloses one flank of thedevelopment and divides it off fromthe adjacent hotel and pub. Someresidents regretted that the wall didnot continue to enclose the wholedevelopment with gating to enhancesecurity to the housing and especiallyto the car parking

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Comparative residents’ (left) and audit (right) scores by theme

Sense of place and character

The audit gave this scheme a score of 44 per cent on streetsand parking, reflecting the dominance of car parking in themain internal spaces (although the local authority negotiated a reduction in standards to 1.2 parking spaces per unit afterwhat was seen as over-provision in the first phase). Theresidents’ panel gave the scheme a high 76 per cent rating for the streets and parking section, representing satisfactionwith the layout of the scheme for car users and pedestrians.Residents appear not to be put off by wide dominating roadsand large areas of poorly landscaped parking. Many residentsof this scheme would like parking for two cars plus provisionfor visitors.

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7 Case studies

Although close proximity to therailway station with services to centralLondon was identified as one of thekey reasons for choosing to live atHarrisons Wharf, most residents usetheir car for all other journeys. Manyidentified a lack of adequate parkingwith only one space per property and little for visitors: ‘It would put a family off living here with only one space and most people havingat least two cars. There are only asmall number of spaces for whenfriends or family call and they can’tusually get into them anyway’

The majority of those interviewed felt that the car parking added to theattractiveness of the development –people associated car parking withthe value of the property and felt that potential buyers expected newdevelopments to have safe andconvenient parking: ‘We have two cars. You have to here to get anywhere, so we need moreparking spaces, it’s as simple asthat. People expect it these days. I would not buy a place if I had no car parking space but now we realise that we shouldn’t havebought without having two’

Residents liked the distinctiveness of the design of the flats on the riverfrontage: ‘These are the only flats like this in the area andeveryone around here knows the development. There’s a lot of new building going on now but they tend to be just the usualrows of houses, all the same.These are different with the pillarsoutside and the river views

Residents were also frustrated with the lack of space to meet theirchanging needs: ‘Well we’re notreally moving because we’re fed up with living here, we like it. Butwe want a slightly bigger spacebecause of increasing the family. If that wasn’t the case, I would behappy to stay on here, but it’s sucha pity that there’s no space and wehave to move. If only these thingsand people’s changing needs werethought through properly when new housing is built’

Main road flats ‘are like a lot of other housing that is builtaround here’

Residents were less keen on thehousing to the rear of the site andflanking the main road. This was notthought to have any features thatgave it a particular identity: ‘I thinkthe other housing is OK, it’smodern but looks like a lot of other housing that is being builtaround here. I don’t think it blendsparticularly well with the existinghousing along the main road, but I don’t think that matters much. The same could probably be saidabout a lot of the other newhousing around here’

Environment and communityDesign and constructionStreets and parking

The score for local services was low in comparison with those givenfor the other themes. Residentsscored the community aspects oftheir scheme 18 per cent lower thanthe audit. This mainly reflected thelow availability of services, especiallyshops in the vicinity of the scheme.

Beaulieu Park

Region EastLocation White Hart Lane, Chelmsford, EssexSetting SuburbanDeveloper David Wilson HomesSize 102 homes

In addition to the large scale of thedevelopment, residents identified that the variety of house sizes anddiffering exterior finishes collectivelycontributed to a sense of place and a distinctive identity: ‘I think the factthat the houses are so mixed givesits own identity. It reminds me ofNew England houses with thefinishes on them. Although noteveryone likes it and some peoplethink it’s Toyland, at the end of theday I think it’s better than living in arow of terraced houses that are allthe same’

‘The variety and its size is whatpeople associate immediately withBeaulieu Park. People all know itlocally’

Residents felt the open space wasenhanced by the retention of localfeatures such as a mature oak treeand the planting of new trees. These gave the whole development a ‘welcome green feel and a senseof space’

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This scheme has the biggest gap in overall score betweenresidents (57 per cent) and the audit (80 per cent). The auditpraised the overall masterplan, considering that roads weresafe and well connected and the building was ‘of good, if not exceptional architectural quality’. However, the residents’panel considered roads too narrow and parking provisioninsufficient. Residents seem not to be getting the sustainabilitymessage about the desirability of reducing car journeys andincorporating mixed communities. Aspirational lifestyles seemto be identified with exclusivity and owning more and largercars rather than sustainable forms of transport and layoutswhere the pedestrian takes precedence over the car.

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9 Case studies

Residents felt the estate connectswell with the existing roads and pathsand that successful efforts had beenmade to reduce the impact on thehousing on the main peripheral road:‘They’ve put a bank of higherground in there, they built up thebanks and put in new vegetation to reduce the sound and screen the road. I think if you’ve got anyhousing development by a busyroad then that’s a must’

However, residents described theroad layout within the development as ‘something of a maze’ and feltthe tendency for ‘roads andpavements to merge into eachother’ was unsafe. They also thoughtsome roads were too narrow andcould cause difficulties of access foremergency services, especially giventhe volume of on-street parking

They thought car parking provisionwas inadequate given the high levelof car ownership and said someresidents were moving out for thisreason. Some residents found thegarages too small for the size of theircars, especially four-wheel drive orSUVs. ‘I think problems with thegarage size is a common thing.Cars are fairly big and wide thesedays and the width of singlegarages is probably not bigenough. And I would say as ageneral building principle I thinkgarage width should be at least sixinches or maybe a foot wider. Itwould cut down on people havingto park on the street’

Most residents in the survey identifiedthe variety in design and exteriors asone of the most appealing features ofBeaulieu Park: ‘I do like the differentstyles, there was a choice of aboutfive different styles and even theones that aren’t brick are indifferent colours. That and thesheer number of new houses here make the place different’


Some residents liked the mix of lowcost and larger, expensive housingwithin the development: ‘As a modelfor new housing, I don’t think thedesign is anything new. The bit that is new is that the governmentare saying that these new housingdevelopments should include anaspect of affordable housing.That’s not a problem I think atBeaulieu Park but it doesn’t makeit different. What makes BeaulieuPark stand out a little bit more arethe greater number of the largerhouses, and the scale as well’

However, it was acknowledged thatresidents tended to only know peoplewho lived in a similar tenure and sizeof property to their own: ‘It’s got the potential to be a community but personally I only probably reallyknow my neighbours, people wholive in the same type of house as I do. I don’t think there’s muchmixing. I also think there’s a bit of a divide between the affordablehousing and the people that havebought’

The lowest score was recorded for the community facilities. Residents identified a low availabilityof local services in the immediateneighbourhood with car trips the mostfrequent mode of transport to accessfor shopping and leisure.

Willow Court

Region EastLocation Windley Tye, Chelmsford, EssexSetting SuburbanDeveloper Bellway plcSize 21 homes

Willow Court scored exceptionallyhighly in residents’ assessment of a sense of place. The garden at thecentre of the development, partlyencircled by the new houses, was a key feature that residents said gavethe development a clear identity.Another key feature for attractivenessand identity were the water meadows,overlooked by a crescent of newhouses: ‘The architecture is superbwith good views and the littlegarden. The mix of houses andparticularly the crescent of housesoverlooking the open fields createa vista not unlike the RoyalCrescent in Bath. It has atraditional feel but with all themodern amenities’

Residents felt the development madegood use of the existing landscapewith all the houses having ‘a greenaspect’ that creates a sense ofspace: ‘You’re never really cheek byjowl to your neighbours but we’veall got a clear view. That makes forspace and I never feel that there’sa lot of housing here because Ilook out at the meadow’

Easy access from the development to the water meadow was a featureparticularly welcomed by youngpeople

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Willow Court residents score sense of place at 91 per cent –the highest score given by residents across all themes andcase studies. The inclusion of a well-maintained communalgarden is clearly a key element in resident satisfaction with this scheme as well as a clear identity giving the feel of an Essex village. Residents want to live in distinctiveneighbourhoods which gives them a sense of belonging. The green space at Willow Court is an integral part of thelayout ensuring that both public and private space positivelyimpacts on all aspects of the development.

