"Ribbon" Development

Manawatu Times, Volume 59, Issue 268, 15 November 1934, Page 9

"Ribbon" Development

BUILDING ALONG NEW ROADS (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, Nov. 10. A letter urging early legislation to restrict tho so-called “ ribbon ’* development along new roads, signed by prominent officials of motoring associations and other organisations, including the Council for tho Preservation of Rural England, has been sent to tho Prime Minister.

Tho letter represents that three out of four accidents to pedestrians, especially young children, occur in roads fringed by houses, and states that tho “ ribbon” development, which is uneconomic and ugly, as well as potentially dangerous, is changing for the worso the social structure in which increasing numbers of people live. Tho futuro shape of tho country is declared to be at stake.

“Ribbon” development is tho name given to the indiscriminate building of houses along main roads without any lateral depth from the road and without any community settlement. The aesthetic effect over many parts of beautiful rural England is appalling, as the landscape is disfigured with a straggling fringo of nondescript dwellings of all sorts of architecture or nono at all, breaking ! tho artistic unity of the prospect of tho older England where the building was mainly in harmony with the surroundings. Prom tho motorist’s point of view, “ribbon” development is simply an extension of urban areas without tho justification of industrial expansion, slowing down speeds or rendering fast travelling dangerous on account of children playing on the roads. In the north of England earlier “ribbon” development linked the industrial cities and towns of Lancashire and Yorkshire in such a way that it was possible at one time to travel from Liverpool to Leeds by tramcar with hardly a gap in the municipal or private company systems and with houses running alongside the roads practically tho whole way. Minor “ribbon” developments may be seen in the vicinity of most New Zealand communities.