Movement: Opportunity: Terrain: A Place MOT

Urban designer Jerry Spencer suggested that it was important to repair and make better use of poor public spaces and reestablish their functionality. Major projects to redevelop public spaces were in danger of harming local communities, he warned.

His practice Jerry Spencer Associates had developed a toolkit to assess the effectiveness of public spaces. Its MOT (Movement, opportunities and terrain) assessment process was developed on the building for life model. It scored spaces against a checklist of 20 questions, which measured their connections, size and scale, their use, character, sustainability and involvement of local communities.