Imagine setting up a base camp in a sheltered spot, next to a river for fresh water. Would you build the latrines on the far side of the river? Probably not.
It is an item of common sense that flowing material is a barrier to transport across the flow. That is true whether the material is water, traffic or crowds of people exiting a stadium or railway station.
Photo by Rido Alwarno on Pexels.com
This simple principle undoubtedly informed the medieval town planners of Northampton, who built the leper hospital on the far side of the river Nene. The founder is said to be a Norman knight, Robert of Stafford. Not for nothing is the area called Far Cotton*.
Yet it seems that the same principle eluded Northampton’s modern planners. We in Leicestershire should avoid the same mistake.
The A45 is a major, national dual carriageway skirting the South-east of Northampton, running north then north-eastwards from junction 15 of the M1. It is also one route between the South-west and North-east of the town.
Yet its largest industrial zone, Brackmills, lies on the far side of both the river and the flowing traffic.
Not content with this design flaw, planners placed Brackmills opposite the green space of Delapré, with its golf course and the Abbey of St Mary de la Pré, founded in 1145 by Simon de Senlis II. This prevents direct travel between the town and its main locus of employment. Instead, one must join the very flow impeding one’s path. Also on the far side of the flow is the Riverside Retail Park, so both work and shopping require a crossing.
One of the junctions on the A45 is the Queen Eleanor Roundabout, named after the wife of Edward I. Her death in 1290 was memorialised with a nearby stone cross, marking a resting place for her body as it made its way to London. The junction is currently subject to a major highways project stemming from the original, fundamental design flaw.
The A45 has 3 major junctions within about a mile, with high-speed lorries and cars entering and leaving the flow. It is a notorious stretch of road, famed for its danger, accidents and congestion. With necessities on its far side, it has become less like a bypass for the town and more like a high street.
Leicester City Council is in danger of repeating Northampton’s mistake. As its name suggests, the A46 Leicester Western Bypass was built to alleviate congestion in the city, allowing traffic heading North-east from the M1 to avoid its centre. By their very nature, bypasses go around a town or city.
In its plans for expansion, the Council’s statement (page 21) concerning the A46 is confused. It might have meant to say that it does recognise the A46 as a physical boundary, but the actual English is: “It does not include….recognition of the A46 as a physical boundary….” Whatever was meant, the plain fact on the ground is that the A46 is a physical boundary.
What the Council is clear about, however, is its proposal on page 22 to incorporate villages on the far side of the A46. Anstey, Cropston and Thurcaston are all earmarked for ingestion, but lie on the opposite side of what is supposed to be a bypass. A bypass inside the bypassed is a contradiction in terms. Like the A45 in Northampton, the A46 in Leicester could become a dual-lane high street.
Section 2.1 of the Council’s proposal is entitled “Sensible Geography”, within which sub-section 2.1.2 is “Establishing common sense boundaries”. This sub-section considers 3 ways of defining the boundaries of Leicester: that used by the Office for National Statistics for population statistics; the “Principal Urban Area” used by planners; and the Coronavirus Lockdown Area employed when Leicester was locked down. Among these, none includes Cropston and Thurcaston within Leicester, while only the first includes Anstey. It is included there, says the proposal, “For the purpose of statistical analysis…”.
It would be foolish to base long-term planning decisions on what is convenient for statisticians. The A46 Leicester Western Bypass is not an abstract, statistical feature. It is a concrete, geographical feature, so if the purpose is to identify “Sensible Geography” and “Establishing common sense boundaries”, Leicester City Council should recognise it as an outer limit to its ambitions for expansion.
*Here, “Cotton” derives from the Old English plural of cot. The equivalent Anglo-French plural is “cottages”.
Readers of The Twin Mode Mind might wonder how this is relevant to that book. The answer is that whereas this article is restricted to material flow, the book includes abstract flows, where the same phenomenon of a transverse barrier applies. This will be revealed here in a separate article, in due course.
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