One feature of Perth, WA is the 8 kilometres of formerly beautiful riverside from Mill Point in South Perth, south to Mt Henry, that is made obscene by the Kwinana Freeway.

I was living in a caravan park nearby when they got serious about really stuffing that place up.

What folk-memories are out there about how this was allowed to happen?

#Perth #WA #TownPlanning #FolkMemories #FreewayPlanning #WesternAustralia

On where we put our safety efforts

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/aXOSQ9scmbY

#Design #Cars #Safety #TownPlanning

NEW! Seafront Bench, La Baule, France. February 2022. Ref-12064
https://www.denisolivier.com/photography/seafront-bench-la-baule-france/en/12064
#portra #seaside #beach #asphalt #labaule #sky #townplanning #resort #street #atlanticocean #boulevard #france #seafront #kodakportra #city

The thread about the other bits of Wester Hailes; how the dream of a suburban New Town went sour

Wester Hailes is a name often used (from outwith) to describe the whole area, but really it’s a set of discreet neighbourhoods, each with their own name with its own derivation. We covered Clovenstone in our last thread, so let’s look at some of the others in turn.

Wester Hailes

Let’s start with Wester Hailes itself. Hailes is a really ancient name, almost 1,000 years old, first recorded in the area in 1095 when Ethelred, son of Malcolm Canmore, gave land in this area called Halas to Dunfermline Abbey. It likely refers to land by, or between, river(s). The estate of Hailes was split into three main parts by the 15th century

1. Over or Easter Hailes – of which some was later incorporated into Redhall
2. Kirkland of Hailes – which refers to Colinton Kirk, in which parish it lay
3. Nether or Wester Hailes.

Blaeu’s map of 1654 shows the East and West Hales between the two watercourses which may give the area its name; the Murray Burn to the north and the Water of Leith to the south. Fast forward to an Ordnance Survey 6 inch map of 1852 and we see a farm of Wester Hailes (where Clovenstone housing scheme is now centred), a quarry village at Hailes, just south of Kingsknowe – where Hailes Quarry Park now is, and Hailes House, which is still hiding there off the Lanark Road surrounded by streets of its name, if you look for it.

It was Wester Hailes Farm and Hailes Quarry (which had been reclaimed by backfilling with landfill) that the Corporation would purchase in the 1960s for its new housing scheme and from where the overall name was taken. The Wester Hailes Road though was first built and so-named over 30 years before in 1931, to connect Lanark and Calder Road.

Dumbryden

But it was the name of Dumbryden which was applied to the first part of the scheme to be built, in the northeast corner on a mix of land formerly occupied by quarry cottages and also the Wester Hailes Smallholdings. Dumbeg and Dumbryden are old Gaelic-derived names in this area. Dumbryden itself (or Dumbredin, Dumbraiden , Dumbrydon etc.) probably means the same thing as Dumbarton – township or fort of Britons. A farm of this name is recorded in 18th century maps. As such, it’s an ancient name and a remarkable survivor in the streets of a 20th century council scheme.

That building that you know and love as Lothian Buses’ Longstone Depot? It was actually built in 1949 as the administrative block for the Dumbryden Works of John Wight & Co., building contractors. The Corporation didn’t acquire it for conversion to a bus garage until 1954.

Murrayburn

Next along from Dumbryden is Murrayburn, built from 1969-72. It takes its name from the Murray Burn, the stream that once flowed through this area and which, ironically, was buried in a conduit to make way for the housing scheme!

You can catch sight of the Murray Burn at Sighthill, where it passes under the Union Canal below you, before entering its culvert under the district which it lends its name to. The name is a corruption of the Scots Muiryburn, a burn that drains a muir (moor). Confusingly, much like Wester Hailes Primary School was actually in Sighthill, so is Murrayburn Primary School! It was built there in 1938, 30 years before the neighbourhood that shares its name.

Hailesland

Immediately adjacent to Murrayburn and Dumbryden sits Hailesland, with the union canal running through its centre. It was a name coined by the council planners back in 1967 on an area of Wester Hailes Farm that had been known as the Dryburn Park.

The northern part of Hailesland is a mix of low and mid-rise properties, the part south of the Canal was built as high rise, using the Bison Wall Frame System. These were condemned as structurally unsafe in 1983 and demolition was recommended then. Six such blocks were built at Hailesland and they were never fully occupied. They became the centre of a 20 year local (and occasionally national) housing scandal that was not resolved until 1989. After years of wrangling, the eventual outcome saw three of the blocks refurbished (and clad in distinctive, corrugated, coloured exteriors) and have their structural defects remedied and the remaining three blocks sold to the Wester Hailes Housing Association for a token £1 and demolished.

In 1989, the value of these three blocks, standing empty at the time, was assessed. It was found to be negative £500,000; such were the costs faced in disposing or repairing them, the council would have to pay the housing association to take them of fits hands. All six blocks would likely have been demolished if it wasn’t for the fact they were so new (less than 17 years since final completion) that they hadn’t yet been paid off and the council still owed £1.5 million of debt taken on to finance their construction. Writing that off would have resulted in the sum having been added to city-wide council housing rents. 

