2008

Ideas from a recent Study Tour

Two members of Yore Vision, Keith Ramsay and Jane Barber together with Rebecca Micallef, the Principal Projects Officer from Harrogate Borough Council, were lucky enough to join a study tour organised by Yorkshire Forward and MBed.

The tour to the Netherlands was to see how they have managed their renaissance. The two areas focussed on were Shared Space and Affordable Housing.

The idea of Shared Space is that traffic signs are removed and road users all - pedestrians, bikes, cars, lorries, children playing - use the same space! Seems completely unworkable to the outsiders. But - we saw Shared Space working very successfully in a busy town, a smaller town and a village. (The paved road surface in the village has lasted for 30 years without repair!)

The different ways of paving provide a form of road art. Absence of curbs makes life easier for the disabled - one tour member found no difficulty in moving around using her wheel chair.

The Affordable Housing was in Amsterdam where land is in short supply.
We were taken to the islands in the river - connected to the mainland by bridges. The Dutch have created underground carparks, using the holes they excavated to put in secure foundations for the buildings. It gave an uncluttered feeling to the roads.
They have built 5 metre houses to make best use of the space - the whole house is only 5metres front to back and very narrow width! The wooden house was floating rather than on solid foundations.

Where a large block of flats has been built, close to the houses shown on the right, the whole area seemed soul-less. There were no communal facilities such as shops - and the playground we saw was a narrow strip sandwiched between the houses and the canal.

The left-hand picture shows a remarkable house in Utrecht where new buildings have to blend with existing, older buildings. This house was on one car parking space - and 7 stories high, 2 below ground.

The tour certainly gave us food for thought. Could the Shared Space idea be adapted to Boroughbridge and other villages in the Lower Ure Valley? Was the idea of the 45 metre house really practical?

Let us know your thoughts on this.

Articles from the Chair of Yore Vision

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