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11 Case studies

Residents thought the simple roadlayout, mainly encircling the centralgarden, was easy to navigate by footor by car and ‘the modern tendencynot to build streets makes for amore pleasant outlook rather thaneverything in rows’.

Although there are bus services closeby to Chelmsford town centre, mostof those interviewed at Willow Courtchose to drive – even to take theirchildren to and from a popular privateschool that is within walking distance.Some residents thought the carparking was adequate, but others felt that there was too little given the levels of car ownership and thedemand generated by visitors

The space within the developmentand between the propertiescontributed to its appeal, andresidents feel the design around the communal (and well-maintained)garden contributed to a specialambience: ‘I like the way that thegreen space in the middle of thedevelopment has been made afeature. The village nature of thedevelopment gives it a uniqueidentity. To us it has the feel of an Essex village’


Although residents tended to scorethe availability of local services ashigher than in some other casestudies, use was fairly low. Residentstended to travel to the town centre orelsewhere to access a greater varietyand quality of services, especially forshopping and leisure

Residents felt that development had the potential to meet lifestylechanges because it had four- andfive-bedrooms houses, and that over time this might ‘help to build up a sense of community’.

Bolnore Village

Region South EastLocation Haywards HeathSetting RuralDeveloper David Wilson HomesSize 21 homes

Residents identified that the scale of development and variety of buildingstyles over the whole scheme gaveBolnore Village a sense of identity:‘We have certainly got our ownidentity in the village. They builtwhat I call that medieval bit in the middle and then they’ve donelike the rustic 18th century bit at the top. The different styles of the houses are amazing I think.They’ve tried to make it look likethings were built at different times,which is quite good because itlooks like it developed graduallyrather than all at once’

Residents appreciated therelationship of their housing to the existing landscape of trees and fields: ‘It is a real bonus beingsurrounded by fields and trees andnot just houses. It makes you feelpart of the country and gives you a bit more space and some peaceand quiet. I like how some of thehousing appears to have been builtto take advantage of the views andthe greenery’

However, there were concerns thatthe vegetation within the developmentoverall was quite sparse: ‘You cansee they have tried to keep it quitegreen. That’s as you’re drivingdown through the village andthrough the posh bit at the top withthe flowers and all that greenery.Here, as it is now, they appear tohave done the bare minimum and I think they should’ve put in somenicer plants and flowers like theyhave at the top. Here it’s a bit bare’

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This scheme had the lowest overall score from residents (42 per cent) of any of the case studies. The residents’ panel clearly felt let down that community facilities that had been promised them have still not been built. Nearly all of the residents ranked the provision of shops, pubs,cafés/restaurants, places of worship and GPs as ‘very poor’.There is a real need to ensure that the community servicesand facilities included in planning applications and marketingliterature are delivered on the ground.

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13 Case studies

Residents in one part of BolnoreVillage felt the roads were difficult to navigate by car and on foot: ‘Theroads are not well designed downhere. There are tight corners, oftenfor no apparent reason, and withpeople parking their cars and vans on the corners, it makes itdangerous with blind corners. I can imagine also that with peopleparking their cars half on thepavement, it makes it tricky with a buggy to get through’

Most residents felt that the carparking was not sufficient with many two-car households and, as a consequence, road safety wascompromised by on-street parking.For some residents, the location and lighting of the parking area wasidentified as a security issue. ‘I’ve got a parking space round the backof my house so when you walkround it’s like an alleyway. At nightit’s dark, there’s no lighting so it’snot safe to be walking down there’

The small part of Bolnore Village that was the focus for the case studyincluded some variety in the styles of houses and flats that residentsfound appealing with most propertiesfelt to be soundly constructed andwith good amenities. ‘The design ispersonal and looks different frommany houses that I’ve seen. Thedesign and construction is quitetraditional. It is well laid out andspaced and not too much packedin on the development. It gives the overall impression of beingspacious’


Although most residents felt positiveabout their housing, the key concernthat impacted negatively on theirsatisfaction with living at BolnoreVillage was the absence of anyfacilities, reflected in the exceptionallylow score for the community theme

It was observed that since thedevelopment had been marketed as a village environment, communityfacilities had expected to be anintegral part of this: ‘We were toldthe community centre and thedoctor’s were supposed to be there but it’s down to the council to build apparently. The developershave given them two years to build it and if they don’t then weunderstand that the contractors will take it back to develop morehousing. That leaves us withnothing! I don’t think a lot of people will want to stay here then’

Although the central square ofBolnore Village included space forshops, the layout of the service roadsprecluded any major retailer fromtaking up retail space

Although children’s play areas hadbeen installed, there was criticismthat the features were not easy orattractive for a child to use. Priorinvolvement of parents could haveensured the installation of child-friendly equipment.

The Aspect

Region LondonLocation Tysoe Avenue, EnfieldSetting UrbanDeveloper St JamesSize 84 homes

Residents felt the blocks were wellspaced with landscaping and waterfeatures close to the developmentand that this contributed to the visualappeal of The Aspect and its sense of identity: ‘The landscaping and thewater feature make it peaceful andcomforting. The buildings are notcrowding in on each other. Thereare not many places where you can see ducks out your window. It’s definitely a good feature’

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Residents scored The Aspect much higher than the audit on sense of place, streets and parking and design andconstruction. Residents were happy with the small, well-landscaped blocks of flats and parking spaces that were also well landscaped. As the only London scheme, residentsconsider their development to be spacious and attractive.However, this may be more as a result of low expectationsfrom comparable developments in the area. There is a need to raise expectations to demand high-quality design from all new housing developments.

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The majority of residents thought that the layout of car parkingcontributed to the attractiveness of the development assisted by thelandscaping of the spaces. The factthat people can park at differentangles rather than in straight rowswas also said to make it moreattractive than the standard design for car parking

Although residents thought the roadlayout was good for car drivers andpedestrians living at the development,parents driving through The Aspect at either end of the school daycaused problems when they deliveredand collected their children from theadjacent primary school

Most of those interviewed consideredthe car parking to be inadequate asmost households would have aminimum of two cars. They alsothought there were too few spacesfor visitors. ‘Previously on the newdevelopments people have had two allocated parking spaces perflat. Here people have got only oneallocated parking space and someof them have more than two cars. It doesn’t matter that you only putone space for each flat, people willstill go ahead and get the numberof cars they need. Limiting thespaces doesn’t limit the number of cars that people have’

The concentration of new, smallblocks of flats with balconies andbrickwork lighter in colour than thatused in surrounding buildings wereidentified as features that gave TheAspect an individual identity: ‘I wasvery impressed when I saw thehousing, visually it did look verynice and I thought this is a cleanpresentable development, it shouldbe a nice place to live. Over aperiod of years, colour schemes for facades go out of fashion. Herethey have kept it plain but not tooplain, but it means that in ten years’time it’ll still look good’

The space between buildings gives a sense of not beingovercrowded: ‘The buildings are not on top of each other and that makes you feel moreprivate, even though these areall flats. There are lots of windowstoo which I find aestheticallypleasing and make the flats light and airy’


The community theme scored farlower than the other three themes for The Aspect. Although residentswere aware of the availability of localservices, few used them but preferredto take car trips to other shoppingand leisure facilities where it wasperceived that greater choice andquality was on offer

There were some incidents of childrenplaying ball games in the car parkingareas and it was suggested that thereshould be a children’s play area withinthe development. This was not a view shared by everyone as someresidents did not believe this washousing designed or appropriate for young families.

