Fear of risk will make our public spaces bland and ugly, says report

Streets and public spaces throughout England are in danger of becoming bland and standardized because of over-sensitivity to risk, arising from a misplaced perception of a rampant compensation culture and restrictive interpretations of health and safety regulations, according to CABE (the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment).

CABE's report, Living with risk: promoting better public space design, published today, studied 10 public space projects across England in depth and surveyed 16 key organisations from local councils and insurers to the Health and Safety Executive.

It found that intelligent and creative designs with multiple benefits can face a frustrating battle to be accepted, whereas over-cautious designs with limited uses or opportunities are less likely to be challenged. The report aims to give designers and councils the confidence to challenge risk-averse decisions.

CABE believes that many public spaces are created in a culture that encourages design for the worst case scenario rather than normal behaviour, designing out all risk rather than accepting that the vast majority of people are perfectly capable of assessing risk for themselves and acting accordingly. When organisations become over-sensitive to risk, they consider most or all hazards as risks that need minimising.

This can lead to a disproportionate response where small risks are treated like major threats. In Dover, for example, a proposal to turn a busy rat-run into a safer Home Zone - a street with reduced traffic speeds and increased space for pedestrians - was rejected because of fears about access for emergency services.

CABE believes that public spaces should be exciting and varied, and a clear design vision for a development can manage, or even celebrate, risk rather than try to eliminate it. Evidence shows that where an element of risk is allowed in schemes for streets and public spaces, people become more aware of their surroundings and take greater responsibility for their own safety. When Kensington High Street in London was redesigned, the street furniture and barriers originally installed to 'protect' pedestrians and separate them from traffic were removed. As a result both pedestrians and motorists became more aware of each other and accident figures have fallen.

The report says that a 'strong and popular belief in a compensation culture' leads to disproportionate responses to risk from councils afraid of increasing claims. Evidence shows, however, that the compensation culture is largely an imagined problem, fuelled by the media, the high profile of 'no win no fee' companies and a general desire for people to blame others for their accidents.

In reality, long term trends in personal injury claims have remained relatively stable since the late 1990s, mean damages awarded in cases brought by 'no win no fee' companies fell between 2002 and 2005, and the vast majority of claims against highway authorities relate to deficiency in maintenance rather than design faults.

Sarah Gaventa, Director of CABE Space, said: 'Through Living with risk we want to encourage a balanced approach to risk, rather than designing as if the public was stupid. This doesn’t mean we want dangerous or insecure environments, but we do want to avoid creating a generation of bland, bleak and barrier-ridden public spaces.'

HSE Chief Executive, Geoffrey Podger, said: 'I very much welcome CABE's Living with risk report; it is an important and timely contribution to the debate as to how risk should be sensibly managed. In HSE we are very clear that we want to see people concentrating on practical actions to control the real risks, not bureaucratic back-covering or futile attempts to eliminate risk altogether. The report shows by example the contribution designers can make by engaging with and addressing risks positively.'

Background

Lessons from the report CABE is encouraging local authorities across the country to have more confidence in the way they design streets and public spaces. The report identifies a number of lessons that can be learned: not treating small risks as though they were big risks; have a strong overall design concept to counteract pressures to eliminate risk; involve the public in the design process results to understand how they perceive risk; and design for the norm, not the exception.

Support for the report Living with risk is supported by the Health and Safety Executive, ALARM (the national forum for risk management in the public sector) the Landscape Institute and Zurich Municipal, the largest insurer of local authorities.

Case studies: The report contains a number of case studies from across the UK and overseas.

• Brindleyplace, Birmingham
  The designers of this privately owned space strove to create an exciting space that also minimises the risks of crime and anti-social behaviour. They have done so by encouraging a mixed-use, 24-hour environment that incorporates both passive and active surveillance. There were risks associated with inherited and proposed water features and changes of level on the site, but the designers felt these were highly visible and that people should use their common sense when using the space.
  
• Exchange Square, Manchester
  A 90-metre long water feature containing sawn boulders that formed stepping-stones was incorporated into the redesign of Exchange Square following the IRA bomb in 1996. It traces the route of an old stream called the Hanging Ditch. There was debate about maintenance costs and possible water leakage and slippery or icy pavements. The risk of people - and especially children - slipping, trapping their legs between rocks, or even drowning were of major concern. Nevertheless, it has been built, with the sound of it serving as a warning to blind and partially-sighted people. It has proved to be a major attraction in the square.
  
• Kensington High Street, London
  Removing guard rails in urban streets might seem to increase the risk to pedestrians and drivers. However, this case study shows that it can heighten road user awareness and as a result reduce risk and improve the quality of public space.