Bury St Edmunds: pioneering the historic core zone approach

Bury St Edmunds has a population of 35,000, and lies 45 miles east of Cambridge, by-passed by the A14 to Ipswich. Like many smaller towns, it has an informal ring road system, and parking continues to remain a sensitive local issue

Bury St Edmunds fully justifies the 'hidden gem' epithet beloved of tourist guides. Its medieval grid pattern of streets remains intact, and today it's a prosperous market town, thronged with shoppers every day of the week. It has striven to retain as much of its historic character as possible; its traditional market days dominating the centre on Wednesdays and Saturdays. At the same time it has accepted some of the demands made by the motor car, only a handful of town centre streets have been pedestrianised.

The three streets permanently pedestrianised are part of The Traverse, Brentgovel Street and part of Cornhill.

In the late 1990s, Bury St Edmunds embraced a radical set of measures aimed at improving the streetscape of its historic core. Fiveyears after completion in 2002, these measures appear to be standing up well to the test of time.

Contacts and information

Borough of Bury St Edmunds

Planning overview

Urban design contact
Ian Poole
Planning Policy and Specialist Services Manager
Department of Planning and Engineering
St EdmundsBorough Council Western Way
Bury St Edmunds Tel: 01284 757350

Case study report by Lucy Tennyson

The problem: traffic

Bury St Edmunds has a tightly knit network of narrow town centre streets, most of them laid out in the 11th century, with a mix of residential, retail and offices uses. There are a large number of listed buildings; many are medieval, although often hidden behind elegant 17th and 18th century facades.

By the end of the 20th century, these historic streets had become car-dominated, with pedestrians hemmed in by narrow pavements and passing traffic. Council policy favoured free, on-street time restricted parking. Ugly traffic signs and other street clutter had slowly built up in an uncoordinated way over many years.

What should have been Bury St Edmunds' centrepiece, Angel Hill, a historic gathering space outside the gates to the Abbey (the town grew up around the gates of the great Benedictine monastery founded in 1020AD), had degenerated into an open air car park. Through traffic was in excess of 12,000 vehicles a day, including a large number of lorries.

Early road improvements

The Department of Planning and Transportation at the borough council had introduced its first street improvement schemes in the late 1980s. In 1988 St John's Street was a run-down and declining secondary shopping street, just on the outside of the historic core. A livestock market (now closed) was operating nearby once a week.

Although nearby Brentgovel Street was pedestrianised for most of its length \endash as the council believed full pedestrianisation would 'sterilise' the street \endash environmental enhancements in the one-way St John's Street were based on giving pedestrians more priority. Thus, pavements were lowered and pavements widened. However, road signs remained, and there was still a clear distinction between road and pavement.

These early schemes did not fully tackle the issues of street clutter and some of the materials used were less than appropriate to a historic town.

The Historic Core Zones project

The Council felt that more needed to be done to improve the visual importance of the town centre and give more priority to pedestrians. In the mid 1990s, Bury St Edmunds was selected as one of four towns to take part in the pioneering Historic Core Zones project run by the English Historic Towns Forum (EHTF), backed by English Heritage and the Department for Transport. Other towns chosen included Halifax, Shrewsbury and Lincoln.

EHTF had waged a long campaign for innovation in transport management, before the core zone project began. Most of these ideas have now been embraced in the 'Manual for Streets', launched by the DfT earlier this year and which promotes some of the ideas explored in the Core Zones.

The manual, albeit aimed at new residential streets, focuses on putting the pedestrian first, and adopting traffic calming methods and engineering practices used in the Core Zone pilot schemes (and adopted long ago by many European towns and cities).

In 2003, the Historic Core Zone project concluded that the four pilot towns had come up with a palette of measures that could be applied elsewhere. It also concluded that the DfT should continue to work with the Historic Towns Forum to develop additional core zones in other towns \endash although this has not happened yet.

