The Scottish Government

Name

Mike Galloway

Job title

Director of Dundee City Council Planning and Transportation Department

Organisation

Dundee City Council Planning and Transportation Department

Address

Floor 15 Tayside House, Crichton Street, Dundee, DD1 3RB

Telephone

0I382 43 36 10

Fax

01382 43 33 13

Email

mike.galloway@dundeecity.gov.uk

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Development Plans Development Management Development on the Ground Community Involvement

Title of entry

The Urban Trinity - Five-Ways Roundabout, Strathmartine Road Trees and the Hilltown Clock, Dundee

Professional knowledge Innovation Management Sustainable development

Partnership Community interest Regeneration Customer satisfaction

"But it is just a roundabout, a few trees and an old clock..."The idea for the project was raised by community members who wished to have something better than a series of residual and poorly maintained urban spaces along a 500m section of a Victorian built environment where 20th century interventions and neglect had blighted the area, and where local confidence in their living environment was low. There are three main components of the project;

1) The Five-Ways roundabout is the foreground to the Category B listed Coldside Library building, the end of the Caird Avenue vista and as the northern entry into the Hilltown area. The roundabout was once a raised black circle of asphalt with a few box planters that relied upon seasonal planting for interest and contributed little to the built environment nor rose to the opportunities that the site afforded.

2) The formal Victorian western edge of the Strathmartine Road was destroyed by the brutalist housing development of the late 1960's and 70's and yet presented the opportunity to remove unattractive and high maintenance raised flower beds and introduce street trees as an urban foil to the buildings behind.

3) The Hilltown clock is a freestanding item of Victorian street furniture,, gifted to the people of the Hilltown at the turn of the 19th /20th century, that in the late 20th century had lost its urban presence. The restoration of the clock and the addition of 21st century art railings have given new admiration for the local landmark. The railings are etched with local 'sayings' giving local significance, local history and help foster local pride.

The Better Neighbourhood Services Fund was a Scottish Executive funding programme, driven by the identification of local needs by the local communities, with a sub-group meeting on a bi-monthly basis to report upon issues and project development. The formation of the BNSF Environmental Sub-group, as a co-ordinating group between DCC officers and the communities, presented the opportunity to analyse the area context and prepare design solutions for a permanent, low maintenance project coupled with high aesthetic value that would address some of the negative 20th century interventions into the built environment of the Hilltown area of Dundee.

To demonstrate and challenge the established / accepted norms that spaces in the urban environment can, through an informed design process, become a series of special places, of events along and through an urban area and demonstrate that something better is possible. Not just a roundabout, not just some trees and not just an old clock but a series of opportunities to ameliorate the urban environment, repair broken edges in the townscape, demonstrating the value of and confidence in, design quality.

The Strathmartine Road, Hilltown Clock and the Five Ways roundabout were designed and implemented in the financial years 2003/04/05/06. The BNSF project funding programme was developed and ratified by the environmental subgroup.

The BNSF Sub-group raised the need to address the condition of the physical environment and maintenance of public open space between the Hilltown Clock and the Five-ways roundabout. At a presentation on the importance of the need for a landscape plan the group invited design proposals from DCC Planning and Transportation Dept. to demonstrate that something better was possible.

Upon successful design reviews and construction through to completion for the Hilltown Clock and the Strathmartine Road street trees the environmental sub-group requested design proposals to be brought forward for the Five-ways roundabout.

The BNSF Environmental sub-group became the Client role effectively commissioning the DCC Planning and Transportation Department as agent / designer to realise the project and manage to completion with regular progress and timescale updates.

The achievement of the project has been to provide a low-maintenance high aesthetic design solution to a roundabout that pushes the accepted boundaries of functional objects in the built environment into an urban space that has a duality of function in being both a roundabout but also a foreground garden to a listed building and an urban gateway.

The Strathmartine Road street trees provide a new 'building line' as a foil to repair the harsh and uncompromising form of 1960's and 70's high-rise housing development.

The restoration of the Hilltown clock with a new colour and new railings etched with local sayings, has breathed new life and a new identity into a remarkable piece of urban scenery.

An ultimate achievement is the awareness and confidence of the community group members in their demands and awareness of the need for design quality.

The project demonstrates that through extensive community engagement, a design process informed from the local context of the built environment and driven by the local communities can result in strong design solutions. These solutions challenge the perceptions and established boundaries as to where opportunities for change in the urban landscape can be found, - not only as permanent additions to the urban scenery of an area, but also projects that can give confidence to the local communities and outwardly signal positive change.

1st September 2006