Create Streets has launched its new report Brewing Communities to a packed-out event in Parliament. You can read the full document here
Partnering with the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA) the report outlines 10 key principles for how we should design new towns for successful pubs and thriving communities who have a local they can love.
With the government’s announcement of a New Towns Taskforce to spearhead a generation of new towns across the country, it is vital they are designed to host a vibrant communal life, with a bustling middle that will underpin the success of new pubs, with good footfall, passing trade and local events.
Create Streets Founder and Chairman, Nicholas Boys Smith said: ‘If our streets were a home then our local pub would be its hearth, the place where we warm ourselves and where we meet and talk, relax and revive. But our pubs are troubled. Over a quarter have closed. This matters. If we desire neighbourhoods where we can come together then we should cherish our existing pubs, manage our streets and squares so that pubs can thrive and create new places which weave us together and don’t spin us apart.
‘The good news is that we know how. The evidence on where people like to be and why is ever clearer. Let’s lift the bar and create places in which pubs can thrive and people can prosper. This report shows how.’
Pubs remain the cornerstone of communal life in Britain, with 82% of the population saying the pub played a vital role in their local communities. Their numbers continue to drop however, and new housing development rarely contains a new pub or local centre in which residents can congregate and spend time with each other.
And when new pubs are built, they are often in the wrong place with the wrong design, whether perched on the edge of a busy roundabout, or tucked away in the middle of a large car park: places that are neither walkable, safe or pleasant and bad for passing trade.
Brewing Communities shows how we must design the hearts of Britain’s new towns to be attractive and walkable places, surrounded by nearby homes, good public transport, cycling and greenery, where people can easily wander into their local and communities can gather in a beautiful setting. What is good for places, is indeed good for pubs.
The 10 principles in the report are:
Getting the big moves right:
- Create new places with tighter and well-connected real middles.
- Create real high streets, village greens and town squares not plazas.
- Create homes round the corner in places which jumble up living, working and mingling
- Create new homes at ‘gentle density’ to nourish high streets neighbourhood centres.
Making it easy to get around:
- Make it safe and fun to walk and cycle.
- Create public transport choices.
Getting the detail right:
- Interweave streets and squares with greenery and street trees.
- Create streets that people like to be in.
- Create buildings that people find attractive.
- Create attractive, flexible buildings that could be used as pubs.
You can read the full document here
The report was launched at the House of Commons with speeches from Culture Minister Stephanie Peacock MP, Chris Curtis MP, Create Streets Chair, Nicholas Boys Smith and BBPA chief executive, Emma McClarkin. Other parliamentarians present included Rupa Huq MP, Danny Kruger MP and a wider range of developers and landowners.