Upminster Invigorated

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U P M I N S T E R T O W N

proposa l s for renewing pub l i c p laces

Tom Young Archi tects

Autumn 2001



Tom Young Architects [email protected]

Figure 1.1 Stewart Drive allotments

1-3 CONTENTS & PROJECT MAP

4-17 SPACES AROUND UPMINSTER

18-25 INTRODUCTION18 the future19 town centre space20 landscape and planning21 urban and rural22 new connections23 shape and depth24 streets and markers25 inhabitation and investment

PROJECTS

VILLAGE GREEN26 Upminster Park: view27 Upminster Park: analysis

28 Upminster Park: plan of existing29 Upminster Park: analysis30 Upminster Park: plan of proposed31 Upminster Park: overview of proposed32 Upminster Park: strategy33 Upminster Park: south: strategy34 Upminster Park: east: analysis35 Upminster Park: east: strategy

RIVER-EDGE36 Upminster Bridge: view37 Upminster Bridge: view38 Upminster Bridge: overview of existing39 Upminster Bridge: analysis40 Upminster Bridge: overview of proposed41 Upminster Bridge: strategy

TOWN MEMORY 42 Old Windmill Site: view43 Old Windmill Site: analysis44 Old Windmill Site: plan of proposed45 Old Windmill Site: strategy

HEALTH AND CIVIC SPACE46 Clockhouse Gardens: view47 Clockhouse Gardens: analysis48 Clockhouse Gardens: plan of proposed49 Clockhouse Gardens: strategy

TOWN JUNCTION50 Bell Corner: view51 Bell Corner: analysis52 Bell Corner crossroads: view53 Bell Corner crossroads: strategy54 Bell Corner crossroads: strategy55 Bell Corner: west: analysis56 Bell Corner: south: analysis57 Bell Corner: west: strategy58 Bell Corner: north: analysis59 Bell Corner: north: strategy

THE CANOPIES60 Main Street: analysis61 Main Street: analysis62 Main Street: strategy63 Main Street: strategy

WORKSTATION

64 Upminster Station: view65 Upminster Station: analysis66 Upminster Station: analysis67 Upminster Station: view of proposed68 Upminster Station: strategy

FOR DEVELOPMENT69 Notable Underdevelopment

DISCUSSION70 Town & Suburbs71 New Town72 Renewing the Idea of Upminster73 Information before Consultation74 Policies for a Town

QUICK PROJECTS75 a variety of small do-able projects

CONVERSATIONS & READING76 contacts and reading-list

1 CONTENTS UPMINSTER




SHEET

69

SHEET

46

SHEET

72

SHEET

69

SHEET

34

SHEET

60

SHEET

69

SHEET

42

SHEET

36

SHEET

57

SHEET

26

SHEET

64

SHEET

50

SHEET

58

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58

SHEET

62project sheet reference

project proposals are shown onnumbered sheets

sheet numbers are shown on the top right hand and top left hand side of the report pages

project area

proposed new buildingsorspecial areas for new buildings

park, garden, countryside

urban fabric forming the Town

gure 2.1 showingFigure 2.1 Upminster Town project areas

2 PROJECT DISTRIBUTION UPMINSTER



Tom Young Architects [email protected] 3

Figure 3.1 Upminster Town at edge of Havering and urban settlement

Figure 3.1 Havering in context of London

3 STUDY AREA

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spacesaround Upminster






4 A-ROAD SPACE

MOVERS LANE

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5 INDUSTRY

A13 CORRIDOR

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6 INDUSTRIAL LANDSCAPE

MARSH ROAD, RAINHAM

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7 OUT-OF-TOWN SHOPPING

NORTH WOOLWICH

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8 MARSHLAND

RAINHAM MARSHES

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9 THE RIVER

THE THAMES AT RAINHAM

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10 GREEN BELT COUNTRYSIDE

HACTON

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11 GREEN BELT LEISURE LANDSCAPE

CRANHAM GOLF-COURSE

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12 NEW CIVIC OPEN SPACE

THAMES BARRIER PARK

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13 NEW DOCKLANDS CITYSCAPE

CITY AIRPORT & CANARY WHARF

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14 NEW DOCKLANDS HOUSING

NORTH WOOLWICH

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15 ESTABLISHED SUBURB

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16 TRANSPORT SPACE

STRATFORD STATION

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17 “THE TOWN”

CORBETS TEY ROAD

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gure 18.1 South Dagenham

What is the future of Upminster Town Centre?An objective of this report is to inform publicconversation about what it may be.

One objective is to introduce ideas that hith-erto may not have been considered. Wedo not propose, for instance, rehearsingarguments about parking because this issuedisplaces discussion of other issues and con-ceals unwillingness to attend to the conditionsoffered by the town centre. Parking also takesvaluable space in the Town Centre, for exam-ple outside the Library or to the rear of it.Is seeking more parking opportunities actuallysensible?

A key question fo r Upminster Town is whetherits shops can look forward to a stable andsteady future. The question of stability is areminder how retail centres can be broughtlow by recessions or retail revolutions. Suchchanges could lead to the Town’s retail econ-omy going into a steep decline.

This depressing possibility is an outcome thathaunts the retail community who already seesigns of decay in the growth of A3 take-awayuses. A3 uses are seen to unbalance the

“retail offer”, to diminish the wider public’scapacity to identify with the town centre. “Theshops” have traditionally been a source of pride and pleasure in countless centres acrossLondon.

Anyone driving amongst the little centres inand around Havering - North Woolwich,South Dagenham, Elm Park will have a sense

of the parlous lives of small centres, how oncedecent frontages become y-blown, invest-ment repelling failures. The hopeless qualityof such frontages assailed by new retail parksclose-by as in North Woolwich and Merri-elands is the nightmare that destroys faithand investment in the “traditional” fabric of streets and shops.

Making Town Centre space compelling is oneaspect of strengthening Town Centres role inthe life of any community.

Urban design can refashion a district centresuch as Upminster in a way that can sharpenthe public’s understanding of the centre’sstrengths, and conrm that the town is a greatdeal more than a shopping facility.

The projects laid out in this report are aimedat strengthening Upminster Town’s capacityto serve local people successfully as a towncentre. They are aimed at enlivening theTown, at transferring the energy and successof suburban living into the Town.

Urban design is a way of thinking about thepublic places in the town and of recognizing

how the town’s different constituents are muchmore than various brands in a shopping mallbut the essential components of a signicanturban centre.

18 INTRODUCTION

UNCERTAIN FUTURE

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Figure 19.1 chatting on Corbets Tey Road

At the outset, it is appropriate to considerwhy policies which support town centresare worth pursuing.

In the Havering UDP Upminster is understoodas important only insofar as it provides ser-vices. There are no references to other aspectsof Town identity. What are the o ther aspectsof Town Centre identity?

1 Town Centres provides an emphaticarchitectural statement of public space

2 Town Centres include many publicinteriors such as meeting rooms(halls), pubs, libraries, public ofces,

shops, churches & cultural spaces3 A Town Centre is a place where

people live and work so is neitherjust a “residential district” or “businessdistrict”

4 Cultural activities are complementarywith the sense of place associatedwith Town Centres

5 Town Centres relate openly to theframework of transport and nationalinterconnectivity particularly the roadand rail systems

7 Town Centres are viewed widely asdynamic settings where change isexpected

8 Town Centres are places where public

history is acknowledged and monu-mentalised

9 Town Centres are expected to beinteresting and are deemed inferior if they are not

The foregoing means that Town Centres pro-vide a sort of heightening of public space,through architecture, monuments, public build-

ings, cultural activity, change and novelty.Current UDP policy refers to town centre func-tion but not space - a signicant omission.

Upminster’s explicit architectural statement of public space is clearly the special emphasisgiven to the streetspaces that intersect at BellCorner. Upminster Town is a structure of twomain street spaces. Their pre-eminent publicqualities are the openness of the shops, andthe fact that the building frontages form theedge of the public spaces - the buildingsdene the spaces directly. This direct space-dening function of town buildings makes fora very sharp contrast with the surrounding

suburban fabric where buildings are with-drawn from the street behind garden wallsand carports.

The location close by of such public institu-tions as churches and schools and very signi-cantly the special landscapes of UpminsterPark, Clockhouse Gardens and the old Wind-mill Site add to the status of the Town.

One role of the work undertaken in this reportis to offer strategies for the heightening TownCentre space so its public character is devel-oped and enlivened.

It seems equally worthwhile that planning

policy should develop more explicit policycommitments that recognize town-centrespace so as to avoid the architectural failuresand missed opportunities representedby such buildings as Somerelds, the TimesTees Garage and Bell Corner itself.

19 INTRODUCTION

TOWN CENTRE SPACE

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Figure 20.1 Concept diagram showing planning “zones” in a small “planned” town

Upminster is linked to landscape via planningpolicy. By strategic protection of open land-scape around city fringe settlements plannershave tried to protect the distinctness of townslike Upminster whose identities are threatenedby “sprawl” and the abilities of developersto get hold of land. Upminster’s identityis secured precisely in this way with theIngrebourne Valley providing a gap betweenUpminster and the rest of Havering. There is also a suburban preference for beingclose to the countryside. Rural themes areregistered in many different ways in Upmin-ster including the nostalgic iconography of detached houses, the old Windmill, the exis-tence of a “country club” in the middle of thetown and rural sounding house names.

In “The English Terraced House”, StefanMuthesius notes how the detached or semi-detached house became “…the type of subur-ban dwelling of suburban settlements” mainlyto distinguish the suburbs from cities whichwere identied with terracing at the end of the 19thC.

The actual relationship between the suburbs

and land about is not resolved. The basicland-use plan is notably crude: the towncentre is bounded by residential areas whichare in turn bounded by open countryside.Little can be discerned on the ground tosuggest careful qualication of this far fromsophisticated land-use arrangement, whosechief characteristic is actually constraint andrigidity.

The town centre - constituted of large, three orfour storey, mixed use blocks - is constrainedby the residential building stock of two-storeydetached houses around it, whilst the residen-tial districts, as already mentioned, are heldin check by the inviolability of the green belt.The overall sense of space in Upminster lacksa feeling of opportunity. As one Haveringplanner has said, the town centre is “all builtout”. Opportunities for signicant residentialdevelopment are largely reduced to so-called“windfall sites”. Whether or not a town canexist without a sense of opportunity is debat-able.

Upminster is marked by rigidity resulting fromassiduous adherence to the organization of town centre, residential and green belt ter-ritories. The one space where these threeterritories combine are main roads wherehouses, businesses, shops and countrysideare adjoined. Main road space is in fact acombined zone unexplored in any positiveway by planning policy - a missed opportu-nity.

Upminster’s identity derives in large part frompolicy, based on strict boundaries, that deliv-

ers security but not a subtle treatment of theconjunction of countryside, town and suburb.Within the town centre, parks, gardens andchurch-yards offer an opportunity to re-thinkthe town’s love affair with rural themes andgreen and open spaces. This report focuseson the edges of these spaces as settings fornew projects.

20 INTRODUCTION

PLANNING AND LANDSCAPE

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Figure 21.1 Allotments at Upminster Bridge

Someone living in Upminster and workingat Ford might well drive to work past cem-etries at the town edges, suburbs, areas of new docklands housing, farmland, industrialstrip development and have glimpses of TheThames and marshland along the way.

Local people cannot believe their town isset in unvariegated countryside though someenjoy the conceit that it’s really an old Essexcountry town - in a kind of deance of changes instigated to improve local authorityeffectiveness. Nonetheless Upminster’s urban-ized condition cannot be ignored.

Oscar Lewis denes the urbanized condition“as the availability of a wide range of services and alternatives in terms of typesof work, housing, food, clothing, eduationalfacilities, medical facilities, modes of travel,voluntary organizations, types of people…”

Whilst this denition does apply to Upminsterand its people, groups like Essex ReMaDeand The Sustainable London Trust are rethink-ing the role of towns and countryside. SLT’s1997 report notes: “ Links between consum-ers and growers in the surrounding rural belt

should be encouraged to provide fresh, safefood for city dwellers.” This points to theoddness of an agricultural economy like thataround Upminster that contributes nothing tothe town and the signicance of looking, as itwere, for solutions.

