New Streets Design Guide
This document aims to assist designers, developers, authorities and stakeholders in the design, planning, delivery and maintenance of new residential streets within the City of Nottingham.
This guide was produced in collaboration with PJA
Foreword by Cllr Linda Woodings ...
'Nottingham is a core city, strategically located and well connected, and is a significant driver of the Region’s economy. In these times of healthy investment and growth, the City Council is delivering strategic regeneration schemes and a major programme of housing, transport and cycling infrastructure across the city. The platform for growth and delivery of new homes aspires to attract families back into the city. Good connectivity is one of the core objectives of these strategies to reduce reliance on cars, especially for short trips. A good quality movement network will improve health and wellbeing by making high quality open spaces more accessible and by providing well designed pedestrian and cycling routes throughout.
With an unprecedented level of development activity taking place, our skilled professional capacity and expertise needs to be as effective and joined up as possible to best influence and impact on high quality Placemaking.
The Design Quality Framework (DQF) Audits have shown that extensive officer time is spent in Nottingham encouraging street design improvements for residential schemes at pre-application and determination stages.
We have updated the internal highways design and delivery processes to improve the overall quality of our services, to speed up the design and build process and ultimately, to achieve higher quality movement networks. The contents of this guide reflect these changes. This guide adds another important layer of detail to the process, which perhaps was absent previously: forming a group of comprehensive, interlinked design codes and rules for the future Placemaking of the city. Within the DQF - in the spirit of Manual for Streets - streets shall be designed and evaluated as one of the urban design components that contributes to Placemaking, and not merely as functional vehicular routes.
The DQF was developed through a collaborative approach with major stakeholders. Extensive engagement with community and interest groups has been central to developing and testing this guide. However, the Placemaking ethos of this framework relies on continuous multiagency participation in design processes to ensure we can create inclusive neighbourhoods and high quality places that work for all.
Introduction
This Street Design Guide (SDG) is a component part of ...
the Design Quality Framework, therefore it is underpinned by the ideas of collaborative design, Placemaking, and long-term place governance. It focuses strongly on the design process as well as safeguarding the quality of design outcomes. This guide is adopted as a policy of the City Council as Highway Authority and will be referred to in decisions of the Planning Authority in connection with the planning and design of new developments. It will also provide best practice advice for developers and designers wishing to engage in pre-application discussions with the Local Planning and Highway Authorities. This guide is the starting point for the design of all new streets within Nottingham City. It has been written to be fully in line with the principles of Manual for Streets (MfS)and Manual for Streets 2(MfS2), which are supported by the City Council, and to reflect Nottingham City Centre Urban Design Guide(2009).
Where there are detailed differences in guidance between MfS / MfS2 and SDG, SDG shall be followed. The Design Manual for Roads and Bridges (DMRB) is the standard of Highways England and is primarily intended for major highways. Where it is applied to highway layouts it should be done so in a way which respects the overall principles set out in this document, which are derived from MfS and MfS2. DMRB should be referred to for detailed guidance on all structural works such as retaining walls and bridges.
The Nottingham City Cycling Design Guide (NCCDG) contains detailed guidance for cycle routes and facilities on both new and existing streets. Key aspects of designing for cycling on new developments are summarised in DES 1.4 in Section 3 of the SDG. The SDG (informed by the other documents referred to above) is generally considered to represent good practice in design. However, the City Council is always willing to consider alternative and innovative approaches, which will be judged on their merits. Building for Life 12 (BfL12 - Now Building for a Healthy Life) has been adopted by Nottingham City Council. The benchmark provides a structured approach to assessing the quality of new residential developments.
Why we need this guide? ...
Streets make up around 80% of all public space across Nottingham and have a huge impact on the quality of people’s lives and the well-being of the city as a whole. Streets:
- Provide a setting that encourages public activity and interaction in all contexts, from quiet residential areas through to the busy city centre.
- Provide a canvas for the high-quality buildings that already exist across the city as well as those being delivered by new developments.
- Enable people of all kinds and goods to move around in sustainable ways, in comfort and in safety.
- Improve public health by enabling people to be active and reduce harmful emissions
- Help Nottingham’s economy to prosper, attracting people to visit and invest in the city.
Who is this guide for? ...
This document is the primary source of guidance for highway design across the city of Nottingham. It applies to new developments and new and modified streets (adopted and private), led by the City Council itself. It is for everyone involved in the planning, design, approval, construction and maintenance of streets. It will be relevant to professional staff working for the local authority and consultants as well as external organisations who create, modify and manage the highway network, including private developers and their designers; and to communities engaged in Place-making.
Highways & planning process
Through direct liaison with the case officer ...
... developers/applicants/designers shall agree their proposals with the relevant departments of the City Council at all stages, to ensure a design is achieved which best meets all of the authority’s requirements. During the pre-application stage, the City Council shall agree the Concept Design for the new development before more detailed street layout and design proposals are presented for agreement at the Developed Design stage.
Although applications for outline consent may reserve details of the on-site highways for future determination, the City Council will normally wish to approve an overall master plan for the site at this stage, and this will require the design of all new streets to be developed to a high degree of certainty meeting the Developed Design criteria and submission requirements. After approval, the Nottingham City Council will take responsibility for the approval of all new adopted highways through the process set out in Section 38 of the Highways Act 1980.
The Planning, Urban Design, Highway Development Management and Network Management teams within the City Council will interact with the developer’s design team through the various stages. Other departments, e.g. Waste Management, may need to be involved on particular issues.