St Peter’s Quarter

Region Yorkshire & HumberLocation Leeman Road, YorkSetting Inner cityDeveloper Taylor Woodrow plc for Wilson Connolly (Northern)Size 229 homes

Most residents identified that thescheme was highly distinctive throughvariety in the styles of the houses andflats. Owner-occupiers in particularfelt that the appearance of St Peter’sQuarter was of a quality, up-marketdevelopment and very different fromthe traditional terraced housing in the immediate area. ‘The houses are only two years old but with atraditional feel. The Georgianfeatures of windows and the streetfurniture means that St Peter’s isan upmarket oasis in what was arundown area at the side of therailway’

Many residents referred to the role of the fountain feature contributing tothe sense of place as well as creatinga focus for the development. ‘Thelayout is easy to understand if you pinpoint directions from thefountain. You can see the wholedevelopment at one go from thefountain area and that helps. Ialways tell people who are visitingto head for that’

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The scheme again shows the value of a central feature suchas a fountain or communal garden (as in Willow Court) tocreating a sense of place. Residents give this theme a highrating of 82 per cent.

Parking was again a major concern for residents even thoughthe scheme is within walking distance of city centre facilitiesand high-frequency bus and rail services. However, someresidents identified a lack of bike storage resulting in bikesusing parking spaces. Notwithstanding this, there is still a massive shift needed in residents’ perceptions of publictransport.

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Although within walking distance of York city centre and with a busservice running adjacent to thedevelopment, car use was high withfew residents regularly using publictransport or choosing to walk. Theadequacy and distribution of carparking was a key issue for manyresidents: ‘There is a lack ofadequate parking and they nevercalculated how many car usersthere are likely to be with all these flats and houses. As aconsequence, people park all along the roads and even on thepavements. Those of us who haveallocated parking spaces oftencan’t get to them. It is not justirritating or unsightly. It undermineshow we feel about living here’

‘There are parts of thedevelopment which are really quite difficult as a pedestrianbecause to cross the road you’vegot to go at a tangent to actuallyget to a point to take a buggy upon the pavement. That wholesituation is exacerbated by parkedcars on corners where you can’tget round’

Some residents identified that thelack of bike storage for the flatsworked against residents usingcycling as an alternative to the car

Although there was some concernexpressed about the quality ofconstruction, generally residentsassessed the design of the housingwith the variety of houses and flats asappealing and contributing to theidentity of the scheme: ‘The differentbrickwork, the slate roofs and theblack solid front doors all creates a real sense of quality andconsistency. The lamps and theironwork blend well together’

‘With the houses built on thecrescent, they do not face eachother directly and that’s importantfor giving you a sense of privacy.The crescent shape and theconservatories built for the housescreate a sense of space andquality’


Although within walking distance of York city centre, in the assessmentof local services many of thoseinterviewed referred specifically toinadequacy of existing shops andpubs in closer proximity to thescheme. Few used these more localservices because they found thechoice and quality on offer did notmeet their needs or lifestyle

Some residents commented that: ‘A play area here is needed for all the children. We do need morecommunal green spaces to sit andrelax in, especially as there are alot of flats here and we don’t haveour own gardens like the houses’

Some owner-occupiers wereconcerned about mixed tenureaspects of the scheme: ‘The actualdesign concept, in theory it’sabsolutely wonderful because you could get a lovely mix ofpeople with the different tenuresand house sizes. But then ofcourse you can get a situationwhere people are less responsiblebecause they are only on short-term lets, here for only three or six months’.

The Broadway

Region North EastLocation Springwell Road, Grindon, SunderlandSetting SuburbanDeveloper Cecil M Yuill Group LtdSize 208 homes

Although the development scoredcomparatively high on a sense ofplace, there is no specific featurewithin it to create an identity or focus.However, residents commented that the variety of dwelling styles(including flats and houses), thespacing between properties, and the scale of the scheme all helped to create a sense of identity andsense of place for the Broadway:‘Other places where there are large housing developments tendto be very uniform. Here there is abit more character and the way it’slaid out with the houses spacedout and not in rows makes it lookdifferent, I think. There is moreindividuality and that givesBroadway a special feel assomewhere a bit different’

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The residents’ panel scored the scheme much higher on the community criterion than the audit report. Residentswelcomed the mix of housing types in the scheme givingchoice for varying age groups and households and helping tocreate a sense of community. It is not clear why residents heresee a mix of housing types, age groups and households as anadvantage where residents elsewhere see this as a problem. A possible explanation could be that the developmentsuccessfully targeted its range of residents to fit with thescheme’s mix. Other schemes may benefit from giving greaterconsideration to the range and mix of existing housing andmeet more clearly defined needs.

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Residents were positive about theinternal road layout and in particularwelcomed the use of cul-de-sacswhere ‘only people who live heredrive down here’. There was arequest for speed restrictions toimprove children’s safety on the main access road through thedevelopment

Despite the proximity of bus servicesinto Sunderland city centre manyresidents did not regularly use publictransport and two or three cars were said to be commonplace for the houses. There were mixed viewsexpressed about the adequacy of the car parking ranging from oneresident who said that they hadenough parking for five cars with agarage and bays to others who saidthat they ‘had only one bay and this was woefully inadequate’

‘I’ve seen worse examples of parking on some estates.Personally, I don’t think it’s too bad but I can certainly sympathisewith people who’ve got more thantwo cars. It’d be a nightmare thento find enough parking and there’slittle or nowhere for visitors to park’

There was a suggestion that it wouldhave been preferable to expand theprovision of car parking by narrowingthe pavements and cutting back onthe front gardens. The unmet demandfor storage space within the homemeant that some residents used theirgarage for this purpose, increasingthe pressure from on-street parking

Residents saw variety in the buildingstyles and exterior finishes togetherwith the spacing of the houses as key features contributing to overallsatisfaction with the Broadway:‘There are four different styles ofhouse on the estate and with fourin a row, each one is different. Thedifferent brickwork and the darkroofs and light ones all adds to thedistinctiveness and its character.The houses are at varying angleswhich makes it better than mostmodern housing which is oftenmuch too uniform in rows’

However, although residents felt that the design and layout of theBroadway was a good model for new housing, there were concernsexpressed by some about the qualityand standard of the construction of the individual homes. ‘It’s thestandard of workmanship insidethat’s the problem. The layout and the design are superb andthat’s the reason why probably all of us bought the houses. It’s the workmanship inside that canbe so bad with different sub-contractors who don’t have a commitment to the wholedevelopment. It just puts adampener on the wholeexperience’


This case study scored higher thanmost for the theme of the community.However, as with other developments,local services were not well used withmany residents preferring to travel(usually by car) to access otherfacilities

Residents welcomed the mix ofhousing types in the scheme (withflats as well as houses) as this meantgreater choice with properties forvarying age groups and households.Some people expressed the view that‘there seems to be a good mix ofpeople and given time we may getmore of a community going here’.

Garlands

Region North WestLocation Garlands Road, CarlisleSetting SuburbanDeveloper Barratt Developments plcSize 443 homes

Many residents identified the greenopen space in the development as anasset: ‘I think it’s the open space inthe middle of the estate that helpsto make it distinctive and gives itall a sense of space. When I’mwalking through I quite enjoy thewalk because there’s a lot to lookat, the greenery and the houses’

Those residents with views of fieldsand trees welcomed their closeproximity to the countryside and thecontribution this made to their senseof space and light

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Residents commented on the friendliness of their neighboursand the fact that it was safe for their children to play. However,they scored the development low on the community criterion.This was possibly because not enough thought had gone into how the development interacted with other communityfacilities. This relates to the difficulties encountered at theBolnore Village scheme where insufficient facilities weredelivered on the ground for community needs.

The development also illustrates a way in which problems with the internal design of a home can affect the public realm.Residents felt that garages were too small and therefore usedthem for storage rather than parking, adding to pressure onthe parking spaces provided.

