Moseley Shared Space Artist's Impression (Hamilton-Baillie Associates)

The Birmingham suburb of  Moseley has in common with Acocks Green that a lot of its residents feel that a Shared Space scheme would be right for the area.   There is much about Shared Space on this website, see special Shared Space section links on the right, but, essentially, Shared Space  means removing most (not necessarily all)  street furniture and signeage  and reducing the distinction between road and pavement, causing traffic to slow down and negotiate more carefully with pedestrians.  The initial reaction when people are first told about this is often a horrified gasp followed by a question like ‘But isn’t that dangerous?’  It seems not.  Everywhere so far, where such schemes have been introduced accident rates have dramatically fallen whilst use of use of public street spaces, communty spirit and local trade has generally improved.

Moseley recently commissioned a report by Alison Millward Associates on the viability of Shared Space for Moseley.  The detailed, 33 page,  report is now available on the Moseley Forum website, together with a PowerPoint show,   here (See end of the Moseley Forum post.)   Moseley Forum kindly invited Acocks Green residents to attend its meeting to present this report, on 21 September 2010, and a number of  Acocks Green Focus Group members attended.  Alison began by drawing our attention to a recent Guardian Report on Shared Space.  This refers to the fact that Ashford in Kent which introduced Shared Space over a year ago has experienced no accidents whatsover since the scheme was introduced.

Alison then presented her detailed  findings in a talk and a PowerPoint show.   We thought she was very fair, and thorough, in her information, and that she had worked hard to identify particular concerns which had been expressed in connection with some Shared Space schemes, whilst showing how these could be overcome (eg concerns about visually impaired people can often be addressed by providing extra ways of  marking the surroundings, eg with tactile surfaces, designated crossing points and GPS systems are being increasingly a possibility)  For her study she reviewed Shared Space schemes in the UK and across Europe and she  interviewed  visually impaired and disabled pedestrians and also pedestrians with learning difficulties and mental health issues.  At the same Alison showed how   improved safety statics are a regular feature of Shared Space schemes.    Successful schemes generally slow the traffic to 20 m.p.h. or less, whilst overall journey times are usually not reduced.  One scheme showed that bus waiting times at junctions in Shared Space was in fact reduced from 9 seconds to 5 seconds.  There is more on reduced journey times and Shared Space in the Newland Avenue Report (See Shared Space links on our right, again.)

Alison also stressed that Shared Space schemes need to be designed specifically for each suburb.   A scheme for Moseley, on a cross roads, might be different from one for Acocks Green.  One question from the audience centred on whether Shared Space would be more appropriate for Moseley than for Acocks Green.  Our own findings, having discussed this over the years with Ben Hamilton-Baillie, whose firm designed the Shared Space  Artist’s Impression  for Moseley is that this is not so.  Acocks Green does, indeed, require a different type of approach from Moseley, but Acocks Green is very similar to Drachten, in Holland: a small town with a busy central green island and several entrances: a structure  slightly similar to our own beloved Green.  This has an early (2003) highly successful  Shared Space Scheme: see link on right of our website  to the Ben Hamilton Baillie 2008  ‘Improving Traffic Behaviour through Urban Design’ report  for further details.    Here is Drachten.  (Serious accidents reduced from around 8 per year to almost zero since the introduction of Shared Space.)

The Famous Shared Space Island at Drachten - note simple layout.

And here is an overhead shot of our own island – ‘The Green at Acocks Green.

The Green at Acocks Green

It was interesting to see that Doug Hyde, Head of Transportation Strategy for Birmingham City Council, was in the audience.   Doug was a little wary of very high volume traffic schemes in connection with Shared Space but stressed that he is ‘… not fundamentally against Shared Space’ in fact he likes a lot of these schemes he said.  He mentioned John Bright Street in town as an example of a succssful Birmingham City Centre Shared Space scheme.  He seemed not to yet  know a great deal about Acocks Green’s opposite number at Drachten, but this is something we are happy to further assist Doug on!   Doug also mentioned the up-coming, long awaited,  report from the Transportation Scrutiny Committee on Shared Space, saying that this would be available soon.  As Acocks Green and Moseley are both now fond of saying: Watch this Shared Space for further developments!

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Oxford Circus (Barry Phillips, Daily Mail Read the rest of the Daily Mail piece below)

We’d like to think so …

See Channel 4 New’s coverage of the redesigned Oxford Circus here

The Daily Mail’s take is also available here

Shared Space is taking hold in more and more places around the country.  Why?  It makes sense.  It looks better and it is safer. Check out the media links here.  If this works in Oxford Circus think how it could work in Acocks Green!

Draft: Examples from West Brom, Sheffield and Dublin in Connection with the Acocks Green Feasibility Study.

There has been renewed interest in suburban centre re-design in Brum  in the past few weeks.   The kinds of ideas Acocks Green Focus Group has been proposing since 2005 are starting to become a hot topic in the city.  Cllr Martin Mullaney chaired a Birmingham City Council Transportation Strategy group discussion with Ben Hamilton-Baillie .  Moseley Forum has commissioned a Hamilton-Baillie Associates designer to draw up  a Shared Space Scheme for Moseley centre. See here:  Birmingham Mail: Moseley Shared Space Plan 14. May 09

Meantime, Acocks Green had a by  invitation only exhibition of three alternative new designs for Acocks Green in March this year.   (Sorry – the ‘by invitation’ was the Council’s idea, not ours, though we managed to get a few more names added to the list!)  The three designs were by James O’Sullivan of the Birmingham Landscape Practice.  James has viewed the Kensington ideas and likes them, as does Acocks Green Councillor Roger Harmer, who came with us to Kensington (see our posting on Kensington below).  Two of the three schemes involved making the two Acocks Green islands into one, adding some more trees, and flowers, retaining some car parking space and providing a public area for events.  On special occasions one road would be closed off.  Generally speaking traffic flow would be smoothed by various measures, clutter would be removed and more trees added.  We would also get much needed extra parking space.

Everyone who saw these ideas seemed very enthusiastic and many positive remarks were recorded on the provided slips of paper.  This seems all round a community and trader friendly scheme, which will still leave it possible for traffic to get through without problems.  A 500 page traffic monitoring report has recently been submitted to Planning and Regeneration for consideration.   This will need to be combined with other local reports which council officers have been working on for some time.    A Local Area Action plan will follow, sometime in the late summer or early Autumn.  In conjunction with this, we have been advised that there will be a further exhibition of plans, to which the general public will be invited.  The date has not yet been set, but watch this space.

Meantime, below, are a quick preview of the ideas collected from the Sheffield and West Bromwhich studies:

Pictures From the Landscape Planning Files: Ideas collected for Acocks Green