Street Design Standards - Current and Withdrawn Practice

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This summary, produced by experts from the Institution of Civil Engineers and Urban Design Group, compares current best practice street design guidance including Manual for Streets (Department for Transport 2007), with withdrawn old-era street design guidance and standards, that developed from the 1920s including Design and Layout of Roads in Built-up Areas (1946), Roads in Urban Areas (1966) and the initial Design Bulletin 32 Residential Roads and Footpaths, Layout Considerations published in 1977.

Local authority street design and adoption standards based on the old guidance will not comply with current planning policies or statutory duties, and should not be used.

Today there are different and very serious challenges to address, such as obesity, air pollution, climate-change, and the promotion of equal opportunities. Updated planning policies, climate change targets, and new statutory duties make the use of these old standards unlawful. Statutory duties are to be balanced, one against the other. The network management duty, for example, is not a superior duty. Balanced decisions are necessary, and in Scotland, government policy (Designing Streets) specifically requires balanced decision-making.

Give greater weight to guidance that is science and evidence based, up-to-date, and has taken relevant matters properly into account, including current statutory duties, and national policies. Manual for Streets is evidence based – see TRL Report 661.

Robert Huxford