Getting into the zone

Home Zones are areas where residential streets are shared by motorists, pedestrians, cyclists and even playing children. Changes to the street layout and the use of traffic calmers force motorists to drive slowly. The introduction of planters, benches and playground equipment make it obvious to motorists that they must give informal priority to other road users.

Lighting should also be considered – it must be sufficient to ensure the safety of both pedestrian and motorist. Lighting should ensure that the motorist is aware of the road layout and the presence of speed reduction measures. At the same time it should be welcoming, and make the area a pleasant place where residents can meet and children can safely play.

The Home Zone concept
The Home Zone concept was pioneered during the 1970s in the Netherlands, where there are now over 7000 in operation. The concept has since been adopted by a number of other countries, including the UK.

Nine pilot schemes were set up throughout the UK in 1999, followed in 2001 by the launch of a further 61 projects. These were partly financed by the Government’s £30 million Home Zones Challenge Fund.

Home Zones can be created in urban and rural areas, out of existing streets or in new-build developments. Their object is to improve the quality of life for residents in the zone. They can help to reduce crime, lead to fewer traffic accidents and have the potential to reduce congestion and noise pollution.

Some or all of these benefits have been realised in most Home Zones so far, and the campaigning body Transport 2000 would like the Government to set a target of 1000 new home zones over the next five years. Another campaign group, Streets for People, want to see the target stepped up, presumably over a longer period, to 6500.

Current legislation enables local authorities to designate a street or streets as a Home Zone without reconstruction. But this does not change the legal use of the highway within the zone, nor does it give the local authority the power to impose speed limits lower than 20 mph without approval from the national highways authority. Reductions in speed are to be gained by traffic calmers such as humps, chicanes and pinch points.

There are no physical barriers to a Home Zone. Cars are allowed to enter, indeed residents who are car owners will want parking convenient to their homes. Motorists will be made aware that they are entering the zone by the resurfacing of the roads and pavements with warmer materials such as brick, and the introduction of seats etc.

The importance of lighting
In its guide to the design of Home Zones, the Institute of Highway Incorporated Engineers stresses the importance of lighting levels being adequate to achieve good personal security at night. It advises that particular attention should be paid to lighting obstacles such as humps and street furniture that have to be negotiated by drivers and people on foot. It also recommends that lighting units, where feasible, should be mounted on buildings.

Higher levels of amenity lighting could be deployed in specific areas within the zone where people may be expected to gather or there is a need to address issues of personal safety and security. Lighting in these areas can be dimmed to provide normal illumination levels after specific times. This happens in the Northmoor Home Zone in Manchester, one of the pilot projects started in 1999 (see box, below).

At present, Home Zones in the UK are lit in accordance with the British Standard BS 5489 Part 3: Code of practice for the lighting of subsidiary roads and pedestrian areas. This code provides for three levels of lighting for such areas.

But BS 5489 is set to be replaced by a new European code based on CEN 13201, which provides a choice of seven lighting levels, plus other factors. “These,” Thorn Lighting’s Bob Divall believes, “will provide opportunities for the use of lower output lamps with reduced power use and therefore the possibility to achieve these lower levels using white light with CFL lamps as the source.”

The BS illuminance levels take no account of the quality of the light sources. As Jim Burton, lighting engineer with Manchester City Council explains, the lighting at the Northmoor Home Zone is based on Category 3/2 guidelines, while utilising high quality light sources that are essentially white in appearance but have a good colour rendering appearance. Further, overall uniformity of lighting has been given more importance than demanded by the BS.

Making an area a Home Zone
In many retrofit Home Zones, existing lighting remains in use or may have been updated without any additional lighting being installed.

This is the case in the Upwell Street Home Zone in the west London borough of Ealing. The borough is currently upgrading all of its street lighting, replacing low pressure sodium lamps with 70 W SON high pressure sodium lamps. Before Upwell Street was converted into a Home Zone with features such as grassed areas with block inserts for parking, tree planters and benches, the lighting was so substandard that it made residents feel unsafe.

Most important is that the whole of the public area of a Home Zone should be illuminated, from garden to garden, facade to facade. This is the difference between a traffic road and a street where people live.

As Tom Webster of DW Windsor says, “Home Zones must have fittings that are capable of delivering both lighting of the roadways and delineating a safe path for pedestrians.” This can be achieved by using luminaires with optics that enable the light from the lamps to be focused within a span of up to 360°.

Because of the need to light a range of features, such as parking bays and play areas, lighting units may have to be arranged in a far less regimented way than they are in a conventional street lighting scheme. They could be located anywhere within the effective road width, even midway.

To help make the Home Zone more welcoming, it is appropriate to use more decorative style lanterns and luminaires mounted on columns of a more pedestrian-friendly height.

Unfortunately, as there is currently a need for updating street lighting generally, local authorities often have insufficient funds to give priority to lighting in Home Zones, except to ensure it is sufficient to reduce the risk of crime at night.

Feedback from residents in Home Zones indicate that the zones are popular and it would be disappointing if no more are created. New standards for street lighting could help reduce costs and therefore enable local authorities to spread their funds to pay for the sort of lighting that Home Zones deserve.