The design of communities in Waterford: does the ‘place’ promote health and wellbeing

The design of communities in Waterford: does the ‘place’ promote health and wellbeing The original purpose of streets in Waterford City, as elsewhere, was to allow trade, commerce, and social gatherings. The arrival of the motor car and ubiquitous car ownership has had a big negative impact on the social gathering function of streets. Throughout the 80’s 90’s, the city and its residential neighbourhoods were choked with cars. In recent years the Viking Quarter public realm works prioritised people and social gatherings over cars, and the built environment of the inner city is now restored to facilitate its original purpose: social gathering, trade & commerce (as opposed to traffic trade and commerce!). Pre-WW2 housing in Waterford city was terraced, tenement housing along small, narrow streets. This allowed high levels of social interaction and supports, though this could be suffocating. Kids played out on the street, front doors were left open, and adults chatted regularly with neighbours. etc. There was little or no room for car parking and car access. There was huge expansion outwards from the city centre after WW2, and many of the inner-city tenements were demolished. The first phase of the new suburban developments used similar designs to the inner-city neighbourhoods, with mostly terraced housing, but with front and rear gardens (see Connolly Pl and Cork Rd Estate). Later expansion, in the 60’s and 70’s was predominant of semi-detached housing, again with front and rear gardens (see Lismore Pk and Lisduggan). These later developments were largely local authority led and upheld the principles of good neighbourhood design: proximity, connectivity, and a mix of services. This design has mitigated some of the worst impacts of ubiquitous car ownership here, as people of all ages are facilitated to walk and cycle to easily accessible services, located in the middle of the housing, and a strong sense of community prevails. The newer, later 20th century and early 21st century suburban developments however, tell a very different story. The suburbs of Waterford out along the Dunmore, Ballygunner, Williamstown and old Tramore rds built in the 90’s and 2000’s, were developer led, build for car ownership, and built in isolation from each other, as a series of parallel cul-de-sac designs. There is no proximity, connectivity, or a centralised mix of services. Car ownership is necessary to access almost all services. These areas/neighbourhood roads are now very congested with moving or parked cars. This poses a significant barrier to normal neighbourhood social interaction. There is a lack of safe outdoor play space for children; footpaths are full of parked cars and street space is considered car space not play space, as it once was. Housing sprawled out into the countryside and the services did not follow. Distributor roads became the norm, which are hostile to pedestrians and cyclists and encourage speeding. Research has long recognized that the noise, fumes and danger posed by moving traffic is a hazard to young and old and is also off-putting to everyone else – see Appelyard & Lintell (1972) regarding the impact of traffic on neighbour-hood social interaction. Despite this, planning regulations did not consider the social role of roads and streets until the publication of DMURS (the Design Manual for Urban Roads and Streets) in 2011. And despite this design guidance being mandatory since then the mind-set of planning for cars, or ‘carchitecture’ has prevailed It is clear that in Waterford City suburbs, mobility, social connectivity and housing have not been planned together! The essence of sprawl is a disconnected environment; a driving environment with houses. Unfortunately this means residents cannot live there without a car. This has become an impediment to building much needed, higher density developments. Planning permission was recently refused for a develop of apartments, on the Williamstown, with car parking, on the basis that it would add 5-600 more cars to an area with limited public transport, no cycle lanes, lack of accessible shops; no community/recreational facilities, that already suffers with peak hours traffic congestion, and where local schools are at capacity. In conclusion, we have prioritised cars over people in suburbs & that is to our detriment.

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