Better Transport

You might wish to do some or all of the following to create a Home Zone.

Determine whether your area could be a Home Zone

• Is the road predominantly residential? There could be some non-residential buildings in the road, like schools and shops, but the majority of the buildings need to be residential
• Are there very low traffic speeds already (well below 20 mph), or have measures been applied to bring speeds down to these levels?
• Are traffic flows light? 100 vehicles in the afternoon peak, with little or no through-traffic?

The Government guidance says Home Zones need to fit the above criteria. In short, they won't want to turn a busy, important local road into a Home Zone because if they did there would be too much of a negative impact outside the Zone. 

Read the guidance, Quiet Lane and Home Zone Regulations

See if your neighbours agree it might be a good idea
What do your neighbours think? Do people feel it’s not safe to let their children cross the road on their own? Are there too many parked cars? Is the street being used as a short cut by through-traffic?

Home Zones should be designed to accomodate people with disabilitiies -- and the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee has some good guidance on how to ensure it is.

The photo above, courtesy of Five Roads Forum, shows children playing in the Five Roads Home Zone in London. See more Home Zone photos.

Use the plans and processes already in place
No matter how good an idea is, it won’t become reality in a vacuum; it needs to be argued for within, and become part of, the processes that the local authority already follows. So spend some time reviewing your local transport plan, to see if there are already plans for Home Zones. For example, the current Leicestershire local transport plan, section 8.3 and 8.4, says that the council will introduce Home Zones in order to ‘tackle the problems of vehicle noise and speed’ (Local transport plan, pdf). But read carefully. The Leicestershire plan, section 8.28, only commits to Home Zones in new developments – not current ones.

Get to know your local authority
Understand what they are aiming to do. You’ll probably find you share many aims. If they understand that you understand them, they’ll be more likely to listen to you.

• Read the council minutes
• Attend council meetings. Grab agendas in advance. Try to arrange to speak at relevant meetings

Locate your council, through the DirectGov website or through a search engine

Talk to your local authority
Meet with council officer, probably the senior engineer, and have a preliminary meeting to find out what he or she thinks of your ideas and whether the council has any plans to create any Home Zones or has a policy on creating them. Your elected representative on the council can help to set up that meeting with the engineer.

Later, go back to the engineer and council with a worked-up vision and documentation about neighbourhood problems. Your vision could include

• Traffic-calming measures such as speed humps, junction tables or chicanes
• Changes to parking layout
• Controlled parking zones
• Road closures
• New pavement and road surfaces
• Planting schemes
• Play equipment
• Seating

If at first you don’t succeed…
If the local authority does not like your idea, it may be that you haven’t demonstrated your case strongly enough. Go back to your group and discuss how to strengthen your argument. Evidence will be key – both evidence that people want this and evidence that the problems you have identified are real and that the solutions you are proposing will work.

Don’t be too quick to assume that the authority is being unreasonable and that you should start going on the offensive, writing to the local papers and to your MP. You need to understand their position and work with them, not in opposition to them. So ask the officer, What would you need from me to reconsider your position?

Think about the money
The local authority may like your idea but not have money available to pay for it right now. Its hands really may be tied. If that’s the case, try to think positively:

• If it’s setting up a Home Zone elsewhere, support and learn from that experience
• Put forward suggestions for traffic calming for the area, as stopgap improvements until you get your Home Zone into the local transport plan

Find out exactly what transport measures the council is spending its money on. Should its priorities be different? Consider linking up with other resident’s groups for a joint approach to the council to argue for a new Home Zone.

Read about other home zones – find out why they were successful and where their money came from.
Some lessons from other home zones Home zones website