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Comments on the internal road layoutrevealed that some residents andmany visitors found it difficult tounderstand: ‘It can be confusing.The layout of the roads is unusualand I’ve never seen it done like thisbefore. My nearest neighbours liveon a different road to me! You can’tdrive round easily. The signs areconfusing to everyone, especiallyvisitors, and are not easily followed.It’s a bit of a muddle’

However, the use of cul-de-sacs was identified with creating safeenvironments for children to play asthey restricted the volume and speedof traffic. ‘The layout is in cul-de-sacs and that means only peoplewho live here drive down here. It is excellent here for safety forchildren because we are in the cul-de-sac and the good thingabout these cul-de-sacs is thatthey are only used by residents and there’s plenty of room forchildren to play outside’

There were mixed views on theadequacy of parking, but car use for those living at Garlands wasdescribed by one resident as a ‘very necessary evil’. The generalconsensus was that the size of the garages was often too small to comfortably accommodate a carand they were often used instead for household storage

Some residents commented that the number of cars parked on thestreet did detract from the visualappearance of Garlands: ‘Somepeople have turned front gardens into car parking and that’s a realeyesore. Parking on the grassverges does detract from theattractiveness of the estate’

There were mixed views on thedevelopment. Some respondentsdescribed it as bright, modern but with traditional features, anddistinctive primarily because of thescale of the new build. However,equal numbers of people describedthe scheme as lacking in characterand with too much uniformity in thestyle and layout of the houses

Despite the differing views on thedesign of the development, manyresidents were positive about how the experience of living at Garlandshad improved their quality of life: ‘I’m happy to live here because my kid’s happy. She’s in a safeenvironment and she can gooutside and play. As far asCarlisle’s concerned, there’s noother place that I would prefer tolive because the people are reallyfriendly, neighbours help eachother out’


This is a large development but thenearest shops or leisure venue are a car or bus journey away. Residentssuggested that there was anopportunity for the secondary schooland community centre adjacent toGarlands to engage more with thenew residents. As a residentcommented, there are wider socialneeds: ‘Me and the family, wewould like to meet more people on the estate. I’d like somewherewhere we could all be able to gofor a drink, just socialising, thatwould be good. There are a lot offairly young couples with childrenhere and like us you still want tohave some sort of social life’

Garlands was attractive to youngfamilies, but residents commentedthat the children’s play area that hadbeen provided had been wronglysited in a location without goodinformal surveillance and: ‘It’sattracting nuisance with a lot of kids from other estates who are vandalising it. The swings were never put up. Had they put it in where the houses would belooking on to it, the adults couldkeep an eye on the play area and the kids’.

Rosecroft

Region North EastLocation Pelton Lane Ends, Holyoake Street, Chester Le Street, Co DurhamSetting SuburbanDeveloper The Miller GroupSize 31 homes

The small scale and compact natureof this scheme at the end of a streetof traditional terraced housingcontributed to residents’ satisfactionand was said to give it a sense ofidentity. Despite the small size of the site where the homes weredeveloped, residents felt that thelayout of the development hadmanaged to create a sense of spaceand quality which was distinct fromother housing in the locality: ‘It’s nice, it’s small and it’s compact yetpeople have got enough space tobreathe with the detached houses.I think what’s going up elsewheretends to be smaller and morecramped. The space and thedetached houses means thatpeople can be as introvert or asextrovert as they like’

The view of the countryside behindthe houses was an attractive featurefor residents and they hoped that theywould stay as fields because: ‘We’vecome to rely heavily on them forspace and recreation, for the kidsas well as for the adults’

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This development had one of the two biggest discrepanciesbetween the overall scores awarded by the residents’ panel (63 per cent) and CABE (43 per cent). What the audit saw as‘introverted and suburban’, residents appear to value becausethey ‘don’t want everyone knowing their business’. Despite the best efforts of urban designers to attempt to foster asense of community through good design, most residents of this development appeared to value privacy abovesociability. Should the planning process be making more effort to understand the very different aspirations of groups of householders and applying more differentiation to theirjudgement of design quality?

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Although there is a bus service to thetown centre from the main road closeto the development, use of publictransport was low with a strongpreference for most journeys to bemade by car. Residents were awareof local bus services but their poorperception of public transport overallmeant that they did not really view itas a viable alternative to the car: ‘I prefer my own space in my car.You’re got to have a car, there isn’tanything here really. They need toimprove public transport to a highstandard before people will get out of their cars and use it’

The road layout was easy to navigateand the absence of through trafficwas welcomed: ‘Anybody whocomes up to where we live has got to come up there for a reason’.Residents did have concerns aboutroad safety at their access to andfrom the main road with vision oftenrestricted by car parking. The fact that the car parking was off-street and set back meant that it was notvisually obtrusive.

There were high levels of satisfactionwith the design of the scheme andresidents identified that the designhad made: ‘Good use of the landthat they’ve had by giving us spacebetween the houses and I don’tfeel it’s overcrowded or crammedin like some developments. It’squite aesthetically pleasing with a variety of house sizes but all thesame sort of styling and spec. It is all fresh and clean’


The scoring for the availability ofshops, pubs and other services wasfairly low and this was reflected in the relatively low score overall for theenvironment and community theme.Residents made little use of thoselocal services that were on offer butpreferred to travel for more choiceand quality

Some residents felt it was importantthat the development was solely forowner-occupation because theyassociated this with residents whowould have a commitment tomaintaining the quality of the homesand the estate. There was little socialinteraction between many within thedevelopment or the immediateneighbourhood, and most did notexpect or want this to change: ‘The size, the layout, and thedesign of the estate are conduciveto just having a small number ofneighbours and not knowingeveryone. That’s what most peoplewant, I think. People these daysdon’t want everybody in the streetknowing their business’.

Wharton Hall

Region North WestLocation Wharton Road, Winsford, CheshireSetting UrbanDeveloper The Lovell Partnership for Morgan SindallSize 57 homes

Residents had a strong sense of place and satisfaction with theattractiveness of the development.This was based primarily on twofeatures: the central garden providinga visually pleasing focus for thehousing; and the architecturalpresence of the converted WhartonHall. ‘It was the central garden thatsold it for me. That the housespoint inwards towards the gardenmakes it quiet and secluded. It gives us a focus’

‘The quality and style of thedevelopment is demonstrated by the way they’ve kept and builtaround Wharton Hall and retainedfeatures such as the old gates.They have managed to blend the past with the new housing to create a place that is unique and pleasing to see and live in’

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Although residents of this development felt there wasinsufficient parking it was intriguing that none of them wereprepared to sacrifice green space to accommodate more cars.Residents need to feel engaged in the choices and inevitablecompromises that are made in the design of new housingschemes. They felt the central green space provided seclusionand tranquillity and also helped to forge a sense of community.In addition, residents liked the re-use of an existing buildingwithin the square. However, the community theme stillreceived a fairly low score of 66 per cent relating to the qualityof nearby local facilities, a recurrent theme across the auditcase studies.