Essex ReMaDe focus on practical ways towork with urban waste: “The key environ-

mental challenge facing Essex is to movefrom a landll dominant waste managementregime towards more intensive recycling. Themain target is the creation of nearly 200,000tonnes of additional markets for recycledmaterials by the year 2004…”

Fölke Gunter of Stockholm University argues“The current trend towards increasing agri-cultural specialisation combined with urban-isation should be replaced by a closerintegration of farms and settlements. A namefor such a strategy is ruralisation, as opposedto urbanisation.”

Some, like the planning consultancy Chapter7 based in Somerset, argue for “Low-impact”development to realize a vision of rural inhab-itation as a “way out” of the current urbansystem. Their faith in rural life’s continuityoutside the “system” is challenging not leastbecause it views planning policy as an obsta-cle to experience of the “simple life”.

These new directions are practical but alsoaspirational with an energetic focus onachieving “real” countryside by renewing thebasis of inhabitation. They demonstrate a

widespread effort to rethink settlements viaissues of sustainability and natural renewal.

The challenge is for towns like Upminsterto nd practical ways of responding to theenergy invested in the spaces around them.Turning aside will be to ignore a major cul-tural change.

URBAN AND RURAL

21 INTRODUCTION UPMINSTER




gure 22.1 House backs in the south-west corner of Upminster Park

Much of what is proposed in this report isabout making connections. The proximity of places to each other can become a realizedvalue through new and explicit relationships.

A central problem for the town centre is howbuildings relate to the main open spaces suchas the paddock where the old Windmill islocated, Upminster Park or Clocktower Gar-dens. This relationship parallels directly andsymbolically the wider issue of how the townand country are related. Better connections inboth instances could create better spaces.

One way to explain the issue of connectionsis to see how buildings front onto the maintown centre open spaces. Buildings overlookparkland but are not connected to it. In thecase of Upminster Park this misses the oppor-tunity for the Park to become a genuine“village green”, common ground stronglyasserted by relationships with town buildings.The fact that some of Upminster Parks sur-rounding buildings are detached suburbanhouses whose status as “town buildings” ishighly equivocal goes to the root of the issue.

But the main fact is not a single building fronts

directly onto any of Upminster’s open spaces.

The standard arrangement in Upminster andthe wider suburbs seems to be to providea visual relationship to open space but todraw back from containing open groundwith buildings, which is exactly how towncentre space is dened and what makes itspatially distinctive along Corbets Tey Road,

Station Road and St Mary’s Lane. Denition,outside the Town, is always done with fenc-ing, hedges or larger screens of shrubs andtrees.

In real terms, this leads to an endless rep-etition of the spatial relationship shown inthe adjacent photograph. Buildings peep overa barrier onto common ground, on the onehand, implying pleasure in the open vista, onthe other, timidity about public space . Theresult is awkwardness or the habit of gardenfencing writ large.

More self-evidently negative uses of plantingto form screens between buildings and publicspaces are found around the New WindmillHall and the Upminster Community HealthBuilding where Leylandia are used to sepa-rate and hide public buildings from publicspace. In these examples, the planting makespublic space gloomy but not in a terribly inter-esting way. The screen of planting in front of the paddock in which the old windmill is situ-ated is another town centre example wherevisibility of a key monument from the street islost for the sake of a screen of greenery.

This report puts forward several proposalsfor breaking through the awkwardnessabout making connections and relationshipsbetween key town centre open spaces andbuildings and spaces around them. Makingthese connections offers the chance to makemuch more of town centre space.

22 INTRODUCTION

NEW CONNECTIONS

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gure 23 .1 Covered way leading to Tescos supermarket from Rainham high street

Amongst Upminster’s signicant strengths is itsspatial clarity or simplicity. By itself, this qual-ity is a pleasant contrast to the streets of othercentres, most notably Romford where years of “ddling” are evident in the town centre roadsystem .

Upminster’s organization remains broadlyunaffected by the tensions introduced by theever evolving tactics of trafc managementalthough the road-widening at the Bell Cornercrossroads has not been successful so faras town space is concerned. There are how-ever no one-way systems, turning contraints orguard rails in the middle of streets to preventpedestrians crossing anywhere but dedicatedcrossings.

Hornchurch and Romford are aficted by vari-ous oddities of trafc management becausetheir respective triangular and ovoidgeometry lend themselves to highway engi-neers opportunistic interventions to seekmore capactiy from existing road networksin particular through one-way “systems”.Upminster’s simple cruciform resists suchappropriation.

But what Upminster lacks is a strong feelingof centrality. Its urban space is an affair of shopping parades stretched out along streetswhich lead out of the town rather than symbol-ising circulation within it although the town’spark spaces have obvious potential in thisregard. Developing centrality is a signicantpart of improved urban design in Upminster.

Lending “depth” to Upminster’s urban experi-ence is one approach to developing a stron-ger sense of a centre. This might be construedas adding to the story which the town hasto tell by deliberately creating sequences of spatial variety and incident and even drama.

It is impossible to make a new overarchingurban organization for Upminster - a highlydubious objective in any case - but possibleto develop the town centre “walkabout” inrelation to a compelling inter-relation of towncentre spaces. Too much of Upminster’s cur-rent disposition of town centre elements seemsonly historical and not part of a modernawareness of meaning and qualities of differ-ent places that form the town centre.

Implementing change would be to emphasisepedestrian use of the town centre whichis already strongly sign-posted by the widenorth-south pavements and facilitated by theoverall simplicity and ease-of-use mentionedbefore.

Deepening Upminster’s narrative also sug-gests that “back” areas become integral to thetown centre. Quiet spaces are needed, so are

ones which deliberately provoke curiosity. Thefeeling of a hinterland approached throughthe main frontage becomes the device forcreating depth.

23 INTRODUCTION

SHAPE AND DEPTH

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Figure 24.1 Town Edge Marker: Cranham Church

Cranham, described by people as Upmin-ster’s “sister town”, is linked to Upminster bycross-streets running between Hall Lane andFront Lane. The knitting together engenders asense of complementary centres with a com-munity poised between.

The organization and balance of Upminsterand Cranham begs the question how a simi-lar balance might be achieved south of StMary’s Lane where the urban structure is notas satisfying. The question is how the south-eastern quadrant of the Upminster settlementcan be better managed.

Some major gesture might be appropriatearound Cranham church. The area is not with-out activity already with the small workshopcomplex next to the church, the work on theNature Reserve and the Corbets Tey cemeteryitself. There is also the signicant complexof the Coopers School on St Mary’s Lane,the presence of Cranham Golf Course and agood network of footpaths.

A university campus has been mooted byUpminster residents in this area. Such a devel-opment would be appropriate in many ways,

not least as a consolidation of Upminster’sidentication with education.

Town limits and entry points are worth consid-ering as signicant urban design issues. InUpminster’s case there is an obvious distinc-tion to be drawn between entries to the largersettlement and the town centre. Both are inter-esting. At the same time, it is important not

to see the marking of entry points or townlimits as a matter of bolting-on signs. It’smuch more usefully thought of as a way of working with existing places with particularqualities. With this precaution in mind, onemay see that Upminster is fairly well “marked”already.

Corbets Tey is the southern edge to the over-all Upminster settlement, a distinctive villagestructured around an east-west axis ratherthan the major north-south axis of UpminsterTown Centre. The cemetery there is a strongtown-edge marker.

To the north, where Hall Lane emerges intocountryside around the old Strawberry Farmthere’s a clear, if unelaborated town-edge.

Upminster’s west side is marked by the hil lleading up from Upminster Bridge. This alongwith the river, Upminster Bridge tube stationand Gaynes Parkway is a lot to work with.

The boundaries at the station and the southernend of Corbets Tey Road are already prettyclear with station itself being an explicit town-entry point and sign-post already, quite as

effective as the Town’s wide pavements.

There is of course scope for intensicationwhich means removing ambiguities and evenoccasionally an obscuring haze of greenery.It may also mean signicant new developmentin appropriate places.

24 INTRODUCTION

TOWN STREETS AND MARKERS

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Upminster is dominated by the places wherepeople live - the multitude of streets lined withdetached houses forming the residential hin-terland around the town centre. These housesare the main architectural characters of thearea: they “inhabit” Upminster as much astheir owners. Their expressive energy - byturns nostalgic, lurid, retiring, ostentatious,reassuring, brash and old-worldy - is muchmore lively than the dead, town-front facadesof Upminster’s main commercial street-space.

The town centre lacks a sense of inhabitationto match the exuberance and sheer domi-

nance of the suburban background. It doesnot compete as a domestic location.

Most of the blocks which form the mainfrontage are mixed-use with ats over shopsbut the presence of these homes is hardlyacknowledged architecturally. Byron Housealone, with its balconies and amusing curveddeco windows goes some way to celebratingtown centre dwelling.

A signicant way to alter the sense of Upminster Town centre is through good new,domestic architecture that energetically offers

another vision of dwelling to the semi-detached building stock that forms such atight-tting belt around the town.

Opportunities for new development in the cen-tral area are not great in number. However,its potential impact in a centre of Upminster’sscale could be very signicant and lessen thesad feeling of the main frontage buildings.

This report explores other possibilities for cre-ating town centre dwellings identifying “sites”that are not recognized in current planningpolicy. These sites are identied as opportuni-ties to create marker structures that enlivenand dene town centre space. Suburbanhouses too are clear, often vivid markers.

Adding the element of habitation to a newurban marker is a way to pay for it. Habita-tion also makes the marker more effective,adding very substantially to its presence andstrength as an urban gure.

With Upminster’s signal lack of deprivation,funding urban design improvements will betremendously difcult. Making new homesintegral with urban design is at least one wayto start to tackle this problem. In certain cases,it will pay for everything, in others it willconstitute private investment making privatematch-funding easier to obtain.

All of the above is reliant on being unambigu-ous about the “idea of the town”. All theprojects in this report start with the convictionthat Upminster is a town, not a shopping facil-ity with residential districts nearby. This clarity

makes more possible and provides a compel-ling pretext for new ways of living close toand within the town centre.

25 INTRODUCTION

INHABITED INVESTMENTS

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projectsfor Upminster



26 UPMINSTER PARK




Figure 26.1 Summertime: Upminster Park looking west from Corbets Tey Road

26 UPMINSTER PARK UPMINSTER

27 UPMINSTER PARK U




FORMALSPORT

TOWN

LIBRARY

SPORTSPAVILION

ST LAURENCE'SCHURCH

NEWWINDMILL HALL

schoolsite

southexi ts .wcorner

playareas

cafe

entry

northgarden

wc's

westexi t

no rth ex it

upper townexi t

lower townexi t

hall car-park

NON-SPECIFIC

C O R B E T S

T E Y R O

A D

cultural space

commercial space

commercial space

PLAN LEGEND

Figure 27.1 Park territories Figure 27.2 The Park is the natural place to go when it’s sunny Figure 27.3 Upminster Extreme Sports Day: August 2001

Upminster Park engages many people in thelife of the town via a simple, unaffected open-ness that makes no obstacles to use.

Whilst it is an uncomplicated open space -open parkland with very ordinary play facili-ties and footpaths - its situation within thetown is complex. All its edges are different.A basic organization of territories can bediscerned within the Park that is partly linkedto the surroundings.

The two most obvious of these territoriesare the town eld and the sports eld (see

Fig 26.1). The rst is alongside Corbets TeyRoad. The second is in the far corner upagainst the back-fences of the houses on Stew-art Drive and Avondale Rise.

The area immediately south of the WindmillHall is harder to dene perhaps because theintended relation between the back of the Halland the Park has been blocked by defensiveplanting.

The Town space is arranged off the footpaththat runs into Corbets Tey Road next tothe public wc’s. The footpath works aroundthe Church block to an opening alongsidethe Windmill Hall where it connects with StMary’s Lane. It’s an important link.