I. Concept Design: pre-application
Having identified opportunities and agreed the principles of the movement network with Nottingham City Council, applicants can then move forward with some confidence and begin to add detail to the proposal.
Information required as a minimum:
* Location plan and concept in context
* Points of access
* Proposed street structure
* Proposed street hierarchy (see examples of street types here)
* Proposed street functions
* Walking & cycling network and public transport access
* Key nodes and spaces
* Key site assets like existing landscape, views, topography, etc.
II. Developed Design: application
A collaborative design process at the pre-application stage will help identify and tackle as many issues and challenges as possible, facilitating the technical approval stage. Developers are encouraged to create, wherever possible, street layouts that are to an adoptable standard and that will be offered for adoption. Technical approval of the proposed streets for adoption will be required prior to the finalisation of the Section 38 agreement, which means that full construction drawings will have to be submitted to the City Council. Scheme reviews will only commence once all the information has been received.
Information required as a minimum:
* Site access proposals
* Adoption plan
* Vehicle tracking using family car and large refuse vehicle
* Walking and cycling routes
* Links to public transport routes and stops
* Street hierarchy and typologies (see examples of street types here)
* Typical junction details reflecting Manual for Streets
* Car and cycling parking standards and typical arrangements
* Drainage and utilities principles
* Planting, landscape and drainage
* Materials
III. Detailed Design: post-permission
The Urban Design department will be part of the team that approved the technical detail of streets.
Information required as a minimum:
* The Detailed Design is worked out alongside a highways management officer during the pre-app/planning process.
Highways adoption
Submission of adoption plans are a requirement ...
... at developed design stage for Nottingham City Council. Nottingham City Council will favour road adoption but would consider private roads in residential neighbourhoods in specific cases with robust justification. As indicated in the design criteria of this document, Nottingham City Council will not favour cul-de-sacs and roads with dead ends. When developers agree with Nottingham City Council to provide private roads, these must be designed and built to adoptable standards and a management plan must be put in place for the long-term maintenance of the road and associated public spaces.
Highways adoption criteria
An adopted highway is a highway that was privately-owned road/land, but has becomes a public road, managed and maintained by the highway authority. Nottingham City Council is a unitary local authority, therefore responsible for the provision of all local government services within the city. This means that the highway authority and the planning department work very closely together.
Nottingham follows best practice broadly adopting the Department for Transport Advice Notice on Highway Adoption (2017). However, the highway adoptions criteria on this guide are Nottingham-specific.
Nottingham City Council will adopt highways that ...
a) Comply with the design criteria of this guide, the Technical Design Sheets and all other relevant documents of the Nottingham Design Quality Framework.
b) Streets with shared surface treatment (see relevant Technical Design Sheets for material specifications).
c) Highways that comply with the Equality Act (2010).
d) Carriageways and footways that offer safe passage for pedestrian and vehicles.
Nottingham City Council will not adopt highways that ...
a) Do not comply with the design criteria of this guide.
b) Residential access serving car parks, individual properties or forecourts.
c) Residential access roads supported by structures.
d) Cul-de-sacs and dead-end streets serving less than six dwellings.
e) Access roads to commercial units or supermarkets.
Design Criteria
These design principles underpin both, the assessment of new streets being delivered through new developments, and any changes planned or made for existing streets.
1. CONCEPT DESIGN STAGE
1.1 Place-making
This refers to designing streets with full consideration of its broader impact on Place, both in present and in future. Also, it refers to including stakeholders and end users in the design process as mush as possible from the outset and acknowledging the impact of street design on society.
1.2 Good structure
This relates to the overall form of the proposal, including the size, position and shape of roads, streets, paths and public places that are defined to result in a movement infrastructure.
1.3 Good connections
This refers to how well connected the place is with, services, infrastructure and the surrounding areas, and with the rest of the city.
1.4 Walkable
This relates to how the street infrastructure helps reduce the need for cars, especially for short journeys, and how the design encourages people to use public transport, and cycle and walk more.
1.5 Inclusive, safe & healthy
This refers to how the design caters for the many different needs of people, bringing them closely to nature and preventing crime and antisocial behaviours.
1.6 Legible
This relates to how the design makes it easier to navigate the area, assisting people to find their way round with distinctive streets that work in coordination with the architecture and landscape.
2. DEVELOPED DESIGN STAGE
2.1 Well defined streets & spaces
This refers to how well the design forms enclosed, inviting, easy to read spaces that can be understood intuitively.
2.2 Distinctive streets & spaces
This relates to how the design helps achieve a sense of identity for each street so that residents and users can develop a sense of pride and belonging.
2.3 Materials & detail
This refers to the provision of footways, crossing, edges, cycling tracks, etc. and how these are delivered in the manner that was intended at design stage.
2.4 Designed speed
This relates to how well the design eliminates or reduces the need for signage and engineered speed control measures.
2.5 Well designed car parking
This refers to how the design provides adequate levels of parking with mixed modalities, creating an interesting environment that is pedestrian friendly and not dominated by cars.
2.6 Drainage, trees & services
This relates to how the design incorporates trees, landscape, SuDS features and service runs in a future-proof way and minimizing the need for retrofitting.
3. DETAILED DESIGN
The Best Practice Guide: Residential Schemes sets out the design requirements for particular components of streets in more detail.
New Streets Appraisals
Nottingham City Council officers will use appraise the design of new streets at pre-application and application submission stages on the basis of the New Streets Design Criteria above.
Officers will appraise the proposals to establish how well the design principles were managed to achieve the desired outcome. Feedback will be given to applicants on the basis of this appraisal system.
A simple Appraisal Tool might be used to evaluate the scheme.