About a month ago I went for a walk along the path in the woods behind our house. It had been raining a lot and I wanted to have a look at how well the drainage stream there was coping – its a way to pass the time during a drought… A couple of years […]
Entries Tagged as 'Town Planning'
1 Westminster Bridge Road
May 22nd, 2006 · Comments Off on 1 Westminster Bridge Road · Life
This building will be familiar to most people who have spent any time in London. No. 1 Westminster Bridge is generally regarded as an eyesore from the 1970s which was unpopular when it was built and then fell out of favour at an alarming rate. It was not just the building, but its location on […]
Tags: Buildings·London·Photos·Town Planning
Fractal streets
April 24th, 2006 · 1 Comment · Life, Politics
No its not another great-name-for-a-band (although I think it would be a great name for a band) but an observation on the town planning around here. You are plodding along, delivering leaflets along a main road and turn off to do a close off of it. It only looks like a small close with perhaps […]
Tags: Town Planning
Public urination
March 24th, 2006 · 4 Comments · Life
On the way to a meeting today I saw these state of the art alfresco urinals at Vauxhall. Maybe a tad unpleasant, but no doubt better than having people just pissing in the street and up walls and lamp posts. I thought it was aimed squarely at the nightbus crowd, but I did see a […]
Tags: London·Photos·Town Planning·WTF
Endless suburbia
February 8th, 2006 · Comments Off on Endless suburbia · Life
I am going to have to stop moaning about the identikit housing estates of modern Britain, with their acres of soulless brick boxes and handkerchief-sized gardens. These photos of Ixtapaluca in Mexico make Maidenbower, South Woodham Ferrers, Stevenage and just about everywhere else in England look positively gothic by comparison! Next to this, the average […]
Tags: Housing·Mexico·Photos·Town Planning
Local Distinctiveness
January 17th, 2006 · Comments Off on Local Distinctiveness · Politics
A couple of years ago I was at a summer school run by the RTPI up in Bangor. One session which particularly interested me was on Local distinctiveness as an economic driver, presented by a chap from Chester City Council. It struck a chord with me because although its hard to define exactly what ‘local […]
Tags: Town Planning·Travellers
Just call me shallow…
January 12th, 2006 · Comments Off on Just call me shallow… · Politics
I went to the council meeting tonight, and boy was I wrong about a couple of things. First of all, the gasworks site is not withdrawn completely, but deferred until a planning judicial review thingy is complete for the North-East sector. In reality this means indefinitely, but strictly speaking it would mean that is hasn’t […]
Tags: Crawley·Crawley Council·Hawth·Photos·Town Planning·Travellers·TV
Weather
October 25th, 2005 · Comments Off on Weather · Life
Boy is it windy out there tonight! In the time I have lived in Crawley I have noticed that it seems to be very prone to winds. When its not windy, its likely to be foggy. It must have taken a real genius to decide that its the ideal place for Britain’s second-busiest airport!
Tags: Aviation·Town Planning·Weather
Ewe must be joking
October 18th, 2005 · Comments Off on Ewe must be joking · Politics
I don’t know if anyone saw this story about Havering council in Essex. The report of it in Private Eye’s Rotten Boroughs was even more lively.
Tags: Essex·Funny·Town Planning·WTF
Highwood Park, Broadfield
October 9th, 2005 · Comments Off on Highwood Park, Broadfield · Life
There is a bit of building which has been going on for a while in Broadfield Park. Not the park itself, but the land next to it which used to be a council depot. The developers have decided to call it Highwood Park. Having had some input to the design brief, chaired the committee which […]
