Evaluation
The development as a whole has been laid out with care to create interesting townscape, views and vistas, enclosed spaces, and a tight pattern of vehicle and pedestrian routes. Instead of relying on standard house types, the developer has created a wide range, adapting them as required by the townscape and the need for spaces to be overlooked. Radiuses at road junctions are tight (‘quarter-cheese’ kerbs are used), slowing traffic speeds and allowing pedestrians to cross roads directly rather than be deflected from their desired path by highway engineered wide radii curves in existing suburban layouts.
The road pattern uses the contours well, combining meandering streets with tight squares and rear courtyards and some short cul-de-sacs. Glimpses of surrounding countryside and the older buildings are pleasantly revealed.
The Charlton Down development has used some of the principles first established at the Poundbury development including minimal signage and no road markings. However because of its relatively complicated layout, topography and its predominant residential form and the lack of signs, finding one’s way around at least as a visitor can be difficult.
The lack of road markings may potentially not be helping with what seems to be the major problem in the development of streets that are not designed to accommodate on-street parking easily. Ad-hoc parking half on the pavement and half on the road, in front of people’s houses, is evident throughout the development. Also there are temporary “no parking” cones visible on the roadways near the shop and this indicates that there is obviously a problem with people attempting to park on the street near the shop even though the design does not accommodate this easily.
Such ad-hoc parking on pavements present a physical barrier to pedestrians, people with pushchairs and disabled people seeking to move about and to cross roads safely. Also there is evidence from local residents that they find the level of on pavement parking is causing problems as they move about in cars around the development and attempt to gain access to their own off street parking spaces and garages, particularly at times when they are leaving for work or returning home.
More specifically the development can be criticised for the lack of designated accessible parking bays, which makes it both difficult and inconvenient for disabled people wishing to use community facilities such as the shop and the village hall. At least one in 20 of the parking bays available should be designated for use by disabled people, and provided with appropriate ground markings and signage. A safe drop off point also should be provided near to the village hall but the lack of a level entrance to the village hall will present a real obstacle to accessibility for many people. The topography of the Charlton Down site means some of the streets have significant inclines and this is a barrier to some people with mobility impairments. It could be addressed or mitigated by providing seating, periodic resting places and hand rails on the paved area.
Behind most of Charlton Down’s streets, parking courts serve houses that do not have garages accessed off the street itself. Some of these courts are designed to be public space, with houses facing on to them and with connected pedestrian routes through them. However some of the courts are poorly landscaped with large areas of tarmac and are much less visible to nearby properties because the properties back onto the courts and have high boundary fences.
Much of the street surface is asphalt. This looks particularly dull, and gives no visual contrast where pedestrian routes, parking courts and the spaces around houses flow into one another in an undifferentiated sea. The lack of carriageway markings and signage is welcome, though; road users are left to apply their common sense. With a little ingenuity it would have been possible to avoid some of the excessive numbers of bollards.
The justification for developing Charlton Down was that it was a brownfield site, although much of the development site was previously green space. The new development has helped the viability of conserving the listed hospital buildings. But the fundamental criticism of the development is that is in an isolated location and can never easily be connected to nearby neighbourhoods. The single, rather narrow uphill route into Charlton Down creates traffic congestion; it is not near regular public transport routes; there are few amenities apart from a convenience store, a village hall and a sports pavilion; the schools in the vicinity are full; and the planned pub seems unlikely to materialise due to the small catchment area and a restricted site.
However Charlton Down deserves to be commended in general in the story of the search for an alternative to what was at the time the norm: housing developments dominated by highway engineering. The place falls short of being a real village, of being well connected into the wider road network and of solving the parking problem, but it has been a valuable step in the direction that nearby Poundbury pioneered.
