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Location: Allcourt Meadow, Lechlade, Gloucestershire, Lechlade, Gloucestershire GL7 3FB
Built: 2001
Designer: Beechcroft Developments (developer) / Barton Willmore (architect)
Type: suburban
Density: 36 homes per hectare
Parking ratio: 155%
Championed by the Home Office for being safe and lauded for its landscaping, this scheme has finely detailed rear courts and a frontage onto meadow. However, with no "street", it is housing turned back to front and would be less successful if applied on a larger scale.
Allcourt Meadow is a development of 20 dwellings for residents over 55 years of age only; a wide verge lined road with a gatehouse office leads to the centre of the scheme. Conceived as a reflection of traditional Cotswold architecture, it is constructed of rough faced stone, with either timber external lintels or stone dressings around window and some door openings. Roofs are finished in a textured slate, and there is significant attention paid both to soft landscaping, and the provision of low dry stone walls.
These line a number of footpaths that give some permeability to the plan, and assist access to the garage courts. The conscious separation of residents and their vehicles makes the off plot garage court an effective solution for achieving this. Although there are integral garages to the two detached ‘farmhouse’ types, the court accommodates both residents’ and visitors’ parking. At Beechcroft’s development in nearby Fairford, double yellow lines dominate (middle picture page 15), suggesting that parking to the front of the house was blocking the carriageway. Allcourt Meadow has no obviously similar parking prohibitions, but with the majority of front doors positioned away from the road it means that residents access the garage courts through their back gardens. Finishes are generally consolidated gravel to the courts, separated from blacktop roadways by strips of granite setts.
Planting is very well established within the courts and contributed to the scheme’s 2003 Green Leaf Award.
The development features 1.5 or 2 storey flats, cottages, and a farmhouse, predominantly arranged as terraces and detached houses.
Plan showing the overall form of the development and the location of case study within the wider scheme.
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Fronts of properties look over a meadow rather than a street.
Proceed with Caution! - Potential practical difficulties may arise in physical separation of visitor parking (and access for the disabled) from houses. Access from court to rear of properties may render front doors redundant.
Green Light! - Low walls to rear of gardens encourages surveillance of court. Court arrangement allows very positive frontage to meadow. Good quality materials, detailing and lighting encourage sense of ownership to court. Unmarked visitor bays acts as unallocated overflow parking.
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Plan showing arrangement of off-plot, rear-court parking provision within the scheme.
Proceed with Caution! - Potential practical difficulties may arise in physical separation of visitor parking (and access for the disabled) from houses. Access from court to rear of properties may render front doors redundant.
Green Light! - Low walls to rear of gardens encourages surveillance of court. Court arrangement allows very positive frontage to meadow. Good quality materials, detailing and lighting encourage sense of ownership to court. Unmarked visitor bays acts as unallocated overflow parking.
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All parking is in rear courts: garages for residents sit opposite visitor spaces.
Proceed with Caution! - Potential practical difficulties may arise in physical separation of visitor parking (and access for the disabled) from houses. Access from court to rear of properties may render front doors redundant.
Green Light! - Low walls to rear of gardens encourages surveillance of court. Court arrangement allows very positive frontage to meadow. Good quality materials, detailing and lighting encourage sense of ownership to court. Unmarked visitor bays acts as unallocated overflow parking.
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Wide verge-lined access past gatehouse.
Proceed with Caution! - Potential practical difficulties may arise in physical separation of visitor parking (and access for the disabled) from houses. Access from court to rear of properties may render front doors redundant.
Green Light! - Low walls to rear of gardens encourages surveillance of court. Court arrangement allows very positive frontage to meadow. Good quality materials, detailing and lighting encourage sense of ownership to court. Unmarked visitor bays acts as unallocated overflow parking.
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A meadow separates the frontage of the development from the main Lechlade through road.
Proceed with Caution! - Potential practical difficulties may arise in physical separation of visitor parking (and access for the disabled) from houses. Access from court to rear of properties may render front doors redundant.
Green Light! - Low walls to rear of gardens encourages surveillance of court. Court arrangement allows very positive frontage to meadow. Good quality materials, detailing and lighting encourage sense of ownership to court. Unmarked visitor bays acts as unallocated overflow parking.
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Quality detailing of access to houses and parking courts.
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Space submitted by Sam Brown
14 October 2013