The sports space is obviously adrift from thetown and set aside for formal sporting occa-sions. The west Park exit offers a serviceablelink to Hornchurch Stadium.

The sports pavilion unfortunately turns its backon the town. The far corner too of the sports

eld is a left-over and undecided space. Onecan see how the sports area only goes someway to dealing with the unsatisfactory waythat the Park nishes in the dull angle of garden fences (see g 22.1).

The potential of the Park lies in heighteningthe sense of public space without in any wayremoving its open, friendly qualities, whichmake it so user-friendly.

ANALYSIS


28 UPMINSTER PARK U




NEW WINDMILL HALL

S T MAR Y ' S L AN E

BELL CORNER

C O R B E T S

T E Y

R O A D

PAVILION

LIBRARY

HALL

HALLS

ST LAURENCE'S

north exi twc

café

wes t exi t

sou th exi t

north garden

G R

I D I R O N

P L

infantplay

tenniscourts

gure 28.1 showing

28 UPMINSTER PARK

PLAN OF EXISTING

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C o r b e t ' s T e y R o a d

churchsite

hallsite

T O W N

T O W N

S U B U R B

A N S E T T L E M E N

T

F ig ur e 2 9. 2 C as tl e G re en : g en er ic m un ic ip al o pe n s pa ce F ig ur e 2 9. 3 T ha me s B ar ri er P ar k: a mb it io us p ar k d es ig nFigure 29.1 Concept diagram showing Park’s relationship to residential areas

Figure 29.4Park with townas backdrop

Whilst sometimes beautiful - by virtue of summer light or fullness of tree foli-age - Upminster Park’s generaltreatment is mediocre, suggest-ing a generic municipal park-land. Everything is ordinary,whether it’s the café, the layoutand treatment of footpaths, theplay areas or the Park accesspoints. This indifference to higherachievements is in stark contrast withthe approach exemplied by the Thames Bar-rier Park, opened in 2001. Upminster Park’sdesign may reect conformity with a park

stereotype whose chief value is predictabilityrather than anything more positive.

Upminster Park’s surrounding cultural, com-mercial and residential uses compensate forthe all-round ordinariness of its design. Inother words, the Park’s positive position withrespect to things around it disguises a designfailure that’s quite as dismal as that of, forexample, Castle Green in Dagenham.

Upminster Park protrudes into the suburbanhinterland (see g 29.1) and links “The Town”

to peoples’ houses. The fact that the NewWindmill Hall and St Laurence’sChurch sites also overlook it pro-vides a unique opportunity tocreate a space where key Upmin-ster identities are brought into

unison - suburb, church, shoppingstreet and arts venue. The potential

of this mix can only be realized witha strategic approach to the Park’s improve-

ment.

Improvement needs to focus on elements mostdepleted by a lack of imaginative design:footpaths, perimeter treatment, lighting, play-spaces and the café. A new approach tothese informed by a feeling for the Park as atown centre space where the area’s identitiesare brought into some kind of resolution couldtransform the Park and add to the status andidentity of the Town Centre.

ANALYSIS


30 UPMINSTER PARK U




gamesfield

allotments

town field

formalgarden

libraryextn

café

new playarea

link tochurch

skatefacility

hall

library

halls

court

church

newgarden

street frontextension

orchard

newpavilion

new archhouse

inhabited edges: special domestic

extensions zoneinhabited edges

new building

new special landscapeareas/ formal gardens

new paths & pavedareas

new public art

new vehicular grade paving(colour varies)

new tree planting

new space-formingwall or screen

new street surfacing(colour varies)

new water feature

new playground

new bridgestructures

special new buildareas

allotments (earthcolours)

PLAN LEGEND

Figure 30.1

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PLAN OF PROPOSED

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LIBRARY

ST LAURENCE'S CHURCH

NEW WINDMILL HALL

C O R B E

T S T E Y R OA D

1

2

4

3

5

6

close-cropped grass

parkland grass

wild meadow

allotment

PLAN LEGEND

café/function room

NEW BUILDINGS

1

council offices &flats

2

new sports pavilionwith flat above

3domestic extensionsfacing park

4

Windmill Hall extn:arts rooms & flats

5

archway buildingwith flat over

6

gure 31.1

31 UPMINSTER PARK

PROPOSALS FROM SOUTH-EAST

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32 UPMINSTER PARK U




LIBRARY

C O R B E

T S T E Y R OA

D

1

2

4

3

-

allotment NEW WINDMILL HAL

5

6

-

café/function room

NEW BUILDINGS

1

council offices &flats

2

new sports pavilionwith flat above

3domestic extensionsfacing park

4

Windmill Hall extn:arts rooms & flats

5

archway buildingwith flat over

6

Figure 32.1 View of proposals to area adjacent to Corbets Tey Road develop-ment of library to form a new civic edge to Park related to newformal gardens and a new link to St Laurence’s

Figure 32.2 SW corner of Park showing new sports pavilion facing the townand marking out the way to Hornchurch stadium. Note neworchard in Park corner.

Figure 32.3 North edge of Park showing extension to Hall complex to providenew arts training and learning facilities or ofces, with ats above

Figure 32.4Clissold Househouse in the park

The projects opposite maximize oppor-tunities. A new library extensionhouses a council “one-stop shop”and also a café, gallery, ats, wcsand library space.

New youth facilities are proposedincluding an internet café, seminarand rehearsal rooms in a new-buildat the front of the New Windmill Hall,giving the complex “roadside presence”.New ats-for-sale to offset costs are included.

The library extension is “bedded” in new

landscaping arranged around a new pathto St Laurence’s Church. The church car-parkbecomes a linking space between the newcafé and church halls. The Windmill Hall isrelated to a new picturesque garden formingan approach from the south.

Civic intentions emerge from (a) a strongerrelationship between open space and specicbuildings effected through new gardens and

(b) more purposive treatment of thefootpaths that symbolise movement

around the Park. Paired footpathsare proposed as the main way-infrom Corbets Tey Road. They linkthe street to the sports eld. Aformal garden is put betweenthem - a counterpoint to the sports

eld, a place to view sports eventsfrom and a formal town approach.

The west path entry is marked by the newsports pavilion which addresses both thesports eld and the town. It includes a rst

oor at to add an active domiciliary theme.Another small, inhabited building is suggestedfor the north path entry point.

The Park’s south-west corner - a left-overspace - is treated as an orchard. Newallotments trim the Park’s southern edge.A new footpath runs past forming adenite edge to the sports eld andcompleting the Park’s pedestrian circuit.

32 UPMINSTER PARK

STRATEGY

UPMINSTER

33 UPMINSTER PARK U




gure 33.1 Concept sketch showing boundary development gure 33.2 Extract from Havering UDP gure 33.3 A village green in East Sussex (Rushlake Green, nr Heatheld)

The improvements outlined here turn in largepart on new strategies for the Park’s edges.The Park’s great good fortune is to have suchvaried edges which are consistent with itsstatus as the chief open space in the Town.

The Park edges formed by the back gardensof houses on Stewart Drive and BrookdaleClose do not seem to have the samecomplementary potential. The conjunctionof back gardens and park is a less-than-per-fect arrangement perhaps that puts domesticspace in a vulnerable position. This aware-ness means there is no willingness to think

openly about the house-park relationship.

Rethinking the Park as a “village green”whose edges relate positively to commonground challenges the defensiveness of thepark-house relationship. The potential to alterthe latter may lie in the process of domesticenlargement covered in the Havering UDPappendix 1. Many millions are obviouslyspent on house extensions every year: it’s a

major area of building development albeitone done in very small increments.

A notable omission from Havering UDP guid-ance is any reference to development onthe boundary of detached-house plots. Suchdevelopment - small buildings separated fromthe main house, integrated with the boundaryof the plot - could benet Upminster Park andgive local householders with big gardens achance to provide extra on-site family accom-modation.

Boundary edge development could be a way

for the Upminster Park’s south edge in particu-lar to be inhabited, to become a living edge.

A planning framework for such developmentis necessary. Carefully thought throughboundary development could contribute to thedenition of town edges (as well as Haver-ing’s parks) that is where back gardens abutopen farmland.

BOUNDARY

DEVELOPMENT

small-scale building

MAIN HOUSE

PARK

STRATEGY

33 UPMINSTER PARK

STEWARTAVENUE

UPMINSTER

34 UPMINSTER PARK U




Figure 34.4Tree-clump next tolibrary

F ig ur e 3 4. 2 V ie w a lo ng e as t e dg e o f Upm in st er P ar k F ig ur e 3 4. 3 Upm in st er P ar k: m ai n t ow n e nt ry t o P ar k i s l ow -k eyFigure 34.1 View south along Corbets Tey Road

A major park edgeis Corbets Tey Road.It is the strongestlink between thePark and Town. Tree-planting along thepavement next to thePark creates a softedge to the Parkand preserves someof the linearity of the street. This plant-ing is inoffensive butdoes slightly confuse

the issue of the Park’s relationship to the streetby not offering a specic interpretation of thePark’s openness to the Town.

Effectively, there is no “grand entry” into thePark, which is perfectly appropriate giventhe general distaste that there would be forattempts to aggrandize the Park or its usage.Whilst the Park works very well as an easy-to-get-to space off one of the Town’s main

streets it is ques-tionable whether itspresence is madethe most of givenwhat a tremendousspatial resource it is.

TREE-PLANTINGThe tree-plantingnext to library sug-gests that trees canbe used (albeit inthis instance haphaz-

ardly) to create what

is a marker structure that announces the Park’spresence. These trees form a denite “clump”and make a specic and therefore celebra-tory gure in the streetscape. Much of theother tree-planting seems to lack a clear ideaof its role. It is treated as another form of street-stuff, like bins, advert furniture or rail-ings, co-ordinated by ideas of amenity but notby an overarching idea of a space.

ANALYSIS


35 UPMINSTER PARK U




bandstand

new park & street space

existing vehicle crossoversabsorbed into street frontagepavement with new tables

BELLCORNER

PARK

WINDMILL HALLCORNERAPPROACH

CORNERAPPROACH

CORNERAPPROACH

SHOPS

SHOPS

INSTITUTIONALEDGE

INSTITUTIONALEDGE

SHOPS

Figure 35.2 Looking into the new streetspace

Figure 35.3Town frontage asstreet sections

STREET SECTIONSIt seems reasonable to use the exampleof Corbets Tey Road adjacent to UpminsterPark’s open east ank and think of the mainstreet frontage in the town centre as a collec-tion of particular spaces or street sections.This way of think-ing about thetown frontage -the surface areaof the town centre - issketched here in gure 35.3. Itis based on a process of characterizing thedifferent street sections rst and making

proposals which are responsive to anyspecic characteristics which may beespied. The approach is helpful in think-ing about street vistas, the visual the-atre that the prospect of the town’sstreet spaces offers its users.

STREET EVENTThe particular streetspace formedby Corbets Tey Road next to

Upminster Park could be developedmore decisively in response to theurban event of the Park’s generous

openness to the street. A very signicantnew town centre space is assayedhere that would be multi-functional

and particu-larly support-ive of the

Park’s role inhosting special events

such as the Upminster ExtremeSports Events (August 2001). A kind of enlargement of the street’s hard-landscape is

proposed - a generous opening of the streetimplying convivial or celebratory usage butperfectly able as well to accommodate extracar-parking when required. Indeed this spacewould be a clear spatial invitation to the car-borne public to stop and take part.

A new bandstand is shown in Figure 35.1that would symbolise the new space’s active,celebratory nature.