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The road layout contributed to thetranquillity of the scheme and to thesense of place: ‘It is close to themain road but set apart from itwhich makes it quiet and secluded.I think having squares is so muchnicer than having row after rowafter row of housing with just awalkway in between. I think this is far nicer and makes it different’

For some residents, there was notenough parking, especially for thoseliving in the flats and for visitors to the development. As one residentcommented: ‘The reality, whetherwe like it or not, is that mostworking families have two carsnowadays’. Despite the problemsfrom insufficient parking, none wouldhave sacrificed the gardens andgreenery for greater provision

Most of those interviewed felt positiveabout the design and construction ofthe scheme that gave a ‘modern andyet up-market appearance’ to thedevelopment. The blending of theexterior finishes and the buildingtypes was appealing: ‘I like the fact that it’s based around the old nursing home. That is an oldbuilding with character and givesthe housing a real identity. I like the symmetry of the design, thebrickwork is lovely and the wholedevelopment is different to the rest of the homes in the area’

The visual impact of the scheme wasenhanced by: ‘The combination ofrendering and brick that has beenused, the mix of white plaster andbrick fronts is especially attractive’

Residents also expressed satisfactionwith the spaciousness of thedevelopment: ‘There’s a nice view out of our windows on to the garden. You don’t look intosomeone else’s house because we are not sandwiched together.I think for me that’s the bestfeature of the development’

For some residents, it was the three-storey houses that were a key attraction providing good views. As one resident commented: ‘It wasthe top floor that blew me away,the room is 28 feet long, it’sfabulous’


Residents viewed the square as acommunal focal point: ‘Everyonegets on well in the square. We alltalk to each other and pass thetime of day, but we don’t all knoweach other’s business. It’s a veryimportant point that people don’twant to be in and out of eachother’s houses’

Of the four themes, environment and community scored lowest.Although there was awareness of the availability of local shops andother facilities, few were used. Therewas little use of public transport andresidents felt this was a reflection of‘today’s society, that everyone usesthe car or goes short distances onfoot’, including to access services

Although residents described goodrelationships between neighbours,there was little or no interaction withthe immediate neighbourhood. ‘Theshops, what there is locally, arepretty poor. It’s abysmal really.There are only charity shops andpound shops and the pubs areawful, there are no bars, we don’tuse them at all. There is a localshop that stays open late and that is useful’.

Whitehall Road

Region NorthLocation Drighlington, BradfordSetting VillageDeveloper Wilson Bowden plc for David Wilson HomesSize 24 homes

This is a new small housing schemewithin a village that was the focus for a number of other developments.Although this scheme had no internalfeature that helped to create a senseof place, residents identified that theopen fields with associated views thatflanked one side of the developmenthelped to create a sense of identity:‘The other thing I like is that the land behind the estate iscountryside and protected because it used to be a civil warbattleground, so that should meanthat nobody can build on it. I thinkthat’s what makes you feel you’rein a rural area’

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Although there is nothing remarkable about this developmentin terms of architecture or a central focal point to create asense of place, residents still scored it highly. How much did this have to do with the small, compact nature of thedevelopment fitting well into a village environment – and how much to do with the fact that this met the aspirations of householders already attracted by village life? What lessonscan be learned on other schemes about matching scale anddesign to the aspirations of likely residents?

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The development felt more privateand safer to residents because therewas no through traffic, although theyfelt that signs were needed to stopvehicles inadvertently entering it. The main road, providing a frontagefor part of the development, wasbusy. Parking along that road reducedvisibility for car drivers and was apotential safety hazard

Car parking was felt by many to be inadequate given that thedevelopment included four- and five-bedroom houses. Some residents had remedied their shortfall in parkingspace by enlarging their driveways at the expense of part of their frontgarden: ‘They build big houses,four- and five-bedroom detachedhouses and nobody has got morespace than for two cars in theirdrive! They could possibly getanother in the garage but there justisn’t enough parking for the people who live here, never mind visitors’

‘I think they could have put morespace at the front with moreparking but that would have meant less of a garden at the back. Would that have been aproblem? It comes down to howmuch garden people want and how important it is to them. Forsome people I reckon, the gardenwouldn’t be as important asparking’

Residents liked living in adevelopment that was small andcompact. Some residents attributedthe development’s identity to a varietyof building styles, but others thoughtit was little different from other newhousing schemes: ‘The fact that it’snew makes it stand out and there’squite a lot of different house typesin just a small development, they’renot like boxes and that gives it anidentity’

‘I think if anybody walked past they would just say oh, it’s a newhousing estate. There’s nothingremarkable about it. They wouldn’tgo wow, look at that, that’s a bitdifferent’

Although on a small site, the layout of the development created a senseof privacy: ‘The one good thingabout the layout of the houses is that, although I can see otherpeople’s front door, that’s all I cansee. The houses are all sort of setat an angle so they aren’t lookinginto one another’s house. Theyaren’t goldfish bowls’


There were generally good scores for the availability of local servicesand the research identified that theywere often well used by residents.Most of those interviewed associatedliving in the small development as contributing positively to theirquality of life and they enjoyed theadvantages of living within a small but well served community: ‘There is plenty to do in Drighlington and a good mix of local shops. There’slots for young people to do. Mydaughter said to my friend theother week that she loves livinghere. It’s a big thing to move withchildren with a new school andeverything. But it seems a quitefriendly environment, and we havereally sort of embraced it’.

The challengesResidents provide us with a pivotal insight into the quality andperformance of new homes. Their perceptions must obviously play a central part in the debate about the design quality of new homes and neighbourhoods. The fact that there is very little post-occupancy research conducted by anyone in this sector is a problem that we must all address. This is a separatetask from market research to assess customer satisfaction and understand any concerns about teething problems withdevelopments. It is the business of talking to people about their quality of life a year and more after they have moved into a new development, and asking: ‘so did the dream work out: what’s it really like to live there?’

In practice, residents’ views are informed by their knowledge of different types of neighbourhoods they have seen and lived in, by fashion, social aspirations and the importance they place on issues like sustainability. Talking to design professionals, on the other hand, can help us understand how and why placeswork as they do, drawing on studies that use hard evidence toanalyse real places.

In theory, therefore, there should be a lot of common groundbetween residents’ views and the findings of our housing audit.What we have found is that this is often true, but not always.Overall, in six schemes residents score the place in which they live more highly than CABE, and in five schemes residents give it a lower score. But in only two cases does the assessment of CABE and the residents differ by more than 20 per cent. This suggests that in many instances homebuyers and designprofessionals share similar opinions about the quality of newprivate housing.

But there are also some sharp contrasts. And in some instances the views of our residents’ panel go head to head with the accepted orthodoxy amongst designers and developers. These discrepancies are what we seek to explore in this chapter,picking out four key issues where there is an obvious differencebetween the audit scores and residents’ views.

Streets and layoutOne very clear message from the residents’ panel is that manypeople prefer developments without through traffic. Someresidents specifically praised the use of cul-de-sacs. This runscounter to most prevailing urban design thinking. Residents likedthe fact that people driving into a development would have aspecific reason for being there; this was associated with enhancedsecurity, and particularly the road safety of children, which was anissue of particular importance to women in the survey. Where there was a main access road within a development, residentsoften identified the need for speed restrictions, again primarily to make the place safer for children.

The fact that there is very little post-occupancyresearch conducted byanyone in this sector is a problem that we mustall address

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We should therefore be asking why residents appear to like cul-de-sacs. For many years architects and design professionals havetried to discourage their use in new housing developments as theyreduce connectivity between streets, are difficult to navigate andincrease use of the car. However, residents don’t like cars movingat speed around their neighbourhood, making the place feel lesssecure, private, and secluded. This is more easily understood thanthe effect of a cul-de-sac on how easy it will be for them, theirchildren or their visitors to get around. After all, most of thepopulation have seen a cul-de-sac a thousand times in Brooksidebut never seen people living in a home zone. So as its developersand designers, we need to understand what it is about cul-de-sacsthat people like and provide those characteristics through differentmeans, if we are going to ‘sell’ layouts that are non-car based.

Digging it: someresidents love living in a cul-de-sac,something the designprofessionals need to understand

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Some residents wanted more account to be taken of the needs of pedestrians, including those with buggies or wheelchair users.They wanted greater attention to be paid to the provision andwidth of footpaths and pavements, and the availability of dropped kerbs. Pavement parking, which was a feature of some developments, caused further problems, damaging the infrastructure and blocking pedestrian routes.

