Home zones

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What is a Home Zone?

A Home Zone is a street or group of streets designed primarily to meet the needs of pedestrians or cyclists. This is achieved by turning space previously considered for the motorist (carriageway) into areas that can be shared by both the vehicle and vulnerable road users.

Legally neither the pedestrian nor the motorist has priority over each other, and the design should attempt to introduce specific measures to re-address the balance between motor vehicles and the pedestrian.

There are also many other social reasons to introduce these type of measures, in that they can bring together communities, give residents a sense of ownership and encourage the use of sustainable transport measures such as walking and cycling.

History

The use of ‘Home Zones’ has been around since the late 1960’s mainly on the continent. The idea has been adapted for use in this county from schemes that have been implemented in Germany, Sweden, Denmark but particularly Holland where 6,500 ‘Woonerf’ (translated - ‘shared space’) as they are known, have been introduced.

The initial trial involved fourteen sites countywide, with a mixture of urban streets and rural village locations. The subsequent report from the trial sites deemed that overall they could be considered a success

From this trail the government announced its intention to accelerate the growth of these scheme’s countrywide. It did this by announcing the establishment of a £30 million Home Zone Challenge Fund and invited all local authorities to submit bids to access this fund.

In January 2002 following assessment of all bids by the TRL (Transport Research Laboratory), the then Minister for Transport Ms Sally Keeble announced the winners of the challenge fund. Of the 237 bids received, 61 have received approval for funding, with allocations ranging from £90,000 to £1.5 million. Wiltshire Council submitted bids for the provision of three Home Zones, and was successful with two. These were Westleigh Estate, Warminster and The College Community Area, Trowbridge.  For a full list of the successful bids, visit  www.homezoneschallenge.com

The majority of Home zones are in housing estates constructed in the 1960’s and 1970’s, when the idea was to have long straight roads to avoid the prying eyes of neighbours. Unfortunately these long straight streets tended to encourage an increase in traffic speed and often led to a rise in burglary.

This philosophy altered with the introduction of Design Bulletin 32 - Residential Roads and Footpaths, the document used to assist planners of new housing estates. This changed the philosophy to construct 5 or 6 properties in small cul-de-sacs, thus forging a sense of community. The advice on carriageway layout was altered to try and introduce narrow, tighter roads and hence reduce speeds.

Legislation

To allow this type of scheme to be progressed, a change in legislation was required. Thus Section 268 of the Transport Act 2000 was created and came into force in February 2001, giving local authorities the power to designate roads as either a Home Zones or Quiet Lane.

In August 2004 The Department for Transport published draft guidance on ‘Quiet Lanes and Home Zones’. This included proposed legislation allowing local authorities to make use of ‘speed orders’ and use orders’ for Home Zone areas.

Consultation

This is undoubtedly the key to the installation of a successful Home Zone. It is important to understand the requirements of the residents and not to inflict measures that they may resent.

This can be achieved through the use of resident’s questionnaires, specialised meetings and design days. It is also beneficial to select a small group of residents to become ‘street representatives’ to express the views of the residents whilst enabling meetings to run efficiently and do not develop into ‘free for all’s’.  It is important that these meetings are run regularly and throughout the duration of the scheme, for a number of reasons.

• To keep local residents informed of scheme progress
• To identify areas of possible conflict
• To gauge opinion of the scheme

Specific areas that often emerge as a result of consultation are

Parking
The majority of residents will expect some level of on-street parking to be provided. However, few will tolerate any loss in the vicinity of their home. This is particularly sensitive where there is already a limited amount off street parking available.

Speed of Traffic
Residents are often heard to say ‘everyone drives too fast’. The truth is that in the majority of residential area the 85th percentile speeds are frequently close to the 30mph limit. This may considerably lower in a Cul-de-sac.

Volume of Traffic
If within a Cul-de-sac this issue should be examined carefully,  as often the majority of traffic will be generated by the residents alone.

It is important to collect information from residents during scheme construction to ascertain any areas of possible conflict and upon completion of the scheme. This should normally be undertaken on two occasions at 6 and 12 months.

Design
Depending on the geographic location of the Home Zone, there are currently two published documents that engineers can use to assist them in their design. Both documents are used example guidelines of good practice for both new build Home Zones and retrofit schemes. Further information can be obtained from Traffic Advisory leaflets, published by the Department of Transport.

For England and Wales the recommended design guidelines have been produced by the Institute of Highway Incorporated Engineers. ‘Home Zones - A planning and design handbook’ written by Mike Biddulph, and published by The Policy Press  provides a useful guiding principal.  For Scotland, the Scottish Executive has produced guidelines for design.

There are of course some key aspects that needs to be addressed when designing a Home Zone; these primarily include; location, size and the provision of on-street parking.

Location:
There should be a natural boundary to the extremities of the proposed area. Home Zones are not normally installed individually, but are part of an overall scheme. The Home Zone is normally at the centre with 20mph zone on the roads connected to it. If the proposed area is a through route, then there must be a suitable alternative route.

Size:
Dutch experience suggests that a driver will get impatient if forced to reduce speed for distances over 400m. For this reason Home Zones tend to work better when the size is contained over a smaller residential area. The IHIE guidelines also suggests that pedestrians should not be requested to walk more than 400m or 5 minutes to access local public transport.

Parking:
This is undoubtedly one of the most critical aspects to the resident’s perception of the success or failure of a Home Zone. There is a small margin of error between meeting the needs of the residents whilst maintaining the requirements of the guidelines. Parking layouts should be arranged creatively and can be laid in a perpendicular, parallel or echelon (angled) manor. Blocks or groups of parking spaces should be used to break up and divert traffic flows at regular intervals. Parallel parking should not normally be more than 6 spaces. Anything greater tends to form a visual barrier between the vehicle track and the area for pedestrian space.

Last updated: 23 June 2009