STRATEGY


36 UPMINSTER BRIDGE U




Figure 36.1 Upminster Bridge: “scuzzy” street scene

36 UPMINSTER BRIDGE UPMINSTER





Figure 37.1 Looking east towards The Bridge House pub

37 UPMINSTER BRIDGEPMINSTER





HORNCHURCH STADIUM

pubtunnel

rails

unused land

shops

garage

bridge

river

TO UPMINSTERTOWN

officeblock

carwash

gure 38.1 showinggure 38.1 Existing condition overview

car-space

trees growing onrail embankment

wild growth

PLAN LEGEND






gure 39.1 River Ingrebourne owing underneath railway embankment gure 39.2 Non-descript road-bridge over Ingrebourne Figure 39.3 The Bridge House Inn roadside sign displaying a romantic ideaof a town-entry point

The scene around Upminster Bridge is organ-ised around two main lines, that of the mainA-road between Hornchurch and Upminsterrunning east-west and the the River Ingre-bourne running north-south. The river passesunder the railway and the main road next tothe Upminster Bridge House Inn.

The Bridge Inn sign refers to town entry witha romanticised image of an arched bridgeover a river by a town. The actual bridge isa mean, near invisible structure which offerspedestrians and cyclists little amenity.

Opposite the pub on the rivers east bankappears to be an area of disused land.Close by is the considerable public spaceof the Hornchurch Stadium and beyond thatGaynes Parkway. Access to both is convo-luted and uncelebrated.

The character of the area is rough-and-readywith much roadside commerce in evidence,including a second-car dealership operating

out of a dishevelled garage, a car-valetting yard surrounded by large poster hoardings,the pub itself, a parade of shops and afailed ofce block. There is a lot of informalstreet furniture, mainly commercial. These aremostly standards advertising the car-valetingbut also include cheap-looking globe lightsoutside the pub, an array of bollards, largesigns for the garage and council street adver-tising. The general standard of paving andasphalt work is very poor.

Large of amounts of space are given over tocar--parking whether around the pub, garage

or the failed ofce block.

The unity of area - a positive features - ishelped by the enclosing curve of the railwayembankment with its intense tree-growth andthe abrupt start of domestic settlement on theeast side of the river, as it were the explicitstart of another, non-commercial zone.

ANALYSIS






Hornchurch Stadium

new riverwidening

riverquay

improved

bridge

gardenbridge

newpaving

quaysidemixed-usebuilding

bridge tostadium

path/entry

gure 40.1 showing

new building



new public art


new tree planting



new water feature

new playground




PLAN LEGEND


41 UPMINSTER BRIDGE UP




newgarden

newquay

majornew build

newpaving

stadiumlink

improvedroad-bridge

river

gure 41.1 Plan of proposed changes to Upminster Bridge area gure 41.2 Approach to Hornchurch Stadium via a private car-park: theaccess lacks a proper sense of “publicness”

gure 41.3 Riverside footpath: river is not visible and the footpath is overlooked by new residential buildings of overwhelming blandness

LOW EXPECTATIONSGiven that the River Ingrebourne valley isthe key landscape gure that provides Upmin-ster’s distinctness the presence of so muchlow-grade business activity around the pointwhere it crosses the main road entering theTown from the west is unexpected.

The question is whether higher grade urbangures besides car-valeting yards, second-hand garages, rough pubs and shoppingparades can be added to this A-road scene.

The Allied Dunbar ofces are a failed attempt

to locate an ofce in the area. The real sitevalue is probably in a residential change-of-use. The site must be a focus of developerinterest. It is strongly reccommended LBHgives a rm urban design framework for thissite accounting for the presence of the river.

WATER SPACEThe proposals shown here aim to maximizethe presence of the river. Doing so is the

premise for marking out entries to the Horn-church Stadium and the river valley domainthat the Thames Chase riverside walk work isdesigned to open up. Equally, a new amenityis given to The River House Inn. There seemsto be an unused piece of land on the river’seast bank next to the tunnel included here aspublic garden.

New bridges emphasise the theme of entryand crossover. Work to main road bridgeshould be kept to a minimum to avoid trafcdelays.

NEW WORKCreating a new river edge along an emphaticnew water gure provides the urban designcontext for a new mixed-use block containingriverside workspaces and ats above. Theblock is orientated along the quay at right-angles to the existing Allied Dunbar building.It is a high quality new-build linked to theriver, facing Upminster with its back to theexisting low-grade economy of the area.

41 UPMINSTER BRIDGE

STRATEGY

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42 WINDMILL SITE UP




gure 42.1 showing

42 WINDMILL SITEPMINSTER

43 WINDMILL SITE UP




S T M AR Y ' S L AN E

S U B U

R B AN S E T T L E M E N

T

T O W N

B L O C K E D V I E W

gure 43.1 Overview of Windmill site gure 43.2 Green screen to Windmill site gure 43.3 Concept diagram showing how the Windmill site protrudes intosurrounding domestic settlement from main road

SCREENINGBehind the screen of greeneryalongside the stream of trafcin g 43.2 below lies the mostemblematic space in Upminster -the paddack in which stands theold Windmill.

The paddock is at the crest of the hill whichrises up from Upminster Bridge. It’s very easyto pass it. You get better views from the rail-way embankment that crosses over the roadat Upminster Bridge and carries the trainsinto Upminster Station. It is peculiar that the

most important symbol of the area is so wellconcealed.

HOUSES AND FIELDThe Windmill paddock is another open spacewhich spans between a main road and theresidential fabric. This pattern of developmentis linked to the unrened building-out of resi-dential zones - something referred to by onecommentator on urbanism as the “…brutal

application of the planning scheme”.In other words, the space allocated for hous-ing has been lled up with housing withoutany interesting adaptation to specic neigh-bouring spaces such as the Windmill.

Effectively two kinds of space are pushed upagainst each other without any conspicuoussign of thoughtful negotiation of the bound-ary. Thus, the suburb remains undifferentiatedby the proximity of a major towncentre public space next to it.

PAST

The old windmill site concerns the past. Itseems important to try and deal with thisaspect of site identity through urban designimprovements.

To deal simultaneously with the town locationand contemporary themes would ensure areworked space is more than simply nostal-gic.

ANALYSIS

WPMINSTER

44 WINDMILL SITE UP



open-air museum

serviceaccess

newalms-houses

wardenshouse

Windmill

revised screenplanting

new building



new public art


new tree planting



new water feature

new playground




PLAN LEGEND

gure 44.1 Plan of proposed

PMINSTER

45 WINDMILL SITE UP



gure 45.1 Overview of proposals at Windmill sitegure 45.2 Upminster Cemetry: small pediments atop the memorial tablets

echo and rhyme with the skyline of suburban housing to the northgure 45.3 Upminster Cemetry

Figure 45.4alms-houses

INHABITIATIONThe open space where theold windmill stands cannotbe assumed some kind of untouchable space. Afterall, it is far from an idealspace. It is very wet under-foot in the autumn, a fact thatrepells ordinary usage. It’s noteven useful as a playing eld for sports.

Is the windmill site town centre space? Itis quite hard to make sense of it without treat-ing it as such. It is not agricultural space,

nor a playing eld or a suburban close. Thechoice here is to pursue a treatment ressem-bling the model of church and almhouses.This approach is reverential to the monumentand practical, offering a low-impact form of development for retired people.

Alms houses are traditionally arrangedaround a common green area off a street, thegreen working a symbol of protective seclu-

sion. They are often delicately scaled andarchitecturally interesting. It is suggested thenthat a row of eight single-storey houses iscreated to form and inhabited edge alongthe east side of the windmill paddock. Build-ing on the theme of passive energy-usageembodied by the windmill, the new housingought to showcase domestic appliance of solar water heating, chp and pv technologies.

MEMORIALAn interesting approach to memorials is foundat Upminster Cemetry where memorial tabletsare mounted on walls that form small garden

enclosures. The walls have small pedimentswhich refer directly to the horizon of domesticroofs and so the inhabitation of the area.

A memorial garden of such walls, this timeradially organized around the mill, is shownopposite. The memorial need not be personaland may even be an open-air museum refer-ring to shared history.

STRATEGY

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46 CLOCKHOUSE GARDENS UP




gure 46.1 The Moat at Clockhouse Gardens: the only “water feature” inUpminster

PMINSTER





gure 47.2 Somerelds building presenting a blank, impenetrable face toClockhouse Gardens: a missed opportunity

gure 47.3 Park promenade: tranquilitygure 47.1 The Bowling Green: an amenity with special appeal for older people andconsonant with Clockhouse Gardens withdrawn status and the neighbouringnursing home

Clocktower Gardens possesses a strong char-acter. Its feeling of enclosure is deepened bythe reveries of the dark water of the moatand neatness of the bowling green. Its con-cealed presence and special qualities providea unique context - an opposite to UpminsterPark.

Opportunities to develop the role of the gar-dens relate to the important public buildingsthat abut it. There is plainly a therapeuticaspect to the gardens complimented by theproximity of a doctors surgery, the local com-munity health building and a nursing home.

The position of the Somereld building next tothe gardens has potential though it is depress-ing that the planning of two adjacent spacesas signicant to the town centre as the Somer-eld shop and Clockhouse Gardens has beentreated as dismally as it has.

The proposals outlined here turn on the possi-bility of developing a combination of a thera-

peutic space complimentary to the adjacentmedical buildings and the civic space alreadyprovided by the gardens. The public and ther-apeutic dimensions of the suggested spacewould be safeguarded by the strong sense of enclosure provided by the gardens backlandposition behind the houses and main roadfrontage.

The dispersal of single-hander GP practisesaround the Upminster area is contrary tocentral government preference for centralisedprovision and will change in the medium orlong-term. A new building to house a multi-

hander practise is thus inevitable and couldbe sited by the Clockhouse Gardens. Even if the new PCG building was located elsewherefor reasons of public access, the ClockhouseGardens and the adjacent sites would serveperfectly for a Healthy Living Centre. Sucha centre would certainly add a new dimen-sion to the body-culture already evidentin Upminster’s array of tanning salons.

ANALYSIS

PMINSTER





BOWLING GREEN

SOMERFIELDS

GP

tearoomfountain

nursing

ClockHse

shopslink

a r c a d e d

w a l l

s h o p

l i n k

gatehouse

NHS

MOAT

S TMA R Y

' SLA N

E

new building



new public art


new tree planting



new water feature

new playground




PLAN LEGEND

g 48.1 Plan of proposed

PMINSTER





New gatewaybuilding in forecourt

of Clockhouse

New teahouse on Moat islandconnected to gardens viatimber footbridge

New NHS building

Existingnursing home

BOWLING GREEN

CLOCKHOUSE

SOMERFIELDS(rooftop parking)

MOAT

New arcadedwall forming

northern edgeto public garden

Sun gardennew formal garden

New conservatory extensionto supermarket building

providing public linkinto park during day

New way through toClockhouse Gardens

g 49.2 The Clockhouse has a dishevelled forecourt and is weakly pres-enced on the main thoroughfare

g 49.4new entry marker

building onSt Mary’s Lane

g 49.3 The small rank of shops next to the Clockhouse makes a spiritedattempt to make a roadside impact, quite different to the Clock house’s weak street presence

Figure 49.1 Overview of proposed

The proposals forClockhouse gardensrelate to health andthe health-giving quali-ties of gardens.The gardens can bedeveloped as a specialsetting where healthtakes prominence.

The basis for proposals is the assumptionthat the existing community health buildingwhich backs onto the gardens cannot lastmuch longer due to its low quality and obso-

lescence. It is virtually certain that it will bereplaced and a new form of primary healthcare delivery introduced into Upminster. Theproposals here are a contribution to debateabout how health-care might modernised andintegrated with town centre life. They showa new medical centre with another entranceinto the gardens. An arcade from front toback leads to a tea-house on the Moat island.A landmark building at the rear ressembling

the old Wind-mill provides wind-power tothe whole complex.

Garden space is “borrowed” from the nursinghome adjacent to the community health carebuilding. The garden’s north wall is integratedwith the health buildings around it. A fountainbasin is included to complement and balancethe dark, reective water of the Moat. Lastly,a new inhabited marker building is shown atthe front of the clockhouse to help establishthe town frontage presence of the gardens.