So it appears that people want the car tamed – not banned or restricted, but tamed. They want to redress the imbalance of power between the large, hard, fast metal car and the soft,small, vulnerable person. Again they are articulating concernsbased on their experiences of the present quality of public areas within developments. Our challenge is to understand this experience; to help consumers understand the alternatives;and to ensure that planners and highways engineers responddirectly to their concerns.

Car parkingCar parking is a deeply contentious issue. Most residents clearlyfeel that provision is inadequate for the level of car ownership anddemands for visitor parking. Attempts to restrict parking spaces asa means of curbing car ownership were felt to be unrealistic andto have little or no impact on the number of cars a householdwould acquire.

There were some suggestions that one way of increasing provisionwould be to reduce the size of front gardens and give that spaceover to car parking. There was also a suggestion that residents

Play area: but someresidents suggest that gardens could be reduced in size to accommodate car parking

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would be willing to sacrifice some space from rear gardens formore space to be allocated at the front for parking. The lack ofstorage space within the individual properties meant that, in somedevelopments, residents used their garages to store householdgoods and, as a consequence, there was a greater proliferation of on-street parking.

Very often, residents seemed to see street parking as somethingto which they have a right. Conversely, designers still appear to see garages as parking spaces, which is understandable but increasingly at odds with the way people actually behave.Historically, garages have had an obvious, legitimate use asparking space. But today, with the proliferation of car alarms and enhanced security measures, the road will often do the job just as well and our needs for storage space are far more compelling.

This must surely make us wonder if we really need garages at all. In some cases the access to and space in front of the garagealready gives us private parking space, while the garage itselfprovides storage space. But why then do we have to providestorage within a garage? And what does that tell us about thedesign of the house itself?

More widely, these findings suggest that we cannot deal with transport policy effectively through parking ratios. It isabundantly clear that people want car parking near their homesand are willing to sacrifice quality public and private space toaccommodate it. Unless there are broader public policy changes to discourage car ownership as well as use, it would appear thatthe current approach is untenable. How we handle the implicationsof this in design terms, and avoid simply dealing with demand by creating seas of tarmac, is a pressing issue for planners,developers and designers alike.

Public transportDespite the proximity of bus services to some of thedevelopments, reported use of public transport was generally low. Residents had a poor image of bus travel, and perceptions of an unreliable and infrequent service all contributed to theirpreference for travelling around by car. There was also anunderlying sense in some of the discussions that bus travel did not equate with a modern, up-market lifestyle. As onerespondent said, ‘I would not use public transport, not unless I was desperate. I think we’re the next generation that don’t do buses.’ This is another reflection of how closely aspiration istied up with residents’ attitudes to their homes. Simply makingpublic transport accessible will not encourage people to use it.Public transport needs to be of a higher quality and needs to take people to where they want to go, while the design ofdevelopments needs to encourage non-car journeys. Walkingthrough and out of the development needs to become anattractive option.

This is no easy task. We need to inject genuinely creative thinkinginto public transport provision. As things stand, consumer values

Simply making publictransport accessible willnot encourage people to use it

Well maintained: but it seems clear that people are willingto sacrifice public and private space to accommodateadditional car parking

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and aspirations often fly in the face of sustainability, and publichealth objectives. So where are the drivers for change? With thepower, money and sophistication of the car industry, how can thedesign profession and building industry compete? In reality, wouldyou rather spend 15 minutes searching for a parking space aroundyour home, or 15 minutes waiting at the bus stop? Driving around,you could well have more comfortable seating than your livingroom sofa, a better sound system, sophisticated air conditioning, and a sense of being cocooned in a space that feels safe and private. Your car as a product has been targeted at you throughsophisticated design and marketing. The bus stop and the bushave not. More powerful social factors than urban design are at work; designers need to retain some realism about what can be achieved.

Building a sense of communityPolicymakers are resolutely committed to creating places that are socially sustainable. From a design point of view, that meansensuring access to local services and facilities, and creatingspaces for social encounter, where the neighbours can meetformally and informally. However, residents’ attitudes in thisresearch once again challenge some of these assumptions.

For example, shopping and leisure needs tended not to be metlocally. Many residents preferred to visit retail outlets or urbancentres rather than use local facilities, even where these existed.For some, the limited choice or down-market character of manylocal amenities was a real barrier to use – another sign of howlifestyle aspirations play such a pivotal role. And, while youngpeople expressed greater interest than adults in the availability of local facilities, including public transport, this probably justreflects their more limited access to private transport.

With the exception of one development, there was little sign of social or commercial interaction between those living in the new developments and the wider neighbourhoods in which they are located. This lack of interaction is also evidentwithin the development: although people often knew theirimmediate neighbours, this only occasionally extended tosocialising on any scale. There had been attempts in somedevelopments to hold an event, such as a barbeque, but none of these appeared to have attracted many people or been described as a success.

Many residents felt that they had busy lives with work andfamily, and they did not seek to make friends or socialise within

the development. One-person households and young familieswere often more concerned than others with the absence of afocus or facilities to help generate contact between residents;families with young children were the most likely to have somechance of coming together because of a shared interest inchildcare and school. By contrast, those households with two or more working adults were more likely to highlight the busynature of modern living and their preference for privacy. Many of them had frankly very little desire to socialise with theirneighbours or the wider community.

Standing alone: there was little sign ofmuch contact betweenpeople living in thenew developmentsand not muchinteraction with thewider neighbourhoodeither

33 The challenges

These kinds of attitudes to neighbours extended to people’sattitudes to the social mix of developments. Although in theory many residents supported the concept of mixed tenuredevelopments, this was not how most owner-occupiers wouldchoose to live. There were concerns that those renting theirhousing, especially on short term private lets, would be lesscommitted to the development and less willing or able to maintain the standard of their home and garden. Some residents had deliberately looked for a development that was all owner-occupied.

Although there were some developments where residentsappreciated the predominance of young families, others preferredschemes with a mix of people of different ages and types ofhousehold. This was seen as more important than differences in tenure to the character and stability of the community.

All of this raises interesting questions about the prevailing modelof an ideal compact settlement. Of course, the absence in mostnew developments of attractive public spaces, walkable routes

Walking the walk:owners worried thatthose renting would be less committed to their development

34 The challenges

to quality local facilities, and the poor design integration of mixedtenure housing plays a part in current levels of dissatisfaction. And making the spaces better could have a major impact on thesense of community. Well-located facilities, such as playgrounds or even recycling points, can prompt informal meetings whichovercome the innate obstacle of people just not being in the same place at the same time.

But there are other far more powerful drivers of the trends towardsprivatised lives, geared around the home and retail parks, thaturban design can do little about. Some residents of the BedZeddevelopment in Sutton (an innovative housing development inLondon that champions low energy use), interviewed as part of aseparate study, at one stage complained about the time it took touse communal recycling facilities because they found themselveschatting with the neighbours! This suggests we should be realisticabout what can be achieved in creating cohesive communitiesthrough the design of places. And we may need to more relaxedabout how a socially cohesive community actually behaves.

After all, is it wrong that some people don’t want to, or feel theneed to, socialise with their neighbours? At different times in our lives our need for social interaction and the geography of

Close finish: we should berealistic about whatexactly design candeliver in terms ofcreating close-knitcommunities

35 The challenges

our social life changes. What is maybe most important is that the physical environment does not place obstacles in the way of people meeting and enjoying each other’s company.

In conclusion We are left with a fundamental question to resolve: how muchshould developers and the design professions respond to whathomebuyers want?

It could well be that residents assess the value of a place usingfundamentally different criteria. Perhaps, when we see a disparitybetween the professional and residents’ assessment of designquality, we are seeing a divergence in aspirations. And if thatdivergence is real, it points to one of our greatest challenges –getting planners and architects to incorporate residents’aspirations and preferences into their designs, and providinginformation to housing consumers so that they better appreciatethe impact of their preferences and the very real constraints upon their aspirations.

