R&R Final PDF's November '17 cc

Public Sector Housing
From trouble to trophies…
A former council estate which became synonymous for poor quality housing, crime and anti-social behaviour, is part-way
through a major regeneration which is giving its new and returning residents a feeling of security, and a sense of pride about
their new community.
The playground overlooked by homes has replaced the site of the Swilly bonfire
Originally known as Swilly and
renamed North Prospect in 1969, the
development, two miles north of
Plymouth city centre, is the largest
regeneration project in the South West.
Under the management of Plymouth
Community Homes (PCH), it involves
demolishing 800 homes, building 1,110 new
homes and refurbishing a further 300.
Building commenced in 2011, and the third
of five building phases is now underway.
To help address concerns about the reputation
of the former Swilly estate and to encourage
confidence in the new development, PCH
invited Secured by Design (SBD), the national
police crime prevention initiative, to work with
architects, developers and local authority
planners to ‘design out crime.’
These planning meetings involving SBD’s
specialist Designing Out Crime Officers started
long before building commenced and have
meant that security has been embedded into
the layout, landscaping, and physical security
of all properties in North Prospect.
SBD’s advice on the built environment has
included creating safer spaces through greatly
increasing natural surveillance. Front garden
hedges have been replaced by railings whilst
high fences protect rear gardens. Properties
have living rooms that overlook cars parked
either in the street or within the curtilage of
the building, and gable end walls with
windows provide visibility over pathways and
public spaces. There are no alleyways at the
rear of gardens and no hiding places.
The physical security of properties has
included products that meet SBD’s Police
Preferred Specification, such as external doors
and accessible windows that are sufficiently
robust to resist attack from a casual or
opportunist burglar. Front doors have
quadruple locking systems, door chains, and
spy holes as well as letterboxes with protective
cowls to stop thieves using rods to ‘fish’ for
vehicle keys or other valuables left inside.
Every property has been fitted with an external
light. Rear garden gates have two bolts and a
separate key-lock, and every lockable shed has
a large metal ground anchor to help protect
bicycles, motorbikes and mowers.
Devon and Cornwall Police report a fall in
recorded crime in North Prospect by 62%
between 2007-2016 in four key
neighbourhood crime categories: residential
burglary has fallen by 49%, criminal damage
by 84%, vehicle offences 78%, and violence
against the person 14%.
The results are testament to the vision and
determination shown by PCH who have
become well practised at making North
Prospect succeed in many ways. These
include the complex, lengthy and sensitive
process of helping residents to move to better
homes, obtaining the necessary grant funding
at a time of constrained public sector finances
to avoid a partially completed project, tackling
the many construction issues including using
existing infrastructure on a sloping site, and
overcoming the many legal issues, such as
identifying the owners of houses that had
been left empty.
PCH Programme Manager James Savage said
regeneration goes beyond providing new and
better homes to improve family lifestyle,
health, education and security.
“A case study we did with the Homes and
Communities Agency reported that because
families now have properly insulated homes,
children would not have to do their
homework wrapped up in a duvet on their
bed and could use the kitchen table instead,”
he explained. “It’s so easy to get lost in all the
statistics around new homes, but children are
achieving at school and health rates are
improving.”
North Prospect started to win architectural
and building awards and even received a visit
from Princess Anne in 2015. With many of the
technical problems, rehousing issues, and
funding difficulties overcome, the
regeneration at North Prospect is continuing
and is due for completion in 2022 at a cost
of £130m.
www.securedbydesign.com
38 Refurb retrofit
magazine
November 2017 R6