The Community Secretary Eric Pickles MP and his colleague Philip Hammond MP, Secretary of State for Transport have written to local authority Chief Execs encouraging them to reduce the proliferation of unnecessary bollards, street signs, street furniture and other clutter on our streets.  Spurred on by the excellent Street Pride campaign currently underway through Civic Voice and the work that organisations such as Living Streets  have been undertaking for many years Pickles and Hammond advocate local authorities to adopt clear design principles with regard to what is and isn’t on their streets.  They point out that much of the clutter builds up incrementally from a variety of public and private sources.  Without a clear strategy it becomes an obstacle for pedestrians and a liability in terms of public safety, maintenance and removal.

Places Matter! has frequently celebrated the public open spaces that are our streets.  In the Autumn we are running our second series of Manual for Streets workshops where we will introduce the principles of well designed streets and make reference to Manual for Streets II due for publication in September.  Workshops will be held in Crewe, Kendal, Tameside, Warrington & Preston.

In the meantime we lend our support to Street Pride and admiration to the CLG website for it’s use of alliteration in this matter, namely, ‘scruffy signs, bossy bollards, patchwork paving and railed off roads.’

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CLG DfTSoSs letter to LA Leaders on street clutter.pdf	47.62 KB