Demolition started on June 11th 1990; three blocks consisting of 339 flats, were brought down to be replaced by 98 low-rise housing association properties. The plunger was pressed by Scottish Secretary Malcolm Rifkind and Tommy Smith, a saxophonist and jazz composer who grew up in the area

Westburn

The westernmost area of Wester Hailes is appropriately enough known as Westburn . The name for this area was historically Baberton Mains, after a farm, with the old Baberton Quarry at its centre. But the name Baberton had been taken by a private housing estate built on neighbouring Fernieflat Farm, so a new name was conjured up by the council for their project. Westburn refers of course to land to the west of the Murray Burn. Again it was a mix of low, mid and seven blocks comprising of 400 high-rise flats. These multis weren’t Bison System, but had actually been built to an even worse quality than those at Hailesland. Not long after completion, the external roughcasting started to fall off, and huge sections had to be pre-emptively removed as a safety concern, leaving the relatively new flats “piebald“; looking like they had been abandoned for decades.

£300,000 was spent on render repairs at Westburn in 1987, but the end was nigh for them. Its seven blocks came down in March 1993, when they were just over 20 years old, to be replaced by the Westburn Village of the Wester Hailes Housing Association.

The Drive, Park and Barn Park

The last neighbourhood of Wester Hailes is the bit you might get away with calling just that – although it was built in three distinct parts; Wester Hailes Drive (tower blocks), Wester Hailes Park and Barn Park.

These multis were demolished in 1994 to make way for low-rise housing. At the same time the opportunity was taken to create new, pastoral-sounding streetnames to recall the vanished farm; Harvesters Way, Winterburn Place, Ashcroft Lane etc. Another of the rehabilitated areas was renamed Dumbeg Park, bringing back into use another of the ancient Gaelic placenames (one meaning a little fort or settlement – dun beag) The various demolition and replacement schemes were remarkably successful, and won various awards at the time including “most improved street” in the country for the part of Wester Hailes Drive renamed Walkers Rigg. . This was in no part due to the community involvement in planning.

The more you read about Wester Hailes, the more you realise just how badly people were let down by the authorities. The shopping centre that had originally been planned as a high street in the centre of the scheme did not open until the last houses were being complete din 1973, more than five years after people started moving into the scheme. In the meantime it had been meant long walks or awkward bus rides to go shopping.

This “get people in first, worry about everything else later” approach also applied to education. It took nearly a decade for the promised secondary school for the area, Wester Hailes Education Centre (WHEC), to materialise, it did not open until 1977 by which time students were well settled into other schools and parents had to fight the authorities to keep them there.

In 1978 the area had a single GP “surgery” serving c. 20,000 people – in reality it was a few rooms in a converted tower block flat in Hailesland; the Health Secretary allowed it to be closed. Damp, condensation and mould as a result of design and construction flaws and poor workmanship was endemic from new. When residents protested at a meeting of the Housing Committee in the City Chambers in 1977 the Chairman, Councillor Cornelius Waugh (“Corny“), had officers eject them.

George Younger, Scottish Secretary, turned down demands for a public enquiry. Eventually in 1981 the Edinburgh District Council commissioned a report into construction problems in the scheme from Paisley College of Technology, known as the “MacData Report“, after the research unit which produced it. This was a technical report and went through the estate forensically examining construction and engineering standards. It found a litany of errors and clear evidence of shoddy workmanship and a lack of supervision. But locals felt it didn’t go far enough – it was authored by building surveyors and civil engineers and overlooked the people themselves. In response, the local tenants groups set up their own “People’s Survey” through the Wester Hailes Sentinel newspaper. The Sentinel’s surveys were sent to each of the 5,941 houses that comprised the entire scheme. 80% of the respondents complained of draughts; 54% complained of damp. Houses had cracks in floors, walls and ceilings, doors and windows jammed or were improperly sealed.

As a result, the wind and rain got in. Two thirds of respondents complained of the noise of the wind in their houses. Skimping on insulation to cut costs meant 3/4 struggled to keep houses heated in winter. Water vapour condensed on cold walls the walls and ran down it. The survey also found:

• 472 complaints of noise from up or downstairs neighbours due to inadequate soundproofing
• 412 complaints of noise from the common stairs and 342 of banging internal doors
• 466 cracks in floors or ceilings
• 307 leaks and plumbing defects

But what little was done didn’t touch the sides. You’ll find the same complaints in the newspapers in 1985 and 1986 and 1988 as you did in 1978. The application of fungicidal paint by Council workmen, the typical response to complaints, did nothing.