STRATEGY

PMINSTER

50 BELL CORNER UP




gure 50.1 Pedestrian crossing at Bell Corner

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51 BELL CORNER UP




gure 51.2 Youth provision in Bell Corner rooftop car-park: DIY skateboard“street-scape” made by local youth obviously seeking a little spaceof their own

gure 51.3 West of Bell Corner the town centre stops suddenly: the end

g 51.4pedestrians

crossing

Figure 51.1 Concept sketch of Bell Corner crossroads

Bell Corner crossroad is the central point of Upminster Town, where one might expecta sense of being “in the middle of Upmin-ster”. Bell Corner is not organised toprovide this quality and if it isemblematic of the town, it reectsmajor inadequacies.

It is weakly dened on the south-east and south-west corners. The latteris strengthened by strong tree growth butcannot be construed as an urban edge.Theother two corners, providing the openingnorth to Station Road, are formed by medio-

cre inter-war buildings. These are serviceableurban structures but make a rather “sad” state-ment about the Town.

The “modern” building on the south-eastcorner of the crossroads is universallydespised, deemed a lamentable substitute forthe bar/hotel which used to exist on the site.Local youth use its roof-top car-park to skate-board and hang about.

ABRUPT TERMINATIONLooking west from the crossroads, oneis struck by the sudden halting of towncentre space. St Mar y’s Lane’s west leg,

beginning alongside the St Lau-rence’s graveyard wall, marksa falling away of urban space-making and its replacement bythe suburban habits of green

screens, walls and fences. Inshort, the vista emphasises the Town’s little-ness.

COMPLICATION

The crossroads is also a key pedestrian cross-ing though the treatment is wholly prosaic.What is evident is the complexity of thepedestrian journeys with their various islandstaging posts, the forest of trafc light stan-dards and awkward dog-legs enforced byrailings. It all lacks directness, and a senseof amenity. The erosion of the north-east andsouth-west corners to make turning lters is thereason for the crossing’s complication.

ANALYSIS

MINSTER

52 BELL CORNER UP




gure 52.1 Cross-town trafc at Bell Corner, Upminster

MINSTER

53 BELL CORNER UP




gure 53.1 An Upminster Town crowd on a late summer’s evening Figure 53.2 Existing arrangement: reduced pedestrian amenity Figure 53.3 Proposal to increase pedestrian phases

Figure 53.4thick trafc onCorbets Tey Rd

PEDESTRIAN AMENITYIt’s obvious that pedestrian use of the cross-roads should be improved. The lter mecha-nism now used to conduct pedestrians andvehicles through different parts of the crossingsimultaneously gives rise to the confusingorganization of trafc islands anda complex sequence of pedestrianmovements. Removing the complexityof permitted movements and the arrayof trafc islands is a way to introducesimplicity. It means stopping simulta-neous vehicle and pedestrian move-ments.

Pedestrians can enjoy direct crossingsfrom pavement to pavement without beingmarooned if no vehicles share the crossing.There may well be problems with vehiclequeuing and so-called junction capacity if such changes are made. But without them,the “clunky” quality of existing arrangementscannot be avoided.

PEDESTRIAN SPECTACLEIt is important for the town centre that pedes-trians are seen en masse. Crowds expresscondence in public space more than scat-tered groups of individuals.

The crossing arrangements at BellCorner supplant people with cars.Cars form the predominant towncentre crowd here. The pedestrianmust work her way around cars whichare entangled in the various exigen-cies of the junction mechanism.

Improvement to pedestrian use of thecrossroads would allow pedestrians to crosssimultaneously from all sides. The crossingwould consist of larger people movementsviewed by stationary trafc. At the centre of the town would be found a system for dealingwith crowds rather than a device for movingsmall groups around a much larger mass of motor cars.

STRATEGY

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54 BELL CORNER UPM




restaurantand bar

businessspace

apartmenthotel

service

Figure 54.4 Bell Corner: plan of proposedFigure 54.2 Bell Corner new build: perspective view of proposed work centrecombining start-up workspace, apartment hotel and restaurant/bar

Figure 54.1 Bell Corner new-build: view of proposed

Figure 54.3 Small piazza: occupied by recyling bins, trafcmachines and cars - much more positive inhabitation isneeded to make it into a genuine “public room”

Figure 54.5 Modern public space: in need of a clear and denite role

The south-east portion of Bell Corner is a keydevelopment site in Upminster Town. The exist-ing “modern” building on site is universallydetested.

The site is suitable for a building that adds asmuch to the identity of Upminster as the oldWindmill. Some have suggested a new publicspace ought to be created. In this regard,reference has been made to a new fountainas an urban marker set in a piazza.

Britain’s vital urban traditions are linked tostreet-space rather than formal open space.

It would probably be better to create a newpublic space that read as an elaborationof the ordinary street/pavement arrangement,like the wide pavements down the east-sideof Upminster’s main north-south axis do.Certainly, most hard-landscaped public openspace in this part of London is actually usedfor car-parking: there is no evidence thatthe public “knows” how to use piazzas orsquares.

CRITICAL PUBLIC SYMBOLThe public’s opinion of any new buildinglocated on the south-east corner is important.Such a building will fulll a symbolic role asthe centre of the Town. It may be a disastroussymbol of failure if a redevelopment provedunpopular or commercially unsuccessful.

The proposal shown here “builds-out” the site,combining shops at ground, a bar/restaurant,business units and an apartment hotel.

NEW LANTERNThe building is intended to be a bright lantern

with large, open public interiors clearly visiblefrom the street. These would accommodatethe bar/restaurant at rst oor - an obvioussocial space for business people and shop-pers.

The apartment hotel would cater for business-travellors working in the City with a prefer-ence for staying in quiet town surroundingsrather than the city centre.

STRATEGY

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55 BELL CORNER : WESTERN APPROACH UPM




NEW WINDMILL HALL

?

Figure 55.3 Street presence of New Windmill Hall

Figure 55.4near-invisibleentry to Park

Figure 55.1 Graphic showing invisibility of New Windmill Hall from Bell Corner Figure 55.2 Between Bell Corner and New Windmill Hall site

INCONSEQUENCEThe stretch of St Mary’s Lanerunning west from the BellCorner crossroads providesthe link between the Town’smain junction to its mainart venue, the New Wind-mill Hall. No visual or urbangesture makes this apparenton the street. The roadside isonly notable for the continuousgrowth of trees all along it. The growthextends as far as the descent to UpminsterBridge and screens the Windmill Hall and

Upminster Park completely.

Whilst the greenery is pleasant, not acknowl-edging either the hall or the Park on the streetseems perverse. It would be the very thingto make an inconsequential section of streetspecically part of the Town’s arrangement.As it is, the western portion of St Mary’s Laneseems to be where Upminster Town zzles outinexplicably.

POINTS OF VIEWThis problem can be thought of as weak-

ness of the Bell Corner crossroads spacewhich would certainly be enhanced bystrengthening the appeal of its westernissue. Or it can be viewed as a weak-ness of the Windmill Hall. The Wind-mill site feels disconnected from the

places to which it should demonstratea strong connection: Upminster Park and

Upminster Town’s main frontage.

The same section of St Mary’s Lane leadsto the Windmill, another key monument also

hidden from view. The reliance on the soften-ing and privatizing effects of “planting” ishere antithetical to civic urban design.

There is a need to move beyond the agendaof “softening” to thinking about built interven-tions of a minor kind which are specic toplaces (unlike trafc signs) and responsive tothemes of creativity and thinking about urbanliving.

ANALYSIS

MINSTER

56 BELL CORNER : SOUTHERN APPROACH UPM




Figure 56.6War monument: symbol ofshared history positioned veryappropriately

Figure 56.5 St Laurence’s Church: yew walk Figure 56.4 Arcaded shopping parade: the material quality of this partiallystone-faced building adds signicantly to the street-scene

Figure 56.2 St Laurence’s church hall and Upminster Library: neighbours on akey section of town centre street

Figure 56.3 Pedestrian arcade on east side of Corbets Tey Road opposite StLaurence’s church hall

Figure 56.1 Graphic based on g 54.3: the section of Corbets Tey Roadimmediately south of Bell Corner crossroads is a highly specicplace within the overall Town structure

The southern approach to Bell Corner formsa distinct town centre space withinthe overall arrangement of publicspaces in Upminster.

It is not symmetrical: it’s consti-tuted differently on each side,one side is taken up by majorpublic places - church, church hall,war memorial, public library andUpminster Park, the other by shoppingparades.

The shopping side’s canopies make a pro-

tected promenade. There are other canopiesin the town centre but none as extensiveas these. The buildings off which thecanopies are hung also offer properly denedand design-integrated (notwithstanding theirdishevelment) on-street entries to the ats atrst oor and above. These entries strengthenthe street-scene and point to the general fail-ure to celebrate town-dwellings in other partsof the town centre.

PEDESTRIAN EMPHASISGenerally speaking this stretch of street

encourages pedestrian usage withthe sequence of entries to signi-cant public spaces on one sideand positively framed shoppingon the other. The physical qualityof spaces is satisfying in termsof scale and material: the church

yew walk, the canopies, war memo-rial and the library entrance exem-

plify this. The sequence of entries to thelibrary, church hall, church is a major episodein the town centre; awareness of this “insti-

tutional parade” could assist urban designthinking and clarify the disappointing spacesin front of the library and church hall (seeg 54.2).

The street itself might be treated to promotepedestrian movements across it. Doing sowithout cluttering the street scene with typicaltrafc management clutter is a challengeworth overcoming.

ANALYSIS

MINSTER

57 BELL CORNER : WESTERN APPROACH UPM




Figure 57.2 Gridiron Place: new start-up business units incorporating a youthclub: note “gateway” building forming Upminster Park entry withan artwork located opposite

Figure 57.3 New Windmill Hall: new street arcade and lay-by for easy drop-offs and pick-ups: nearby bus-stop to be re-located here too

Figure 57.1 Overview of proposals

Figure 57.4Gridiron Place:pointless thicket

The improvements envisaged here arebased on strategies for making theNew Windmill Hall site far morevisible from the Bell Corner.This visibility will make thewestern leg of St Mary’s Laneand the Hall far more easilyunderstood as part of the Town.Doing so, as it were, extendsthe Town. Vistas provided by theTown’s streets are very important;they present the visitor with a quickoverview of the place, a short-hand by whichshe often judges the place.

New Windmill Hall is shown with a majornew arcade on its street front. This is builtoff a new-build on the car-park at the frontof the Hall. This new-build should contain ats-for-sale to offset development costs. The streetarcade is a street-presence which unambigu-ously announces a public building. Nearby anew gateway building is proposed to markthe entry to Upminster Park. The gateway

building faces a small corner sitewhere a new artwork is proposed.

Next door, on a plot of unusedand overgrown land on Grid-iron Place, a new-build of smallbusiness units is proposed,helping to make the Town intoa genuine workplace.

The same semi-courtyard buildingcould also contain a youth centre

facing onto Upminster Park. The centrewould straddle the worlds of play (park) and

work (business units) and be located close to

performing arts space

These proposals would be complemented bymaking St Laurence’s churchyard a more obvi-ous walk-through for pedestrians. With devel-opments on Gridiron Place and the NewWindmill Hall, pedestrian links across thechurchyard between Corbet’s Tey Road andSt Mary’s Lane could play an important partin the routine of the town centre.

STRATEGY

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58 BELL CORNER : NORTHERN APPROACH UPM




outdoor space usedby public

school

single usercommercial

houses

mixed use: shop/office/flats

pedestrian route

Figure 58.2 Access road at rear of garage Figure 58.4 Plan of block containing garage (shown red): the block containsa great variety of building-types and uses and has interestingpedestrian access through it

Figure 58.5 Plan showing service/supply spaces at rear of town centrefrontage: these spaces lie between the town frontage and thehinterland of domestic housing

Figure 58.1 Concept sketch: potential bulk of new-build on garage site

Figure 58.3 Garage site with adjacent buildings

Figure 58.6Depth of site

Given the bulk and scale of adjacentbuildings and the dearth of devel-opment opportunities in Upmin-ster, the Time Tees Cars garageand showroom represents a prof-ligate use of a key frontage plot.

