4. Towards a Birmingham Road site design code

Site layout and public realm

• A legible street-network will underpin human-scaled, coherent, route finding from Lichfield City Station, to Lichfield centre. Each street should connect to another and form a legible hierarchy of primary, secondary and tertiary streets.

• The masterplan must be designed in accord with the public preference for a ‘finer-grained’ site layout suggested in indicative Masterplan Type A, not the ‘blocks in space’ indicative Masterplan Type B.

• Ensure clear distinctions between private and public realm: public fronts should face onto other public fronts, while private backs should face onto private space or other private backs. This should reduce the need for blank walls.

• Following this, avoid at all costs blank spaces or dead zones that produce ‘fortress-like’ space.

• Any public square should aim to be between 20m x 20m to 40m x40m, framed by buildings with vertical emphasis, and have friendly furniture (greenery, parasols, planters etc.). Unfriendly clutter (bins, bollards, hostile vehicle measures etc.) should be minimised or avoided.

• Public squares should aim for between 1:2 to 1:3 height-to-width ratios to ensure reasonable sense of enclosure.

• Ensure adequate places to sit and gather in comfortable and relaxing spaces that are not exposed to the elements, but rather enclosed and secure.

• Large squares (60m x 60m and over) with horizontally emphasised buildings of blank or inactive facades must be avoided.