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#1960s #1970s #Clovenstone #CouncilHousing #Dumbryden #hailesland #Housing #Multistorey #politics #prefabrication #PublicHealth #publicHousing #Scandal #Suburbs #TownPlanning #wesbutn #WesterHailes

Make sure you grill Lord Pocketsquare of the Brylcreem Coif about how he bowed to #NIMBYs to destroy city-shaping light rail access for the masses. #qldpol #GoldCoast #placemaking #TownPlanning #urbanity #sustainability youtu.be/CTJduaSCHKU?...

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:kvr7xbbmwbshjvpfolu2ohaz/post/3lwekf2lemk2z

Final stage of Gold Coast Ligh...

Really enjoyed attending the Lusk Town Centre workshop last night at the Saint Macullins Centre. It was a really productive evening, with so many great ideas being shared about how we can shape a vibrant future for Lusk.

Thanks to everyone who organised and attended—a community's voice is so important! #Lusk #CommunityDevelopment #Fingal #TownPlanning

It’s an urban climate conundrum - do you actively take every opportunity to plant trees on urban streets to dramatically decrease the heat sink effect and work to significantly cool the concrete streetscape; or by doing so, do you create the conditions for a conflagration wiping out an urban area as climate change dries everything out to the point of being a spark away from fuel?
#cities #climatechange #townPlanning

Coastal growth in Queensland sees house prices soar, town planning issues mount

An influx of people wanting to move to Queensland coastal regions is driving house prices to record highs…
#NewsBeep #News #Headlines #agneswater #AU #Australia #coastalhousing #gladstone #houseprices #housingdemand #planningandenvironmentcourt #populationgrowth #rockhampton #townplanning #yeppoon
https://www.newsbeep.com/23622/

Signal amplify #PlaceMaking #BuildingBeautifully #TownPlanning #transportation #PublicTransport #SocialCohesion

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:xffypxxmaqufv6kqwqc5rk4e/post/3lpsl3mz7fk2v

Donald Shoup knew how to get cities going
The original advocate of ending free carparking
And #smart #carparking meters!
#urbanplanning #townplanning
https://www.economist.com/obituary/2025/02/13/donald-shoup-knew-how-to-get-cities-going
From The Economist

FRANCE 24's Tom Canetti, Caroline Dumay and Graham Walsh report.#Africa #Focus #SouthAfrica #corruption #Townplanning #waste (3/3)

Focus - In South Africa, poor ...

I finished reading this a few hours ago; “Feminist City” by Leslie Kern.

It is a wide ranging book that sets out key issues around the way that both spaces and society are structured and how they relate to one another. If you’re involved in town planning or transport planning, you should read this, and try to digest and act on it. Men in particular.

https://www.librarything.com/work/book/279615265

#BooksReadIn2025 #Reading #Books #Bookstodon #UrbanPlanning #TownPlanning #TransportPlanning

Cours Du Chapeau-Rouge, Bordeaux, France. April 2007. Ref-11792
https://www.denisolivier.com/photography/cours-du-chapeau-rouge-bordeaux-france/en/11792
#rail #denisolivierphoto #palais @bordeauxtourism #classical #holga120cfn #tramway #townplanning #comedie #palace @lomography #avenue #chapeaurouge #denisolivierphotography #architecture #boulevard #cours #elegance #blackandwhite #holgacfn #building #saintecatherine @artculturebx #blackwhite #jeanjaures #denisolivier #place #theater #denisolivierphotographer #bourse #history #triangledor #grandtheatre

Townscaper in a boardgame would be cool. I feel it should have a hockey stick (J-curve) that negatively impacts scoring when an area is over-developed. Another approach would be to game stakeholder engagement along the IAP2 spectrum. www.townscapergame.com #urbanism #townplanning

Townscaper

Thank you to @theuniversityofsheffield for hosting our yr12 students. It was a an insightful geography and planning session looking at issues in Doncaster and how we can fix them. #alevelgeography #geography #universityofsheffield #uniofsheff #planning #townplanning #enjoyingexcellence

Mistigram: FUND. Oh, ahem, welcome back! AdeptApril is using #ANSIart to celebrate World Town Planning Day today, specifically invoking the aesthetic of the very earliest versions of Will Wright’s #SimCity by Maxis.

https://mistfunk.wordpress.com/2024/11/08/adeptapril-nov08/

#8November #AdeptApril #ANSIArt #Nov8 #SimCity #TownPlanning

This rather beautiful Glasgow style tenement, with a bank branch on the ground floor, was only saved from demolition due to a campaign by local people.

#glasgow #urbanrenewal #anderston #architecture #tenement #glasgowtenements #townplanning

Not any old rubbish: Edinburgh’s Mound was built to order from rubble, pipes and oyster shells https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/oct/13/edinburgh-mound-excavation-recycling-centre-scotland #Edinburgh #OldTown #NewTown #TownPlanning #UrbanHistory #Scotland #ScottishHistory #HistoricalGeography #18thCentury #19thCentury #EighteenthCentury #NineteenthCentury #Archaeology