The garage is not uninterestingspatially in that it hints at site depthgiven by its openness and the front-to-back access needed to bring cars toworks spaces at the rear.

At the back of the garage is the town centre

car-park reached by car via an access roadoff Gaynes Road. This access road also formspart of a pedestrian route through the wholeblock.

The town centre car-park is clearly a vitalspace for the working of town centre shop-ping. Simply linking to it via the garage siteto the main frontage on Station Road wouldassist pedestrian movement. This simple

change cannot be envisaged howeverwithout a wholesale change on the

garage site.

The town centre car-park is asomewhat disappointing space to“discover” at the rear of themain shopping frontage: if there

was an alternative car-park loca-tion might not a richer, more enjoy-

able space be created here that properlynegotiates the variety of building types andusages all around?

The garage site could be developed in avariety of ways which realize its role as link-ing space and the themes of pedestrian move-ment associated with the spaces all aroundit. The obvious building-type to do thiswith is the shopping arcade that’s sowell utilized in Romford town centre. His-torically, this type developed into themodern shopping mall with its emphasison exploratory or comparative shopping.

ANALYSIS

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59 BELL CORNER : NORTHERN APPROACH UPM




r a m p f o o t p a t h

c o m p l e m e n t a r y n e w - b u i l d

glazedcourt new shops

and arcades

new building

publicgarden

r a m p

f o o t p a t h

m i n i - s h o p s

new shopsand arcades

new building

publicgarden

Figure 59.2 Sketch overview Figure 59.5 Poor quality architecture for town centre although containing anappropriate mix of shops, ofces and homes

Figure 59.3 Alternative layout Figure 59.4 Poor quality town centre building: dull and melancholy

Figure 59.1 Plan of proposed

The proposals shown opposite outline a majortown centre development that elaborates onpedestrian movement and the existing front-rear links that are associated with the north-west quadrant of the Bell Corner junction.The commercial and town-planning goal is tocreate an opportunity for large-scale privateinvestment in the town centre - an investmentwhich will not happen without specic encour-agement.

Three bits of the existing town centre arrange-ment are subsumed in the proposal: the towncentre car-park, the Times Tees site and the

existing building on Bell Corner’s north-westside shown in g 59.4 below.

The scheme disposes of the town centre car-park underneath the new development whichoccupies the garage and Bell Corner sites.Access to the new underground car-park isvia a ramp off Gaynes Road. The existingcar-park site is thus freed for alternativeuses more specically appropriate to the

town centre, namely a new protected publicgarden onto which shops and surroundinghouses can have access. The garden isencountered by pedestrians using the existingroute from Bell Corner. All existing pedestrianaccessibility is maintained by arcades cuttingthrough the bulk of the main building pro-posed.

Pedestrian movement is rewarded by encoun-ters with the new garden, new shops, theglazed interior court of the main building,and links to existing town centre routes suchthe paths across St Laurence’s churchyard.

Large-scale mixed use development on thenorth-west corner of Bell Corner is anotheropportunity to give Bell Corner the roadsidepresence which its position merits.

STRATEGY

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60 MAIN FRONTAGE SHOPPING UPM




Figure 60.2 RomfordFigure 60.1 Shopping parade buildings Figure 60.3 Street things forming an organized clutter

A central issue for many peoplewho commented on UpminsterTown in the lead-up to this reportis the town centre’s appeal to shop-pers. There are great expectationsthat a town-centre “re-branding”exercise can be achieved throughexpedients such as Edwardian or Victorianstyle street railings and lamp standards. It wasbeyond the scope of this project to deneexactly what is meant by “Victorian”; how-ever, much of the of faith shown in streetfurniture may reect inferences from Romfordtown centre where all kinds of street furniture

is evident.

Street furniture is not necessarily the bestmethod to “re-brand” an urban setting. Itcan only trumpet town centre rebranding if visually intrusive. Street furniture with a bigimpact is probably no good: it should bequiet, hardly conspicuous at all.

On the other hand, street furniture can be

changed by the local authority without itbecoming embroiled in a public-private part-nership the management of which is intenselydifcult and often leads to the failure of pri-vate partners to honour commitments.

The attempt to change the appeal of Upmin-ster town centre may be better thought of as

a new way to work with the primary buildingblocks of the town - these are the mixed useblocks which span between the side streetsrunning off Station Road and Corbets TeyRoad. They are the urban units from whichthe streetspace is made and the Upminster“shopping experience” is based. The imagesopposite show examples of these buildingunits which are absolutely integral to the orga-nization of Upminster.

ANALYSIS

MINSTER





Figure 61.1 The Pantiles, Tunbridge Wells Figure 61.2 Canopied shopping space: Corbets Tey Road Figure 61.3 Corner canopy; Roomes, Station Road

The sub-division of the main shopping front-age in Upminster into discrete buildings orsections of the shopping parade is also away to break down the problem of how tostrengthen Upminster’s appeal. A way for-ward is needed that combines public and pri-vate commitment. A street furniture make-overgives the retail community ample opportunityto sit on the side lines without making anycorresponding investment or commitment.

One development proposition which com-bines obvious manageability and the opportu-nity to achieve a near-term result is partially

exemplied by the canopied shopping prom-enade spaces opposite St Laurence’s (see g59.2 below). Other canopies exist alreadyalong the main frontage, outside Roomes’frontage buildings in particular.

The canopied street space creates a clearnew shopping space which combines the ben-ets of shelter with openness: it deals directlywith the problems faced by retail-business in

the area. At the same time, as the buildingsshown in g 59.2 show, canopies are def-initely part of a building, not a piece of publically-owned street furniture.

A canopy can be individually tailored toa particular building, and indeed strengthenthe building’s overall identity - whilst beingpart of a whole integrated townscape design.The whole could end up being a completelycanopied shopping frontage extending fromUpminster Station down to the post-ofce sort-ing ofce at the south end of the Town.Such completeness composed from individu-

ally designed elements corresponding to thesub-division of the frontage would offer agenuine basis to rebrand the shopping experi-ence in Upminster.

The strong identity of covered frontage spacessuch as the Pantiles in Tunbridge Wells pointsto the branding potential that a programmeof new canopy additions could promise forUpminster Town.

ANALYSIS

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Figure 62.1 Proposal for canopy: Station Road, between Howard and StLawrence Roads

Figure 62.2 Canopy proposal: block adjacent to Time Tees showroom

Figure 62.2Canopy proposalNE Bell Corner

New canopies, specicallydesigned for each buildingwill give each section of theretail parade the opportunityto dene itself. Effectively, thenew canopies will make avirtue of the sub-division of the town frontage creating acompletely protected pedes-trian shopping “experience”.

The canopies would to be paid for bythe building freeholders and shop businessesthrough a Business Investment District model

with some public assistance. Costs can bedivided according to benet.

A planning framework could be drawn up tofacilitate planning applications and their pro-cessing. One canopy achieved would encour-age others to follow suit which suggests initialapplications could be treated as templates.The Council could also help by providingcontact information for freeholders and shop-

keepers. The canopies ought not to be overlyexpensive, particularly if simplicity of designand construction technique is observed. Man-

ufacture can be done locally.

The canopies could be adapted to expandas required to form bus shelters. It would notbe difcult to integrate public phones, streetlighting, mature trees as well as the moreobvious shop-signs and window lighting intothe design of the canopies: in fact a varietyof nesses could be made according to thewishes of each group of shops.

STRATEGY

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Figure 63.4 Building facing Upminster Park on Corbets Tey Road forms adistinct background: its 50s design is i ndifferent, impervious to thespirit of the park which it overlooks; its size and clarityof line on the other hand are benecial.

Figure 63.2 Tunbridge Wells Pantiles: street vista enlivened by build-outs overthe arcade

Figure 63.3 Tunbridge Wells Pantiles: the build-outs show a distinct publiccharacter - that is transparency to allow the occupants clear viewof what’s going on down in the street

Figure 63.1 Concept sketch showing how a new canopy could be occasionfor extending accommodation above

Figure 63.5A few newbalconies canoffset the dullness

of the buildingoverlooking thePark

The canopy project offers exibility:it’s an overarching town centreconcept which does not pre-clude individual design of spe-cic elements. In fact, itdepends on design contribu-tions that are individually tai-lored to different parades of shops and different buildings.

DOMESTIC ENLARGEMENTThe example of The Pantiles in Tun-bridge Wells points to the scope forbuilding out over canopies or arcades. The

build-outs effectively extend the accommoda-tion available in ats above the street-levelshops.

The canopy project could thus become theframework for thinking about minor domesticextensions above the shops. Informall y, one ortwo of these already exist within the town-cen-tre; they are quite clearly unplanned. Improv-ing domestic accommodation in-town in an

imaginative way would be entirelyconsonant with the goal of making

the Town a better place to live.

FACADE IMPROVEMENTSSuch “extensions” should betreated as facade improve-ments to Upminster’s frontagebuildings since some buildings

present an unacceptably blandand dull aspect to the town.

A good example is the very large blockwhich overlooks Upminster Park, which forms

a continuous screen along the Park’s easternedge. This building plays a vital role inthe architectural structuring of Upminster, butlooks terrible.

The concept sketch (g 61.1) opposite showshow a new canopy structure to the street-frontcould be integrated with new “pods” thatprovide light, airy living-room spaces for rstoor ats.

STRATEGY

The CrumpledHorn PH

MINSTER

64 UPMINSTER STATION AND CAR PARK UPM




Figure 64.1 View over platforms at Upminster Station: August 2001

UPMINSTER STATION

MINSTER

65 UPMINSTER STATION UPM




Figure 65.1 Allotments seen from District Line train near to UpminsterFigure 65.3 Typical Thirties corner window from the Town

Figure 65.41930s bench fromUpminster Bridge

Figure 65.2 Small scale business spaces next to Upminster station

Upminster station is a major gateway intothe Town. People are concerned withits condition and the impression itgives. There are well-known prob-lems with car-crime in thestation car-park. Forall this, the trainservices to andfrom Upminster arevery good, used bythousands of commut-ers each day. The

youth - always enthusi-asts for communications- also use the rail networkto hop between various towns, a usage suf-fused with excitement and irresponsibility,entirely different to commuter routine.

Upminster is affected by daily tides of com-muters but does not benet economically fromthese mass movements by all accounts. Theinability to divert commuters must have a vari-ety of causes - lack of disposable income,

fatigue, force of habit etc. However,indifference to the Town as it’s embod-

ied in the station complex,must be a signicant factor.Miniscule signs of businesslinked directly to the station

show in the shack structuresalongside the station car-parkaccess road. Few other syn-

ergies between Town life andthe station exist. The emphasis is

much more morose, on how commut-ers clog up the roads and usurp park-

ing spaces on residential streets.

DESIGNThirties design is a feature of some stationsnear Upminster. It exemplies an attitude tomaterials - at once tough and decorative - thatsuits the area. New design is less engagedwith material and more with so-called corpo-rate branding. The effects are less sustainingof place. Thirties design remains exemplaryas a sign of the suburbs.

ANALYSIS

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lower station entry

-

small business "shacks"

main entry to station

possibly illegal advertson railway bridge

Figure 66.2 Existing station plan

Figure 66.1 Sketch overview of station rear

Figure 66.3 Station car-park Figure 66.4 Access road to station car-park

Figure 66.5poor quality rail signoutside Upminster Station:lack of design ambition

Figure 66.6Hackney Clocktower

TOWN MARKERThe station stands at the head of themain shopping frontage in Upminster. Itis the last Town building but only a weakmarker structure along one side of therailway bridge.

The station has two distinct buildings - thesingle storey building on the bridge andthe gabled brick affair on the north sideof the station car-park access road. Thesebuildings are connected only by a jumbleof canopies, shack buildings and roughopen space.

The railway bridge and the station car-park are signicant episodes in the struc-

ture of public spaces in the Town whichare closely linked through everyday usage tothe station complex though not architecturallycommanded by it.

