The alleygaters and the permeable neighbourhood

Coventry City Council have been ordered 'to reconsider' a scheme to close off two public footpaths at night. The High Court ruling follows a case brought by The Ramblers Association. The council had imposed orders using lockable gates prohibiting pedestrian access to footpaths between streets throughout the night, with the intention of curbing antisocial behaviour.

This is a nice example and there could be some intellectual curtain-twitching among the secured-by-design advocates and the new urbanists opposite who let their ideas run unsupervised all round the neighbourhood. The new urbanists promote permeable neighbourhoods, so the fencers and lockers have parked their ideas right across the driveway.

Alleygating has been popular where it's worked, but you don't have to go far to hear stories where it hasn't - just one resident leaves a gate open and the place gets trashed, well maybe someone leaves a beer can, or more seriously, breaks into a house. If damage occurs, the lockers and fencers can say 'that proves you need a secure system,' so the new urbanists have to say, well how about having a few people around? And maybe some decent lighting, some promotion of informal social networks, and a bit of design to give a sense of identity. (Let's just try it shall we?)

Via Planning Resource.