Street gets colourful makeover
CREATIVE residents have transformed a road junction with vibrant traffic calming markings.
Residents and children from All Saints School painted the colourful stripes and installed planters on Belmont Street to alert car drivers to slow down or stop to enable people to cross the road.
Their work is part of a community street design project by the charity Sustrans and is based on a concept first developed on the streets of New York.
Designers work with local people to create simple interventions, such as pop-up outdoor cafes, plants and temporary art installations to calm roads and encourage people to reclaim streets as public spaces.
The painting and planting are the latest in a series of temporary design activities in Heaton Norris to help revive neglected or unsafe spaces in the area.
Past activities have included art slogans on the streets to discourage dog fouling, a festival of lights in a subway, planting vegetables, bicycle lessons and rides, and children’s outdoor play.
Sustrans community street designer Julieta Duran said: “Residents chose the colourful orange design because it makes people notice that this is an area where families live and it encourages drivers to slow down and be alert to people crossing this wide junction.
“Creative design helps to remind us that the streets are places for people as well as cars.”