The findings of this research relating to public transport, theimportance of the car, and the lack of interest in local services or community interaction, all suggest that residents’ views arerooted in people’s individual aspirations which have little regardto society’s broader priorities. In effect, people may know theyneed to recycle their newspapers, but they don’t appear to relatethe impact of their broader lifestyle to the common challenge of sustainability.

We could ask: does it matter if residents’ views are as they are? In one sense, no. And in any case, they may have little realchoice in the type of place they live in. But as earlier surveys show (What home buyers want, CABE, 2005), that most peoplewant large detached homes with plenty of space and privacy, aswell as easily accessible services, great local facilities, and a safeenvironment. They want these things for immediate practicalreasons, to demonstrate social standing, and to protect the verylarge investment a home represents, not least when pensionprovision is perceived as increasingly fragile. So the problem we must face is that if everyone was to get what they wanted, the social, environmental and economic repercussions would be untenable. All homebuyers can’t get what they want. We are not looking at a perfect outcome of complete satisfaction.

So the challenge we all face may be to influence the priorities that are colouring residents’ views. This is often seen as a taboo –looking at the fundamentals of our society, a task which farexceeds the remit of designers, planners or developers alone. But unless we begin to unpick this challenge, can we really resolve the debate over housing provision?

How much should we be giving people what they want? Consumerpreferences in the housing market contain many contradictions.Homebuyers make decisions based on a series of trade-offsrather than a clear list of neatly prioritised criteria. As a result, the most practical steer to the design and development industriesis more likely to emerge from a combination of residents’

Moving forward: not all homebuyers canget what they want. We are not looking at a perfect outcome ofcomplete satisfaction

36 The challenges

perceptions and the professional articulation of the idealcharacteristics of a well-designed neighbourhood. This entails not just explaining to housebuilders, architects, planners, andhighway engineers what residents want, but also explaining toconsumers why some places appear to work better than others,and the range of design options that exist.

Someone buying a home off-plan, for example, will makedecisions based on their perceptions of other similar places. So if they are concerned about traffic speeds they may look for a cul-de-sac because they know that cars will not drive down itfast. They may not think about what the cul-de-sac does for thesurrounding area, or traffic trips in general; and they may not knowthat other types of highway design, such as natural traffic calmingor home zones, may have the same effect on traffic speeds as acul-de-sac, but still make it easy to walk to the shops if you wantto. Why should they? They haven’t had the experiences to tell themwhat may work.

Pulling these two issues together creates the basic challenge for us all. How do we explain and present the theory behind good design in a way that will influence social aspirations and the quality of new homes?

CABE’s residents’ panel’s views provide an essential contributionto our thinking. And we need to find a way to help residentsunderstand, over time, the bigger picture behind housing quality.Current residents are not the only consumers of housing – theirneighbours and those that come after them also have a stake in the way we build. This does not mean that we have to accepthousing that does not reflect their preferences in the interests of some greater good. This is not what good design is about. But it does mean that the design professions need to ask some tough questions of themselves and get to the bottom of whathomebuyers want, what they like and why.

Home work: today’sresidents are notonly the consumersof housing – theirneighbours andthose that comeafter them alsohave a stake inwhat we build

37 Appendix 1

This research focused on gathering asmuch detail as possible of residents’experience and opinions from living, for at least a year, in one of 11 case studydevelopments. The five case studieslocated in the South East, East andLondon regions, and the six in the NorthWest, North East and Yorkshire & Humber,were selected using the results from our programme of housing audits. The 11 case studies were chosen to ensuredifferent regions and different types oflocations (inner city, suburban, town andvillage) are represented. They also covereda range of different overall scores from the‘professionals’ assessment in the audit.

Our primary emphasis was on gatheringqualitative information rather thanstatistically significant data. The resultsshould therefore be seen as indicative.The research programme used face-to-face interviews in people’s homes with a sample of residents at each of the casestudy developments. The interviews, eachlasting about 30 minutes, used a scheduleof questions based on the four Buildingfor Life themes: sense of place; roads,parking and pedestrian layout; design and construction; plus environment andthe community. As well as askingresidents to score various criteria withineach theme, the schedule included open-ended questions to explore the fine detailof their views.

Due to the absence of relevant censusinformation (the 2001 census wascompleted before these developmentswere built) visits were made to each case study development prior to thesurvey to gather information that wouldinform the research programme andidentify differences in building type (forexample, where there were flats as well as houses) or tenure across the scheme.Addresses were issued to the interviewersto ensure that they interviewed peopleliving in the different building types ortenures. Target quotas by gender and age were also set for the interviewers to achieve in each of the developments.

In total, 109 residents were interviewed inthe five southern case studies and 132 inthe six northern developments: a total of241 or 30 per cent of resident householdsacross all 11 schemes. The samplespecified for each scheme ranged from 10 per cent (for the largest development)to 48 per cent for those developmentswith 20 or fewer homes. A varying samplesize was used to ensure that within eachscheme an adequate and representativenumber of potential respondents wereinterviewed. Quotas appropriate to thecharacter of the scheme were set toensure both men and women, and a rangeof age groups and household types wereinterviewed. In housing schemes wherethere were known to be families with older

children, a small sample of 17 youngpeople (aged between 14 and 17 years)was interviewed to explore whether theiropinions on the design and layout, andfacilities in the neighbourhood, differedfrom those of adult residents.

To supplement the qualitative andquantitative detail provided by the in-depthinterviews, a focus group discussion withresidents was held in each of the 11locations. When inviting residents to thesediscussions, care was taken to ensurethere was a representative sample bygender and age, and in mixed-tenuredevelopments, that tenants as well asowner occupiers attended. The use ofscheme photographs and the schedule of issues to be covered ensured that thesediscussions focused on the Building forLife criteria rather than issues specific to the individual homes.

Appendix 1Research methodology

38 Appendix 2

Interviewers were given specificinstructions that explained the purposes of the survey and how it would be used.The instructions gave more explanatoryinformation on the individual questions.

Initial profile questions to ensure contact with cross section of residents

Interviewers were issued with lists ofaddresses where to randomly selecthouseholds for interview. Where therewere different types of properties (forexample flats as well as houses) orhousing with different tenures,interviewers were given a quota of thenumbers to interview that ensured thesurvey covered residents living in differenttypes of properties or different tenures.

C1 How long lived at address (onlyinterviewed those who had lived at address for at least 12 months)

C2 Gender

C3 Age last birthday

C4 Household with young person aged 14 to 18 years of age

The home

01 Asking first about your house/flat,what is it you particularly like aboutyour home1? (Limit discussion to oneor two points)

02 Is there anything you particularlydislike about your house/flat? (Limitdiscussion to one or two points)

03 Do you think that the size and layout of your home will allow you to stay, if your needs change in the future?(Probe for detail on why people thinkyes or no)

04 Are you aware of any energy efficiencyor saving measures that have beenprovided?

05 On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 as leastsatisfied and 5 as most satisfied, howdo you rate your satisfaction with yourhome here?

Housing as a whole

06 How would you describe the characterof the housing here?

07 Do you think that this place (thehousing, streets and open space) has

a clear identity of its own? (Probe forwhether they think it is distinct fromthe rest of the immediate area)

08 (If yes has own identity) What do youthink makes this place distinctive ordifferent? What gives this place its ownidentity? (Probe if necessary forwhether it is the architecture, the mixof buildings, the mix of people, or thelayout)

09 On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 as not at alldistinctive and 5 as very distinctive,how do you assess this developmentas a place that is distinctive?

10 What do you find particularly attractiveabout the buildings here?

11 What do you find particularlyunattractive about the buildings here?

12 On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 as leastattractive and 5 as very attractive, howdo you assess the attractiveness ofthis development?

