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05 November 2006

Who needs Town Planners?


Last week we had reason to visit Telford in Shropshire. After a 200 mile drive the last thing I needed was the hassle of trying to find our destination in the giant maze that comprises residential Telford (see above for a tiny fraction). It's a nightmare of bendy roads, side turnings, cul-de-sacs, and cul-de-sacs off cul-de-sacs, compounded by a plethora of vicious "traffic calming" speed humps and chicanes. There appears to be no rhyme or reason behind the layout of main roads, minor roads and housing estate roads that, on paper, resemble nothing so much as industrial-scale spaghetti bolognese delivered by cluster bombs.

The place was obviously designed by a committee of lunatics. Who needs town planners? Never mind "modern" towns like Telford. What about those towns and villages that have real architectural merit and display a wide diversity of attractive styles developed over the centuries. Town and country planners seek to maintain these features by the strict imposition of regulations governing how Joe Public may be allowed to make changes to their private houses, down to the shape of gable ends, or the style of windows or the colour and material used for rainwater gutters and downspouts. And yet it has obviously escaped their bureacratic minds that the charming character of the very places they are supposed to be protecting actually grew up in the complete absence of planning controls!! How did our forefathers manage to get things so right without the help of a Council Planning Department?

By contrast every town in the UK has examples of post-war developments undertaken with the approval of Town and Country Planning Departments that are no more than rectangular blocks of concrete, hideous in the extreme, and falling to bits.

1 comment:

Larjmarj said...

I have never seen a map that looks like that..wow. Although the city of Detroit was originally supposed to be laid out like a series of interconnecting spokes. The closest thing to the remaining plan is "Grand Circus Park" which is right down town. I don't know if you can find out anything on it by googleing. I personally like east west north south streets, boring but I don't get lost.