What is missing is a station structure withthe impact to unambiguously form part of the

main Town frontage and simultaneously con-nect the main car-park back to the Town. Thismeans a building that “turns the corner”, orconnects the stations west and east anks.

WORK OPPORTUNITIESUpminster Station is a gateway towork: thousands of commuters use itto reach their workplaces in centralLondon. This function reects onUpminster to the degree that theTown is not a work destinationitself. Real town status for Upmin-ster must mean it offers a widerrange of work prospects thanshop-keeping and shop-assis-tance. With its good connec-tions to the City and freedomfrom big city sleaze, Upminsteris decent place to set up ofceand the station with its signi-cant underdevelopment maybe the place to create newworkspace.

ANALYSIS

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Figure 67.1

NEW STATION OFFICES

INSTER





new station offices new car-park offices

Figure 68.2 Plan of station area

The opportunity which exists at Upminster Sta-tion is to bring about a signicant changein the role played by station site in towncentre life. The method to achieve this whichis outlined here derives from the propositionthat new work opportunities can be framedaround the station site and indeed that thestation site is a highly appropriate location forworkplaces.

Figure 65.1 shows a substantial new buildingincorporating station entry/bus station atground oor with a range of ofces/ats atupper levels. The adjacent gure 66.1 showsthe location of the suggested development.Effectively, the proposal makes a new spaceoff Station Road which is not a residentialstreet (like the other cross-streets are) but awork-dedicated urban space.

Interestingly, the residential cross-streets linedwith houses show a high-level of investmentin buildings and homes which the station/car-park site fails to match.

There are obvious ways to expand the newworkspace even further. The plan below out-lines the idea that the whole car-park couldbe edged with a new work building. Suchdevelopment is a complete rethink of the car-park/station spaces - one perhaps that is veryoverdue. Potential benets from such devel-opment combining excellent public transportaccess and good quality workspace all closeto where ofce staff may live are great,and include a major injection of daytime/weekday shoppers for the local retailers.

The core development on the site shown inred in gure 66.2 formalizes the junction of Station Road and the car-park access road.

A strong building on this corner provides avigorous termination of the main town front-age and a clear relationship to the car-park.It will also command the car-park space, pro-vide a clear, deliberate spatial and architec-tural arrangement of spaces currently bereft of such an ordering.

STRATEGY

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69 NOTABLE UNDER-DEVELOPMENT IN TOWN CENTRE FRONTAGE UPMI




Figure 69.1name Floral Affairs

description run-down shop, ofce & yard next to

large railway embankment

Figure 69.2name Barclays Bank

description bank, ofces and ancillary space:

Figure 69.5name Bell Corner

description shops and car-park

Figure 69.6name Time Tees Garage

description showroom, ofces & workshop

Figure 69.3name Station car park

description low amenity car-park

Figure 69.4name Police Station site

description open ground

Figure 69.7name Shell Garage

description petrol station & shop

Figure 69.8name Kwik Fit Centre

description garage & ofces

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70 CONCLUDING DISCUSSION UPMI




Figure 70.2 A game of football in the TownFigure 70.1 A quiet residential street

Urban design’s role is simple: it is a disciplinethat facilitates thinking about existing placesin order not to squander that which hasgrown up, become established and beeninvested.

The projects shown in this report emphasizethe need to nd opportunities to engage pri-vate and public investment in the Town. Atthe same time, the project outlines are meantto give strong indicators of possible designrequirements to ensure high-quality outcomeswhich serve both private or institutional inter-est and the larger idea of the town.

Town Planning - not urban design - is asso-ciated with the layout of new communitiesor towns. In the context of Upminster towncentre, one may see immediately that the eraof Town Planning is nished though outsidethe town centre there may be scope for aTown Planning approach to engage with newideas emerging about sustainable settlements.

Within the Town, it is important that signi-cant new town centre projects are not

seen aspublic sector follies.

Work for example to Upminster Park mustnot disturb the Park’s wonderful “democratic”quality. One does not want to make “visitors”out of existing park-users after all. However,this sensitivity ought not obscure the hugepotential for improvement.

THE TOWN: IRRELEVANT?Suburbia is highly differentiated from denseurban centres and it seems a town centre likeUpminster’s can only be ambiguously relatedto the quiet private streets which surround itin such depth.

But suburbia was not instituted as a replace-ment for city life but as a new model for it. Itsfounding fathers always recognized the roleof the “neighbourhood” for example. Their

vision embraced town centres, business, farm-ing, industry as well as houses for people tolive in.

Today suburbia is associated almost com-pletely with houses - a degradation of theoriginal ideas. Suburbia was originally a proj-ect to re-centre modern life in new, improved

“towns” with a new relation-ship to the countryside.

The obscurity of suburbanhousing is valued; it gives afeeling of being a long-way outside the main-stream, something experienced palpably inthe repetitious, placeless organization of resi-dential streets. This pleasure in anonymoushiddenness refers back to a life “outsidethe system”, an independence from every-thing which exacts such a toll through theworking routine. The notion that there areplaces beyond the reach of “the system” is ahappy one and the home is evidently the mainplace to convincingly experience it.

Increasingly, the suburban dweller perspec-tive has no need to refer to towns. The trans-port, telecommunications, media and servicenetworks provide her wants on her terms.

REAL ALTERNATIVEThough the Town hasceased to be central it hasbecome a key alternative.The Town’s main strength is

its unique relationship to the general run of activity which it hosts. Cultural activity in par-ticular is simply invalidated in any othercontext.

The Town has this attribute of validating vitalactivities of all kinds, by putting them in arelationship to all the rest. It validates orsupports the meaning of religious, memorial,political, theatrical, artistic, commercial andsporting activity.

Effectively it creates an open whole notowned outright by a single player in whichvarious meanings can prosper in a way com-pletely foreign to the closed, unreal worldscreated in so-called shopping malls.

TOWNS AND SUBURBS

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Figure 71.5 Ruralisation: stage 3 - population shift to more sustainablesettlements is well-advanced

Figure 71.6 Ruralisation: stage 4 - the end pointF ig ur e 7 1. 3 R ur al is at io n: s ta ge 1 - t he s ta rt in g p oi nt F ig ur e 7 1. 4 R ur al is at io n: s ta ge 2 - r ep la ce me nt o f h ou se s b y p ar ks

Figure 71.5 Ingrebourne Valley: saving it from development has been anotable achievement of planning policy

Figure 71.1 South-east edge of Upminster facing Cranham Church: the town’s

perimeter is one long back garden fence

The role of Plan-ning policy in man-

aging a suburbanenvironment is fascinat-ing. Planning plays avital role in popularpolitical understandingin protecting the res-idential fabric fromdisturbance and over-development.

The need for devel-opment - a tenet that

underpins all local authoritydevelopment plans - is not widelyaccepted. Protection from develop-

ment is more readily understood asthe job of planning. That planning is thereto develop and manage the environment andthe attainment of competing goods such asaccess to job markets and freedom from over-trafcked streets is not widely recognized.

PLANNING CENTREGiven the role of planning policy in the birthand life of Upminster, an Upminster PlanningCentre with a national role is a plausibleidea. A suitable location for it might be thenorth end of Hall Lane, a setting where theIngrebourne Valley is visible and where thefuture of various dishevelled agricultural sitesis undecided. The valley’s protection is clearachievement of planning and the sight of itwould provide an appropriate background toa new planning institution.

THE TOWN EDGE: JUST FENCES?That so much of Upminster’s boundary withthe countryside is back garden fencing is

disappointing and reects planning policy’sinability to achieve quality at small scales.Garden fencing or ordinary houses are negrain elements compared to the IngrebourneValley but repeated hundreds of times theytake on the scale of the open land all around.

Town edges can be tackled by an additionalUDP clause about fence quality or reviewedmore openly as a question pertaining to thelarger issue of the town/country relationship.

Folke Günter at Lund University argues thatsmall towns by agricultural land can realizemore energy efcient relationships with agri-culture. He is concerned with agriculture’shuge consumption of phosphates. This energyexpenditure can be reduced to sustainablelevels by recycling household phosphorusstreams. Investment in sustainable housinglinked appropriately to local food producerscould be spread over 20 years.

“Ruralisation” of towns is achievable byreplacing townhouses when their owners diewith public gardens, and building up-to-datehouses in new mini-settlements (see below).

Our own research has revealed how divorcedUpminster has become from agriculture. Foodproducers say local people have no interestin working on the land preferring jobs inwarm ofces. They cite the supermarket-ledtransformation of food distribution in the 70sas the main reason for the disappearanceof market gardens which supplied Londonmarkets. Farm shops are in decline too andsell mostly imported food brought in by thesame distribution system that serves the super-markets. Meanwhile Essex Remade report thatlocal farmers do not take part in the marketfor local waste products. The NFU say disap-pointingly that they plan no initiatives to inte-grate agricultural and suburban economies.

NEW SETTLEMENTSPlanning promotes rural leisure business asthe future of the town/country relationshiplocally.Whether this accounts for the burdenof urbanization, distribution and agriculturalproduction is doubtful. A signicant step inthe right direction would be to consider creat-ing new settlements close to Upminster’s townedges to meet the challenge of creating sus-tainable new settlements.

NEW TOWN : SUBURBAN TRADITION

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Figure 72.2 Approximately 130 hectares of land: enough to support 650people sustainably

Figure 72.3 Upminster Bridge allotments: presentiment of future, democraticlandscapes?

Figure 72.4River Drive: street andwoodland path in anopen, public relationship

Figure 72.1“First Step towardsPeace, a Havenand Happiness”:out-of-town housingfrom 1930s”

Folke Günter argues for transfor-mation by “‘ruralisation’ and acloser integration of agricultureand residential settlements…(to)minimize dependency on indus-

trial energy, increase nutrient cir-culation (and) integration between

agriculture and other social activities…The economic…benets of such systems

may well …be considerable, especially giventhe anticipated (oil) price rises and vulner-ability of modern industrial agriculture.” Figure 70.2 below shows an area of 130hectares as required by Günter to house andsupport agriculturally around 650 people.

A new settlement built to return nutrientsto the land could show-case a new kindof suburb renewing Upminster’s traditionof creating communities of the future.Curiously, suburbs, once forward-thinking in their programme of giving access to “the goodlife”, are now identied withrampant materialism.

PLANNING PERSPECTIVEThe red patch in gure 70.2 isa random section of Upminsterhousing that might be replacedby new housing in a sustainablesettlement by Cranham church.

The signicance of this to the long termfuture of Upminster would be immense notonly because it provides a replacement strat-egy for out-of-date housing but because itoutlines a long-term method to slowly dissolvelimits to town centre growth.

Green Belt does not prohibit town develop-ment but protects farmland. When new set-tlement actually enhances agriculture (ratherthan just violating an abstract, planning con-cept such as Green Belt) then there is a case

for change.

RENEWAL OF INNOCENCEThe relationship between town and countryis part of Upminster’s identity. Successful prox-imity to the land is not demonstrated by the“Upminster Town Wall” of back-garden fencesor the failure to acknowledge natural gures

such as the Ingrebourne River at UpminsterBridge. More successful are the allotmentsthat offer a public relationship with the

land. These landscapes are more cha-otic than modern farmland but may

for all that be a landscape of the future. They exemplify publicspace in which the public takespart constructively.

The allotments, offering foodand exercise though hus-

bandry, refer back to the anself-help way of life called the

Plotlands. It had an outcrop inHavering’s Noah Hill and Havering

Park. The Plotlanders were Londonerswho bought cheap plots of agriculturalland in the 30s and built bungalows onthem. They explicitly sought access topeace and quiet and simplicity of living.

Plotlands were decried as blight on landscapethough they gave many the opportunity dwell

amongst greenery. Much of the impetus forthe development of planning law came fromthe violent reaction to the Plotlands and theapparent disorder it represented.

The Plotlanders imposed costs on the envi-ronment and were resented by local authori-ties which were asked to provide them withservices eventually. The Plotlanders, havingbecome the targets of massive criticism fordespoiling the countryside, were supplantedby “normal suburbia” and their project of some kind of simple life was lost.

