Shared Spaces

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Thursday 15th October 2015 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Holmes of Richmond]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact shared spaces have on blind and vision-impaired people and whether guidance for local authorities on shared spaces is fit for purpose.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is with mixed feelings that I rise to open this debate. It is an important debate but it is a debate that we should not need to have. Shared space is a completely artificially created problem which should never have come across our urban landscape. It is a debate we should not need to have because five years ago the noble Lord, Lord Low, stood up in this Chamber and warned local authorities about the dangers of shared space. Yet, five years on, if not quite an epidemic, shared space has swept the United Kingdom like a pernicious class A drug.

What is shared space? Quite simply, it is this: taking away traffic signals, pedestrian crossings, road markings and pavements and having everybody in that shared space—toddlers and tankers, buses and blind people in the same shared space—with the belief that as a result of this everybody will behave better and have a more inclusive shared experience. As I hope this debate will clearly and emphatically point out, that is not the experience for millions of people up and down this nation.

The proponents of shared space say, “Of course blind people are at a disadvantage. They are at a disadvantage in everything in life. Plus ça change. Quelle domage”. We should mind because that kind of logic in urban design is completely unacceptable. That was the reason why I launched my report, Accidents by Design, which I published in July. I surveyed more than 600 people and the findings were stark. They demonstrated that whether you were blind or fully sighted, disabled or non-disabled, a cyclist, a motorist or a parent with young children, your experience of shared space was unremittingly negative. Almost two-thirds of people said they had a negative experience of shared space. Perhaps even more concerning, 35% of people said they actively avoided shared space. That is over a third of the population effectively planned out of their local area.

Those are the statistics but I wanted the report to speak with the voices of the respondents. I wanted their experiences to come through, to gain those narratives, those qualitative data, to sit alongside the quantitative statistics. Let us hear some of those voices. A pedestrian described her local shared space scheme as “lethally dangerous”. A motorist said his local scheme was an “absolute nightmare” that he sought to avoid. That point is interesting because if proponents of shared space are actively using it, if their primary purpose is to create traffic-free areas, they should be honest and open and have the debate on those grounds, rather than using unconsenting pedestrians as human shields for their plan.

For cyclists, shared space is a promise that simply does not deliver. Many people talk about feelings of danger, of being intimidated and feeling terrified. Is this what we want to create for our local communities—our townscapes—in 21st-century Britain? The report was widely received and yet the proponents of shared space sought to push it to one side, suggesting again that it was an issue only for blind people. It is clear that it is an issue for the entire population, up and down the country, yet hundreds of schemes are still in the planning process right across the country.

The scheme as a concept came out of the Netherlands, so, presumably, it is working incredibly well there. In fact, it is not. The scheme is fundamentally flawed and cannot possibly deliver on the promise set out in the government guidance: that this will lead to pedestrians being able to move with more comfort and ease, and enable everybody to share the space better. With whichever design or method, it simply fails if you believe that traffic signals, pedestrian crossings and kerbs can be removed and everybody can share one open space.

What happens when the problems of these schemes are discovered? There is U-turn after U-turn, up and down the country, with the reinstatement of pedestrian crossings or traffic lights in Hackbridge, Warwick and tens of other schemes. Even better is where these schemes are abandoned before they get off the ground once the consultation gives that clear steer from the local community that they do not work, as was the case most recently with the proposed scheme for the Isle of Man. But schemes still remain on plan, as I have said, up and down the country. If this debate can do anything, I want it to raise awareness across the population. Do they want their taxes to be spent on schemes that exclude, are dangerous and terrify? I ask my noble friend the Minister these questions and I urge the Government to strongly consider an immediate moratorium on all future shared space until a thorough analysis can be done of the impact on the local community.

Similarly, I urge the Government to classify so-called courtesy crossings. These are non-crossings where pedestrians have to take their lives in their hands to try to get across the road and where nobody has right of way. These crossings need to be classified so that accident data can be reported and centrally recorded, and so that we can know the truth about shared space where, at the moment, so much smoke and mirrors exists. The reality is, as my report evidenced, a massive underreporting of accidents, serious incidents and, sadly, sometimes fatalities in these shared spaces.

I ask the Minister to review the Department for Transport guidance to enable it to better support local authorities, which are being hoodwinked into believing the bogus benefits of these schemes. Do the Government believe that these schemes prove value for money when, all too often, they have to be refitted or retrofitted with lights and signals, and kerbs reinstated? Is this value for money at a time of incredible pressure on local authority finance? Finally, do the Government believe that so-called shared space delivers on the equality legislation and the public sector equality duty?

To local authorities, I say: tread carefully if you are thinking of walking down the road to shared space. It will exclude; it will intimidate. You will be sacrificing safety on the altar of architectural conceit, planning folly and a scheme which is all about form over function. This will cost, and the cost is measured in so many ways. There is the financial cost of reinstallation and the potential legal cost: currently, three local authorities are on the end of legal action by residents who believe that they have been discriminated against under the Equality Act. The councils have instructed a top London QC. To the residents, I say: is this what you believe your tax should be spent on, rather than having planning which includes everyone from the outset?

That is just the financial cost. What of the human cost? As I mentioned, 35% of people are actively avoiding shared space—a third of people excluded from their local communities. There are accidents, incidents and, in Coventry, Leek and other locations, people have been tragically killed in shared space. My thoughts go out to their families.

In conclusion, I hope that all local authorities take note of this debate, read it and think very seriously before embarking on any shared space scheme. It will cost; it will exclude; it will not be safe. You may well find yourself in court as a result.