The Rhondda - Llywynpia Terrace

The Rhonda is one of the Welsh Valleys mining towns and the streets are laid out in typical terrace fashion with front doors opening straight out on to the street, narrow straight rows of houses, with comparatively large back gardens. At the end of the 80's and early 90's, five streets in the town were redeveloped after a demand from residents to create a more pleasant street environment. The streets were originally only two metres wide, with an outhouse and coal store built in to a bank opposite. In co-operation with the residents and the Community Design Service, the streets have been redeveloped.

The plan was to design a 'woonerf' style street: these would be significantly wider than the existing street allowing better parking, (at an angle to the street,) slower self enforcing speeds, and provide a safe play space for the children and residents of the street.

Before the street could be laid, all the residents in the terrace had to voluntarily hand over the two metres of land each house owns on the opposite side of the road, to the council. This increased the street width to about 5 metres. The scheme involved paving the entire surface of the street; the roadway has only a small curb to the pavement level. The specific design varies between each of the five terraces; each designed in consultation with the residents of that street. Replanting, erecting new cast iron bollards and streetlights all added to the enhancement of the streetscape, and creating a sense of place. The new trees seemed to be in a poor condition in 2000. I was told that this was not due to vandalism but to the waterlogged state of the ground. As I walked around people popped their heads out of their door to see who I was; the community bond seemed to be very strong.

Designated parking spaces, in strips on alternating sides of the roads to help break up sight lines and reduce speed. The service vehicles have adapted their driving behaviour to suit the streets. One resident told me how the dust bin lorry can negotiate the gaps between the houses with an inch width to spare. The speed limit is still nominally 30mph. Physical self-enforcing measures make this an uncomfortable speed. The traffic calming measures force through-drivers to slow right down and effectively yield right of way to pedestrians and children. There were problems with cars having to park on the pavement side of the street and also visible problems of cars parking on the street even though there were marked bays available. The main problem with one of the streets was that cars, visiting the courthouse next door usually filled all the parking spaces during the day.

Money was obtained through the Welsh Office, for one street each year under the auspices of a pilot scheme. This netted £50,000. The total cost was spread between several budgets but is estimated to be between £1 million to £1 ½ million for all five streets.

The highway authority designed all the technical details of the scheme and the implementation. The main technical problem was the water running down the hill and firstly gathering in pools in the street and secondly causing the land to become unstable. The top streets suffered from a brook running down the centre of the lane before the improvements; drainage ducts laid along the uphill side of the street rectified this. The details of the retaining walls were particularly important to the residents who feared a landslide.

The services to the streets have been much improved. Before the start of the scheme 20 percent of the residents of this area still used an outside toilet. In Argyle Street BT capitalised on the redevelopment to put all their services in ducts under the street.

Summary
Llywynpia Terrace is the largest scheme in the country at present in terms of physical size and financial cost. The dramatic improvements can easily be seen by comparing the new streets with the old 2m wide streets waiting to be redeveloped. The issues in this example were environmental enhancement and giving the residents a safe communal front yard to play and socialise in. By developing one street at a time the authorities could evaluate their own designs and improve in each subsequent street, in partnership with the residents. The residents are very happy with how the scheme worked out and ten year on still call it a success.

Copyright: Matthew Bridgestock, Home Zones Good Practice in Britain and Henbury, Bristol Feasibility Study, Publication date March 2000.

If you are interested in the full publication, e-mail Matthew