Further information

English Historic Towns Forum website

Traffic advisory leaflet on DfT website

The scheme: improved access to the historic core

The Historic Core Zones project in Bury St Edmunds focused on creating better access to the historic core for public transport, pedestrians, cyclists and the mobility-impaired. Rather than simply ban cars from entry, it favoured managing the demand for spaces, and creating a clearly identifiable zone within which it is obvious to drivers that special measures have been introduced.

Traffic speeds within the zone were to be restricted to 20mph and all unnecessary signs and road markings, including yellow lines, removed. The aim was to 'design in' measures which would be as self-enforcing as possible. Conspicuous controls, such as speed humps, were not be used.

The scheme sought to reinstate some of the historical feel of the town centre that had become lost through the dominance of vehicle traffic. Walking was to be promoted, especially down the two main processional routes to the Abbey, along Abbeygate, and Churchgate. The former also ends in Angel Hill at the Abbey gates, one of the key meeting points in the town.

The scheme was implemented in two stages. The first focused on Hatter Street and Whiting Street, two narrow streets running north into Abbeygate, and was completed in 1998. The second focused on two of the most historic sites in the town, Angel Hillbu and Chequer Square, connected by Crown Street, and home to many fine buildings, including the Cathedral, 15th century St Mary's Church and the Norman Tower. This was implemented in 2001/2.

Measures taken include:

• Carriageway widths were reduced from a maximum of 7.2 metres to 4.8 metres for 2-way traffic. Angel Hill & Crown Street
• A new pedestrian square was created outside the Abbey Gate, providing a connection between the Abbey Gardens and the retail centre.
• Parking bays were created by utilising the space created by the reduced road width.
• Pavements were widened from a minimum of just under 1 metre to up to 3 metres. Hatter and Whiting
• A 20mph speed limit.
• A restricted zone order was made requiring parking in the bays only, which enabled the removal of yellow lines.
• Kerb faces were reduced to a height of 50mm.
• Bespoke street furniture was introduced rather than using off-the-peg designs.

Materials used :

• York stone paving, gauged width, laid at 90 degrees to kerb lines
• Granite setts at loading bays
• Granite kerbs
• Granite setts channels and ramps
• Three course drainage channel: two courses of 105mm width, and one of 140mm
• Concrete block carriageway, blocks laid at random width courses.

Road signs and lighting measures include:

• Road signs have been repositioned or removed
• Traffic signs used 3M Diamond Grade high performance retro-reflective material, to reduce the need for direct lighting
• Smaller signs have been used \'d0 15 mm wide, rather than 25 mm normally required
• Bollard were installed only where necessar
• New lighting was introduced

Angel Hill

• A revised layout retains a similar number of parking spaces, but with a significantly reduced visual impact
• A shared surface was introduced, bringing the roadway up to pavement level
• The width of the carriageway was reduced to slow the traffic naturally
• The surface around the War Memorial was treated with a shingle type of dressing, set in an epoxy resin, creating a warmer feel to an area shaded by tall buildings
• Car park spaces indicated by granite blocks, rather than white lines in Chequer Square

Public art and the creation of gateways

Public art has played an important part in the scheme. An artist, John Creed from Glasgow, was employed to design the mountings for the signs and railings in Chequer Square. The signs themselves use smaller lettering.

One key part of the core zone project was the creation of gateways, or thresholds to the zone, echoing the historic concept of gateways to the town (Bury St Edmunds having lost its old town walls.)

Cars slow on entering the zone. The design of these striking gateways, by combining traffic signs with an entrance features, initially evoked some local opposition, although many now feel they bring about a strong sense of local distinctiveness. The motif of the shape of St Mary's Church roof continued through the core zone.

Issues

• Key to implementing the project was setting up a workshop structure bringing together landscape architects, transport engineers, traders, the civic society
• A long period of public consultation was necessary before implementing the project
• The initial bid included barring delivery lorries from the core zone and introducing transhipment, but the costs and practicalities proved too much
• Some signs in the remainder of the town centre, such as P indicating parking, are still larger than necessary
• The core zone project has now slowed, as there are no further funds available.