Huxford illustrated some of the options contained in the publication emphasising that each road is unique and needs a solution tailored to its own circumstances. Moving the carriageway, echelon parking, landscape solutions and dividing the street space into smaller areas could all be investigated. The complex legal and management systems tends to concentrate on single interest guidance with nothing about combining functions in workable solutions. Ways to move forward include a Street Excellence Model, Public Realm Strategies, Design Codes and Street Management Codes. Lynda Addison described the development of the Street Excellence Model which is based on the Business Excellence Model, and identified the main factors from leadership to results.
People are the key, partnership is critical and the process needs to be right.
Barry Sellers referred to the need for integrated design teams in local authorities, and for a mechanism to work across departments. He illustrated a number of ways in which street design could be improved or reflect existing qualities of places using the grain of a place, the use of space syntax techniques, strategies for walking, lighting, public and private transport which all needed to be considered within a strategy. Details of spaces in hard landscape terms, the use of arcades, reduction in signs to a meaningful level rather than a chaotic jumble could all assist. Design codes could be used in new development and charrettes could bring all participants together either in a street or in a wider environment. The real way forward appears to be to encourage pilot schemes to occur throughout the country.