Safety
It is important to people that they feel safe while using the Walks, as well as actually being safe. In our survey, security was the only thing which came close to nature concerns as top priority.
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"Secured By Design"
The Walks - Secure?
To help promote good design which helps to reduce the likelihood of crime, the Association of Chief Police Officers launched a scheme called Secured By Design. Its "Designing for Community Safety" campaign lays out some core principles:
- Integrated approach
- Environmental quality and sense of ownership
- Natural surveillance
- Access and footpaths
- Open space provision and management
- Lighting
The Walks project is probably the first attempt to take an integrated approach to the entire park. For that reason, it is a great opportunity to improve safety and security.
Time will tell whether there the environment is well-designed and there is a sense of ownership. So far, there definitely hasn't been. The project has been driven through despite the sense of ownership of the space felt by the Walks Action Group and other friends of the Walks. The council gathered a mailing list of Friends, but has refused to call a meeting of them or consult them in any meaningful way.
A suitable edge-of-site location
Opportunities for natural surveillance have been missed. The Kiosk is planned to be put in a corner where it can see the top of the chapel and a narrow view of the recreation ground, even though police advised an edge-of-site location. The removal of the sports courts also reduces the number of local residents spending time in that half of the site. Meanwhile, the current "problem area" around the Vancouver garden will be further hidden by a V-shaped line of trees on the edge of the recreation ground.
Access and footpaths will be definitely improved. This is one of the biggest budgets of the project. There are some questions remaining about gates and other obstructions, but I'm optimistic they will be resolved.
Open space provision and management is a mixed blessing. The balance of open space types is being changed quite drastically and I'm not sure how that will affect safety. The originally-planned damage to the amenity value of the space has been reduced and there will be a long-term management plan for the Walks. Both of those are very good developments.
Finally, lighting. The lottery bid seems to plan like-for-like replacement of the current lights with mock-victorian ones in the same locations. That would be totally unacceptable, giving the same opportunities for vandalism and vehicle collisions as the current ones. Also, the removal of the hard courts will presumably remove some of the floodlighting from the area around the church. One positive development was the attachment of a lighting condition to the kiosk plan by the council's Development Control Board.
Conclusion
Environmental questions are still uncertain. Park users and friends should be fully involved in developing the answers, which they have not been yet. There should be a lighting model made of any proposed layout, to test whether the Walks will follow best practice for night lighting.
If at all possible, the locations of the facilities should be changed to offer more natural surveillance.
The access improvements must be monitored in an objective way, but it looks like it could be quite good. It is also really great to see a long-term and integrated approach, which we should make the most of.
"Secured by Design" should be a must-have target for the Walks Restoration Project.