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Achieving Design Quality in the Modern European Town—The Example of Chelmsford

Chelmsford, Essex, is a town of 150 000, 50 kilometres NE of London. In the eyes of many, Chelmsford would have been an unlikely example of good urban design practice. The rather uninspiring 20th-century urban form of south and central Essex was usually seen as the butt of jokes rather than a beacon of achievement. Certainly, during the 1960s and 1970s matters were far from satisfactory. Developments of very poor design and the loss of historic buildings and townscape caused resentment amongst local people. Nevertheless, the fact that the cycle of development was ongoing and proceeding at a substantial pace offered the prospect of a better future, if only the development process could be properly steered. Chelmsford had experienced, and continues to experience, a substantial house-building programme and increase in population. Decline in manufacturing industry has been more than compensated for by the expansion of service employment. Chelmsford has also been fortunate in the location of most of its jobs, and its bus and railway stations, in the town centre. The expansion of shopping in the town centre, and its pedestrianisation in the early 1990s, had given further impetus to the positive direction of growth, thus presenting further opportunities. In 1996, a new political administration started the process of achieving higher standards of design and sustainability in the built environment. This was a considerable task which was not just a matter of policy content but also of resources and process. It took six years to achieve and, in 2003, Chelmsford was awarded Beacon Status for the Quality of the Built Environment by the British government (Hall & Estop, 2004).