Maintaining and renewing the link with therecurring cultural aspiration towards a simplelife must be part of small town life. In allsenses, this is about renewal. The whole of this work is about re-achieving the Town’sinnocence through a new sophistication aboutwhat a small town can offer its population. Itis for this reason that allotments are suggestedas part of the inhabitation of Upminster Park’sedges.

RENEWING THE IDEA OF UPMINSTER

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Figure 73 The ReNew Kentish Town Exhibition: high streetlocation, disused shop venue: wonderful atmosphere!

The scope of work outlined in this report isambitious. What steps can be taken in thenear term to develop the town centre?

The most important answer is obvious: createand sustain interest and eventually excitementabout the future of Upminster town centre.This can be done intelligently or thoughtlessly.More particularly, it might easily generatemore bad faith than anything else.

Putting the emphasis on consultation, althoughapparently credible, may be mistaken. It maybe more constructive to create a mood of

renewed interest in the facts of the past - thatis provide information about how the currentsituation evolved.

PUBLIC EXHIBITIONSWe propose a series of exhibitions coveringdifferent aspects of the area. The topics mustbe genuinely informative and factual. Here’sa possible list

• Why the town centre is laid out as it isand a history of its open spaces

• Work set out in this report• The design of suburban houses

• Small Towns: how does Upminstercompare

• The agricultural past• The Plotlands movement and the role

of Planning Policy• The signicance of Thames Gateway

for Upminster• Retail Industry: how big shopping

centres work

The exhibitions are designed to create anatmosphere of intelligent interest. The interestis not solicited through “consultation” in orderto satisfy a bureaucracy associated with aparticular development: it’s engaged by beinggenuinely interesting, that is by being reveal-ing about the conditions in which people live.

It is hard to imagine a public more likely torespond intelligently to this approach that theone in Upminster.

STAGINGExhibition staging and timing must be care-fully thought through. Choosing appropriatetown centre venues for the exhibitions is amatter of immense sensitivity. Unused or so-called “found spaces” such as disused shopsbrought to life for a show can provide an

extraordinary atmosphere, a very special set-ting for social encounters which often turn onthe material on display. The venue must besituated in the right part of the town centreat all costs.

The exhibitions must be managed by some-one with a feel for the Town and its people.

This person is pivotal as a link between theCouncil and the people and must ensure theexhibitions offer a quiet, unhurried encounterwith organized information and relevant localhistories. The exhibition co-ordinator whilstnot necessarily the exhibition curator mustunderstand fully and be able to express to thepublic the serious and candid intentions of theexhibition programme.

A TOWN EVENTIt needs to be remembered how the objectiveof creating public interest in the future of a town centre like Upminster’s is utterly differ-ent to creating public interest for commercialpurposes.

The exhibitions can only be validated by atown setting. Exhibitions about the future of ashopping centre, by contrast, could only beconstrued as supporting a commercial inter-est.

LOCAL AUTHORITY WORKThe exhibition programme is an opportunityfor co-ordinated inter-departmental Councilaction. Arts would carry the burden of orga-nizing the exhibitions but signicant inputwould be required from various other depart-

ments.

The period of the exhibitions - 6 monthsmaximum- would be time spent on key plan-ning policy changes. Given the interest localpeople have in Planning, these policies wouldbe presented at a nal exhibition.

INFORMATION BEFORE CONSULTATION

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UPMINSTER

Whilst Upminster is represented as a signi-cant district centre in the Havering UnitaryDevelopment Plan as if, somewhat curiously,it constituted just one part of a larger conurba-tion known as Havering, it is perhaps moreappropriate to think about it as a small town.The language of the UDP is not clear ordenite about Upminster’s status: it does notsay whether Upminster is a distinct town orjust an outcrop of “town centre activities”within a continuous urban settlement.

DISTINCT TOWNThis report puts the distinctiveness of Upmin-ster at the heart of new thinking about thetown centre. This is consistent withplanning principles which turn on the impor-

tance of maintaining identities e.g. town,and countryside. Martin Elson’s recent reportfor the DoE about “strategic gaps andgreen wedges” notes how landscape featuresare used by planning authorities to preventcoalescence of communities by sprawl for thepurpose of maintaining primarily denition of towns and villages, a policy which clearly setshigh store by the separate identities of suchsettlements.

We believe the initiative of commissioningtown centre studies would be complementedby a policy clearly identifying Upminster as atown in its own right. If this leads to debateabout what a town as a opposed to a towncentre is, it will be long overdue. By all thiswe mean to say that referring to Upminsteras a district centre is to be mealy-mouthed,to rely on planning jargon rather the usageof ordinary people. Clearly, there is an issueof identity which arises from the predominantsuburban settlement: common understandinglooks on Upminster as a suburb of London, aperiphery of the big city. I have argued thatthis is a misapprehension of turn-of-centurysuburbs such as Upminster.

Lastly, it needs to be recognized that small

towns are perhaps the most interesting loca-tions for the exploration of sustainable devel-opment. They offer a scale and possibility of integration, as well as fascinating social andcultural dimensions, which large metropolisespresent as totally intractable issues. Gettingsmall towns right is the most interesting taskfacing planners and urban designers today.

DEPARTMENTAL RESPONSEIt would be incongruous if we did not suggestthat a useful next step for Upminster towncentre is for Havering Council to respond tothis report.

The various proposals outlined here touch oneconomic development, housing, parks andopen spaces as well as arts and culture. So itwould be appropriate for various departmentsto offer thoughts on strategy described here.

Four large projects stand out initially:

• The library extension and café• The New Windmill Hall extension• The new health buildings• The new station ofce building

Each project requires a strong planningframework and each requires an advocate- someone who is willing to carry out thegroundwork needed to make even one of these projects happen.

The important thing is preparation: back-ground work to clarify overall costs, net ben-ets and long-term town centre impact. Forsuch signicant town centre developments, it

is worth it for the Council to initiate this work.

SPECIFIC PLANNING POLICYWe propose some amendments to the direc-tion of planning policy.

1 New policy should be created toensure disasters like the Bell Corner

building or the Somereld buildingare not repeated: intensive develop-ment of the concept of any new towncentre building needs to be part of thedevelopment control approach.

2 A policy effort is needed to provideuseful denitions of town-centrearchitecture.

3 New policy is needed to ensure edgesor boundaries are treated as positivelyas possible. Edges should be understood as town/country and building/park boundaries.

4 New policy is needed to maximize thespatial opportunities represented byA-road space

DEVELOPMENTMore generally planning should work like adevelopment corporation working with activedevelopers and those groups with denedspace needs such as the small business sectorto form partnerships around project oppor-tunities. The Council cannot make projectshappen but it can provide a vital linking role.

5 Havering Council should compile asmuch information as possible aboutbuilding owners in the Town centre

and those seeking space in the area6 Havering should actively seek oppor-tunities for new communities of sustainable housing with a new emphasis onthe domestic contribution to agricul-tural nutrient requirements

NEXT STEPS : NEW POLICIES FOR A TOWN

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75 DO-ABLE PROJECTS UPMI




Figure 75.1temporary structureatop Bell Corner

SMALL SCALE INTERVENTIONSCreate new station clocktower

Remove illegal adverts on railway bridge andrepave railway bridge

Clarify all illegal signage in town centre: forinstance adjacent to NHS Community HealthBuilding on St Mary’s Lane

Create new custom-designed play facility inUpminster Park for infants

Create new signage clearly stating who isresponsible for a range of major publicspaces e.g. street space, Upminster Park,the station car-park etc…the aim being toincrease the transparency of responsibilityand contactability

Go ahead with internet café on New Wind-mill Site or as part of library extension

Create mobile bandstand for storage at NewWindmill Hall and provide alternative loca-tions for siting this new town centre

Create signs announcing Upminster at Upmin-ster Bridge, the north end of Hall Lane, Cor-

bets Tey and where Pike Lane comes into StMary’s Lane

Seek a go-ahead for a temporary structure ontop of the much despised building on south-east corner of Bell Corner to house either

youth club, skate club or a small performancespace paid for by new advert hoarding

REVIEW Review generally how to use private fundingto pay for town centre improvements throughproject specication or planning briefs

Review all the projects in this report

Review Bell Corner trafc lights phasing

Review trafc lters at Bell Corner

Explore re-directing north-south trafc downWingletye Lane

Explore scope for major sustainable housingdevelopment near to Upminster which returnsnutrients through dry-sewage methods to farm-land

Review A-road space as major connectivespaces in borough and also mixed-use settinge.g. neither town centre, country or suburbbut containing elements of each

Review town-centre planting policy and lookfor unusual implementation of planting toheighten public awareness: for example,plant in deliberately widened cracks betweenpaving stones creating decorative effects:

plant native grasses around edge of Upmin-ster Park etc…

Assess number of start-up businesses in Haver-ing and whether more could be located inUpminster

Undertake immediately an urban design audit

of planned highwaysand trafc spend inUpminster Town

Evaluate scopefor adding toappeal of southend of Corbets TeyRoad shopping

Evaluate the appeal of Upminster asa small, quiet town with a view to “sell-ing” it to various businesses

Evaluate apartment hotel type accommoda-tion for visitors to the City in Upminster

Clarify extent of parking in town includingresources like school playgrounds and under-used car-parks such one on top of Bell Corner

Explore scope for town centre residentialaccommodation strictly in the form of ats

Explore small dwelling projects outlined in thisreport with housing provider partners

CO-OPERATION

Work with Upminster Windmill Trust towardsdening a future for the Windmill site

Draw up list of all town centre building andland owners and clarify active contact details

Work with local youth to dene opportunitiesfor a skate facility

Work with local groupsto formulate the

exhibition pro-gramme (sheet73) involvinglocal schools inhistorical aspects

Seek partnershipbetween centre traders

organizations and Arts &Culture Department

Seek to re-establish relations with localtraders on good faith basis

Work with St Laurence’s church to create anew town centre strategy for their churchyard

Attempt to pull in big name café business toincrease social appeal of town centre

EVENTSCreate a programme of open-air lm showsfor the summer in Upminster Park

Identify funding for the exhibition programmeoutlined on sheet 73 and do it this year

Start work on programme to create interest intown centre through show-casing local artistwork: set up exhibition in town centre location

WORK TO GET STARTED WITH

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76 CONVERSATIONS & READING UPMI




PC Newton Upminster Police StationChris Coles LBH Arts

Brian Ford LBH Arts

Greg Pavitt CURE(P)

Peter Galloway Upminster Residents Association

Wendy Shearn local resident

Janet Coles Havering PCG

Joyce Kelly Cranham Art Society

Karen Williams Havering Consort Orchestra

Andrew McTurk local farmer

Nick Harris NFU

Simon Fairlie Chapter 7 planning consultancy

John Williams LBH Countryside

Mr Gallagher LBH Planner

Martin Elson Oxford Brookes University

Essex Remade

Nick Mann Bentalls Shopping Centres

Doreen Hitchens Upminster Librarian

Essex Council Archivist

Robin Ducker Roomes

Frank Harris Harris Cycles

Folke Gunter Lund University John Joplin Sustainable London Trust

Jenny Cheetham resident

Tony Fox resident

Liz Piper health visitor

Mr Parish Gates & Parrish

Havering UDP LB HaveringThe Thames Chase Plan Thames Chase

Heroic Change Thames Gateway Partnership

Chapter 7 News, summer 2001 Chapter 7: Simon Fairlie

Strategic Gaps & Green Wedge

Policies in Structure Plans Martin Elson

Town & Country Edited by Antony Barnett & Roger Scrution

FEASTA

economics of sustainability Edited by John Jopling & Richard Douthwaite

Green Urbanism

learning from European Cities Timothy Beatley

The English Terraced House Stefan Muthesius

Urban Anthropology Edited Aidan Southall

Formes urbaines de l’îlot à la barre Philippe Panerai

The English Town Mark Girouard

CONVERSATIONS READING

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Documents

Upminster Invigorated