Bradley Stoke, Bristol, an example of the late 20th-century housing estates that followed rules set out in 1977’s Design Bulletin 32. Photograph: SWNS
From cul-de-sacs to retail parks, Britain’s planning rules cause environments that are bewildering, illogical and ugly. We have forgotten that urban areas are grown
Here is something you might try if you live in Britain. Go to your favourite urban place, whether it be the centre of a large city or a small market town. Close your eyes, turn around three times and walk in that direction for 15 minutes (or an hour if you’re in London). I can predict with a reasonable degree of confidence that the place where you end up will be crap.
You may be stuck in the no-man’s-land around the ring road, or in a brutally functional industrial estate, or among the endless rows of parked cars in a retail park, or lost in a tangle of suburban cul-de-sacs. Wherever you are, the environment will generally be bewildering, illogical and ugly.
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