Go and play in the road

A new scheme in Luton giving the streets back to pedestrians is likely to spread to London soon. Daniel Lee reports on the Homezone initiative that will save lives

WANT to find out what your neighbourhood may look like in a few years' time?

Go to Luton, where one road has taken a step back 50 years to a time when people, not cars, ruled the streets.

Approaching Upwell Road in the town known as the home of Vauxhall and the airport, a huge sign greets visitors with the word: Homezone. Cars are prohibited, except for access, and a childlike picture of trees, houses and an adult with toddler presses the message home: this place is for people, not cars.

There is an abundance of grass verges and standard road humps ensure that even drivers who have not got the message find it difficult to speed. Width restrictors are not simple bollards, but plants in wooden containers.

"It is fantastic for kids," says resident Bernice Dance, 29, who has two children under six. "The cars mostly obey the speed limit and children can play on the road in a way that most people think hasn't been possible for years."

Luton council launched the traffic-calming, street-greening scheme in 1999 to give pedestrians priority. In the three years before the project was launched, four children were injured on the road, which was a rat-run. None have been hurt since.

Similar zones are likely to be set up around London in the wake of general election commitments from Labour and a 30 million government homezone fund available to local authorities, which was announced in April.

The idea, using a mix of traffic-calming, people-friendly design, grass verges, benches and children's play equipment, was pioneered in the Netherlands in the 1970s. Walkers and cyclists now have legal priority over traffic on thousands of streets in many countries across the Channel.

UK local authorities, in consultation with residents and planners, are now importing this urban dream of streets that are common spaces for people to enjoy. Nine pilot schemes were launched in Britain in 1999.

Many will be built within the next few months, including sites as varied as a quiet cul-de-sac in Sittingbourne, Kent, and large-scale urban areas, such as five roads in West Ealing and Holmewood Gardens near Brixton Hill.

Some Upwell Road residents remain unimpressed. John Morton, 60, lives a few doors from Bernice Dance. "We were never consulted by the council and they haven't finished the work," he says, pointing to a chunk of bare land that is supposed to be covered with grass. Residents on neighbouring roads also have anxieties. Lana Sanyang, 28, says: "Cars go faster on our street because they have to slow down on Upwell."

Some of these concerns are echoed by studies from the Transport Research Laboratory, monitoring the pilot schemes for the Government. Its research shows drivers obeying 20mph speed limits within 400 yards of their own house but ignoring speed restrictions further from home.

More political support is needed to change our culture, says the Children's Play Council, a principle group campaigning for homezones.

"Residents feel they are controlled by the car and Government needs to do more to redress the balance in favour of people," says CPC director Tim Gill who, with other campaigners, wants the law changed to give pedestrians priority and enforce a 10mph speed limit in residential areas.

For every one mile per hour speed reduction there is a five per cent cut in the numbers of deaths and injuries, according to studies for the Association of Chief Police Officers.

Nearly 220,000 people were killed or seriously injured in 1999 on Britain's built-up roads, not including A and B routes, according to government figures.

Although the Upwell Road scheme cost 60,000, Mary Williams, chief executive of road-safety group Brake, says this is cheap when "one road death costs the country 1 million".

Both the AA and RAC support residential traffic management, but RAC executive director Edmund King warns that: "Often little consideration is given to where the traffic will go. Shunting it on to neighbouring residential streets is no good."

Upwell Road may be a step in the right direction, but a lot more needs to be done if the dream of safe, pleasant streets is to become reality.

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