Sutton Coldfield Public Realm Review
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Sutton Coldfield Public Realm Review October 2017 Contents General Considerations 3 Local Centre Projects by Area 25 Sutton Coldfield Public Realm Review 4 Sutton (Parade) 26 General Maintenance, Consistency, and Presentation 5 Sutton (Upper) 27 Establishing the Sutton Palette 6 Sutton (Lower) 28 Local Centre Projects by Theme 7 Boldmere 29 Public Realm – Painting 8 Little Boldmere 30 Public Realm – Consistency & Quality 10 Wylde Green 27 Public Realm – Low Intervention Design 14 Beeches Walk 31 Green Spaces, Trees, & Planting 17 Walmley 32 Deep Clean Regime 22 Mere Green 33 Welcome & Wayfinding Signage 22 New Oscott 34 General Considerations Sutton Coldfield Public Realm Review Clockwork City was commissioned by Royal Sutton Coldfield Town Council (RSCTC) to review the public realm quality of Sutton Coldfield, Beeches Walk, Boldmere, Little Boldmere, Mere Green, New Oscott, Walmley, and Wylde Green. Site visits were undertaken throughout September 2017. The results highlighted areas of support in each local centre, as well as generally across the area, that would benefit from immediate intervention. Further work is being undertaken to review the role and responsibilities of Birmingham City Council across the issues addressed in this report, and beyond. This Overview document is designed to provide early recommendations towards the Royal Sutton Coldfield Town Council’s (RSCTC) public realm review. Its purpose is to provide early guidance to further enhance Sutton Coldfield’s local centre network. This Overview is being presented prior to feedback from Birmingham City Council regarding service delivery levels on issues such as parking enforcement and street cleaning, and therefore should be digested with this in mind. The recommendations in this Overview are for testing and further co-development with RSCTC Councillors and colleagues General Maintenance, Consistency, and Presentation The premise of this report is developed around the core idea that a ‘clean, green, and accessible’ place is one that people will want to return to, residents will appreciate, and where businesses will continue to trade and grow. To that end, the general maintenance of the Town is paramount to give a positive impression to residents, businesses, and investors. This impression is also communicated by small details that when done poorly will certainly be noticed. RSCTC should monitor, and add value to, general maintenance of the Town where appropriate, to ensure the best public image of Sutton Coldfield is given to residents, visitors, and businesses. This is seen across the Town in: • Guard rails that are poorly painted and/or chipped, as well as different colours; • Street planters that are not consistent shapes and sizes, nor consistently planted; • Floral boxes on railings look great, but often these point towards the road-side and not the pavement-side of the barrier; • The poor state of some road surfaces in an area where car use is high; • Mismatched paving blocks, and use of tarmac patching for service works that seems to have been accepted rather than reinstated; • Unusual street furniture on pavements, such as miniature concrete bollards, and items of potential unnecessary street furniture and signage that could be removed / consolidated, creating more space for people. • General de-cluttering, lighting, and general transformation of under utilised space for people. Establishing the ‘Sutton Palette’ In order to support decision-making in order to develop positive, lasting impressions of Royal Sutton Coldfield, RSCTC should develop a ‘Sutton Palette’ to guide public realm maintenance and design in relation to ‘simple’ issues. The Palette would cover: • The styles to be used for street bins, benches, lamp columns, and other street furniture across the local centre network; • The longer-term development ambitions of RSCTC regarding public realm quality and finish for other public and private work programmes, as well as future high-profile projects that may be considered; • Planting schemes and maintenance regimes for gardens, trees, and floral planters and features; • Festive and general after-dark lighting schemes for the local centre network and linked walking and road routes; • The placement of street furniture within each local centre, relative to the width of pavements, parking spaces, street trees and so on. This process will streamline decisions about the basic appearance of the public realm. By establishing the ‘Sutton Palette’ and following this in discussions with private and public stakeholders, RSCTC will have a clear position on items that impact the visual identity of each local centre. This identity builds and maintains perceptions amongst local centre users and residents; a ‘clean and green’ local centre gives the impression of a cared- for place. Developing the Palette should not however be a barrier to delivering quick win improvements and progress on wider regeneration or governance ambitions. Local Centre Projects by Theme Public Realm - Painting Project: Across Sutton Coldfield’s local centre network, there is a wide range of street furniture that would benefit from re-painting. These items include: • Pedestrian guard and hand rails (seven of ten areas reviewed had extensive sections of guard railing, and Sutton Coldfield’s hand rails leading down to the bus interchange were in very poor condition) • Light and sign columns (17 in Sutton Parade) • Metal bollards (mainly fine across area) • Benches (31 across reviewed areas) Issue The presence of chipped paint, poorly maintained, or mismatched street furniture across Sutton Coldfield’s local centres, as well as the roads Addressed: leading to them, does not give the Town a strong visual identity or the perception of being ‘cared for’. This project would undertake an extensive (re)painting of current street furniture in line with the Sutton Coldfield Palette described above. This would take time to deliver due to the labour hours required, but the result would be a strong, uniform appearance across local centres, and a clear project by RSCTC to maintain local pride in place. Required to 1. RSCTC requires permission from Birmingham City Council (and other Highway partners where appropriate) to undertake this painting project. Deliver: An understanding of when street furniture would be painted as part of BCC’s maintenance schedule is also required. 2. RSCTC should choose an appropriate paint colour. This could be Town-wide, or take a different colour for each local centre. The former option would likely be cheaper as paint could be purchased in bulk. 3. It is likely BCC will require an agreed contractor to deliver this work – RSCTC should lead the contract purchase and delivery process, and ensure value for money is maintained for RSCTC, avoiding unnecessary fees where possible. 4. BCC should agree to use the chosen colour in whenever new or replacement street furniture is installed in Sutton Coldfield. Costs: Depending on the breadth of painting to be undertaken (ie, which elements of street furniture are to be addressed), a budget of £20,000 - £40,000 should be considered. Future budgets should take into account the costs of restoring paint work across the Town every two to three years, and retain a low maintenance budget each year for ad hoc painting and repairs. Sutton Painting street furniture can make or break an area, giving it a sense of personality and entrance, rather than a purely functional environment. Public Realm - Consistency & Quality Project: This project will deliver a consistent style of street furniture to be used for street bins, benches, bollards, and wayfinding fingerposts across the local centre network. This can be delivered initially very quickly (replacing street bins with a common shape, for example), and in the longer term will allow RSCTC to influence common street furniture across the local centre network. Quick wins include: • Reviewing, relocating, and adding new street furniture on pavements and pedestrian areas; • Repairing dented or deformed street furniture; • Reviewing (and replacing where necessary) the type of street furniture used (bollard type, bin shape etc) Issue The local centre network is very car-friendly, but the pedestrian environment ranges from excellent in some locations to poor in others. To Addressed: encourage users to take pride in a local centre and fully explore and spend time in that space, a high-quality public realm experience is required. Wayfinding signage is an important part of any walking and local centre movement strategy. Required to Bins: In six of ten local centres visited, there were at least two public bin shapes visible. A single bin shape should be chosen and rolled out across Deliver: the area. This would mean replacing circa ten bins if the most common existing style was retained. £4,000 - £8,000. Fingerposts: There are fingerposts in Sutton Coldfield and Beeches Walk. At least three posts need to be relocated onto the main pedestrian route (Station Street, Beeches Walk, ‘lower’ Parade). To encourage walking, additional fingerposts with ‘walking time’ directions could be added in Boldmere, Little Boldmere, and at the exit of Four Oaks train station, and existing fingerpost directions could be refreshed in a similar manner. Changing the colour of these would help with general visibility too. Circa £2,500 - £5,000 per fingerpost. Benches: The greatest number are located in Sutton Coldfield and Walmley, with smaller numbers in Beeches Walk, Boldmere and Wylde Green. As mentioned previously, all benches