February 1st, 2024
Nicholas Boys Smith considers why street scars can spoil our streets and how we can fix it.
We’ve all seen this: the freshly laid paving or granite setts, the Yorkstones lovingly laid on a slow street, or in front of a newly repaired parade of Victorian shops. Within months, weeks or, sometimes days, a slice or a square of them are pulled up thoughtlessly, cracked, smashed or, worse, thrown needlessly away and replaced by a scar of tarmac which lingers for months or years or forever and which seems to laugh at any local or neighbourhood desire to live in a place with self-worth.
“I am authority,”, it seems to say. “I am from nowhere. I serve the needs of a nameless, placeless corporation. I don’t care about you, or your neighbourhood or your friends. You don’t matter. Your local aspirations are pointless and petty. Get lost. I don’t care.”
Read the full report here
Please do pop over to https://chng.it/RMgCXnKhYN to sign the petition we’ve just launched to get this heard and changed.
You can read about our Street Scar report and campaign in The Guardian, Architects’ Journal and Local Gov.