“our new National Planning Policy Framework….affirms the vital importance of planning, the central role of planning professionals in shaping our communities anew, and the route to many more, and more beautiful, homes through a plan-led system” Rt Hon Michael Gove MP Secretary of State speech to RIBA, 19 December 2023 “The plan making system is […]
Create Streets and the Campaign for Better Transport are together working on a new mission ‘Tram Network’, which will support more cities to create tram lines and work with government and industry to reduce their cost. In this blog Create Streets’ Robert Kwolek brings us some lessons from France on how to build cheaper, better […]
Report from our event at Labour Conference: New Towns. Old Challenges. How do we create new places which are popular and durable, viable and fair? ‘Be it enacted by the King’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by […]
Campaign founder, Daniel Crowther, explains why Preston Basin should be restored The Restoring Preston Basin campaign wants to restore the 300 ft long by 60 ft wide Preston Basin of the Lancaster Canal and repurposing the 19th century basin site as a 21st century multi-purpose amenity, recreational and biodiverse space in central Preston, Lancashire. Why do we […]
Create Streets’ senior architectural designer, Robert Kwolek, explores the history of Letchworth Garden City, a pioneering model of urban planning and reflects on it’s successes and shortcomings of Letchworth’s development. You can read the full essay here. Here in the UK, the new Labour Government is shortly expected to announce further details about its New […]
Nicholas Boys Smith argues that the Athenian authorities should be bolder Life and a conference took me to Athens last week. Reader, it is true: international conferences are not quite a jolly, but they are jolly good fun. You get to say what you’ve said before to people who’ve not heard it before and, if […]
Samuel Hughes, argues that we should preserve the new liberty to create mansards that ‘fit in’. Mansard roofs are such a familiar feature of British streetscapes that most people barely notice them. A mansard is a double-pitch roof which creates usable living space over nearly the entire area of the building. They cost somewhat more […]
Nicholas Boys Smith summarises some high level points for creating and stewarding prosperous and sustainable places into the future I was recently invited by my good friend Carlos Moreno to talk about sustainable cities at a conference (the Redefining the Future Conference) in a rather sultry summer Athens. No slides. Only a few minutes. Not […]
Labour has often repeated its ambitions to build a generation of New Towns to deliver 1.5 million new homes. What might have escaped most people’s attention, however, was what these towns might actually be and look like. After all, there is a big difference between successful historic extensions to cities, such as Edinburgh’s New Town […]
A Coventry public official writes anonymously about the restitched future he would like for his city. I often ask myself, what might have been had Coventry taken a different planning approach after World War II. Where might we be now? How might we reverse some of the twentieth century’s planning decisions? It is a question […]