13 Do you think the buildings here havedeteriorated since they were first built?

The street layout and the car parking

14 Do visitors in a car find it easy to maketheir way around this development?(Probe for any difficulties or anyfeatures that would help them)

15 On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 for verydifficult and 5 for very easy, how do you assess the layout of thisdevelopment for those in a car?

16 Do people who are walking find it easy to find their way around thedevelopment? (Probe for what makesit easy or difficult for people who arewalking about the development)

17 On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 for verydifficult and 5 for very easy, how doyou assess the layout of thisdevelopment for those walking?

18 Is the road layout safe for children? Is there anything that you think is not safe for children when walking orcycling or when playing in the street?

19 Is the car parking sufficient andlocated conveniently for people wholive here? (Probe for any commentsabout the car parking)

20 Do you think the layout of the carparking and/or the roads adds to or

detracts from the attractiveness of thedevelopment? Why do you say that?

21 Do you think the layout of the carparking is good or poor for the securityof the cars and other vehicles? Why doyou say that?

22 On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 for verypoor and 5 for very good, how do youassess the layout of the car parkinghere?

Open space and greenery

23 What do you think about the openspaces here, in the development?(Probe for whether the residents thinkthere is enough open space, greenareas, play areas)

24 Is there anything you would like to seechanged about the open space here?(Probe for size, layout, access,greenery, use of trees)

25 Do you think that the open spaceshave deteriorated since thedevelopment was completed? (Probefor how and why they think they havedeteriorated)

26 On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 as not at allsatisfactory and 5 as very satisfactory,how satisfied are you with the openspace within this development?

Safety and security

27 How safe do you feel walking alonearound this development after dark?(Question based on Home Officesurvey question)

28 Is there anywhere in this developmentwhere you feel particularly unsafe?(Probe for which areas are these and why)

29 Are there any problems of anti-socialbehaviour, including vandalism orneighbour nuisance that you knowabout here? (Probe for what these may be)

Environment and community

30 Do you or other members of yourhousehold regularly use any of thefollowing services in the immediatearea or neighbourhood? (Listedservices are: shops, pubs, cafés

Appendix 2Questionnaire for residents’ survey

1 Questions 1 and 2 are not relevant for the Building for Life themes and audit criteria but were included because other experiencesuggests that residents will want to talk about their home at some time in the interview and it was thought better to give space forthese views to be expressed early in the interview. It was also decided that questions about the home would make a good start to what would be a fairly long and complex interview. The interviewers were instructed to limit the discussion at questions 1 and 2 to one or two issues, and to ensure only a few minutes were spent on these two questions.

39 Appendix 2

or restaurants, places of worship,doctor/health centre)

31 On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 as verypoor and 5 as very good, how do youassess the availability of theseservices or facilities in the immediatearea or neighbourhood? (Same listingof services as in Question 30)

32 Do you have children at home who are: younger than primary school age,of primary school age, of secondaryschool age?

33 If yes to any in Question 32, do theyattend nursery, primary or secondaryschool locally? (Probe for whichattended and note)

34 On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 as verypoor and 5 as very good, how do youassess the number of nursery or pre-school, primary schools, secondaryschools?

35 Do you or members of your householduse bus services to go to and fromyour home? (If yes, probe for whatused and how often, and how easy it isto travel by bus from here)

36 On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 as verypoor and 5 as very good, how do youassess the availability of bus servicesin this area?

37 Do you or members of your householduse any local train stations andservices? (If yes, probe for what usedand how often, and how easy it is totravel by train from here)

38 On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 as verypoor and 5 as very good, how do youassess the availability of train servicesin this area?

39 How many of your neighbours (thoseliving within two or three doors fromwhere you live) do you talk to on aregular basis?

40 Do you or members of your householdbelong to any club (sport, social orhealth) in this area? (Probe for whichused and note)

Quality of life

41 Overall, how would you assess livinghere has impacted on your quality oflife where 1 has had a very poor affect

and 5 has had a very good affect on your quality of life?

Closing profile questions

C5 Do you or other members of yourhousehold own or have regular use ofa car or van? If Yes, how many cars orvans do you have?

C6 Which of these ethnic groups do youbelong to? (Asian or Asian British,Black or Black British, Mixed Heritage,White or White British, Other EthnicGroup)

C7 Which best describes you? (List frompopulation census of main groups foreconomic active and inactive)

C8 Which of these best describes thishousehold? (List from populationcensus of main household types)

C9 Are you an owner-occupier or tenant?

40 Appendix 3

The discussion will focus on the designand development of the housing as awhole and not on individual homes. It will also draw on the survey data for the specific developments. Photographswill also be made available to aid thediscussion.

01 Explore with participants their overallsatisfaction with the housing/estate as a whole. Is there anything about thedesign of the development that theyparticularly like and anything in thedesign that they particularly dislike?(Identify buildings and layout – thedifferent aspects of the design)

02 Is the design of the developmentsimilar to other housing in the area or does it give the scheme its ownidentity? (Need to explore what theyunderstand by identity)

03 Do they think that the developmentmakes good use of the existinglandscape and the local geography? In what way has the developmentmade good use of the landscape/geography?

04 What do they think is theenvironmental impact of thedevelopment? Has anything been donein the design to reduce that impact?

05 (For some of the schemes) Do theythink that the development has madegood use of earlier buildings? Howhas it done that?

06 What do they think about the openspace and greenery within thedevelopment? Is it in the right place?Is the design robust? Is themaintenance good?

07 How do they think the developmentconnects with existing roads andpaths? Does the road system withinthe development work for motorists?And for pedestrians (adults andchildren)? Are they aware of anyproblems in the road layout for anyonein a wheelchair or with a buggy?

08 Is the parking an asset or an eyesorefor the development? Do they think the parking is in the right or mostconvenient location with thedevelopment? Are there any problemswith the car parking?

09 What about rubbish collection –ordinary household and bulky rubbish– are the storage facilities adequate?Well sited? Obtrusive or not?

10 Are there any features or facilitieswithin the development that bringpeople together? If yes, what are thoseand how are they used? If not, shouldthere be and what would work best?

11 What do they think about the mix ofhouseholds (in terms of size) and dothey think that the people living herehave/will develop a sense ofcommunity?

12 Is there enough for toddlers/children/teenagers to do around here? What do they think is needed for toddlers/children/teenagers?

13 Did they live in the area before movingto this development? What kind oflinks do they have with the localcommunity (more widely than thisdevelopment)? What facilities andservices do they use locally and how satisfied are they with these?

14 Do they use public transport locally or do they rely on their car(s) fortransport? If they rely on their cars(likely to be for all case studies exceptIslington), is this acceptable to them or would they prefer to use publictransport if it was more available?

15 Any issues about safety and security?

16 Do they think this kind of developmentis a good example of how to developnew homes for people? Explore theirreasons for the responses. How will it meet their changing needs?

17 Has it improved their quality of lifeoverall?

18 Is there anything else that they wouldlike to say about their housing or thearea generally?

Residents thanked for their participationand each received £50 cash for attending.

Appendix 3Template for focus group discussions

Acknowledgements

This research was completed on behalf of CABE by Stafford Pettersson Neath

Edited by Julian Birch

Photography Cover, pages 3–5, 29–36: Mark Ellis and Ashley Bingham at ICD LtdPages 1 and 2: David Millington Photography Ltd Pages 6–27: Stafford Pettersson Neath

Housing audit 2004: London and the South East

Housing audit 2005: North East, North West and Yorkshire & Humber

Both available fromwww.cabe.org.uk

What’s it like to live in new privatehousing? It’s a question not manyhave asked – until now. This yearCABE has spoken in depth with nearly 250 residents living in a mix of new housing developments acrossEngland. We asked them how they feel about the design, character,environment and sense of communityin the place where they live. Theiranswers were often surprising – andserve to challenge the assumptions of developers, designers and planners alike.

what it’s like to live there: the views of residents on...

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