The scenario:

Students were informed of a recent assessment of Council-owned allotment within Birmingham as part of the Unitary Development Plan review process. This had found that the Wellington Road allotment gardens were falling into disuse and a state of neglect. Despite a campaign to encourage the uptake of vacant allotments, which had been successful elsewhere in the City, very little interest has been expressed in the Wellington Road gardens. The situation is set to deteriorate further as many of the remaining tenants have expressed a wish to give up their plots at Wellington Road and move to another allotment gardens where security is better. The declining state of the gardens has become an important issue for local residents. They are increasingly used as a meeting point for rival gangs, with consequent law and order problems. A recent shooting has proved the final straw and the council, together with local residents, is now actively seeking the redevelopment of the site for alternative purposes.

As part of the City Council's policy for the involvement of residents on matters which affect their areas, residents have been asked to take a leading role in identifying the way in which this site can best be developed to the benefit of the local area. This approach is in line with the recent government initiative for community involvement in the future of their areas. A number of independent organisations and groups have been asked to prepare strategies for the redevelopment of the site. Each group will be invited to a public meeting at which they will be asked to put forward their proposals. At this meeting a vote will be taken to decide which will become the chosen development brief for the site.

Once a development brief has been agreed, the City Council will market the site and, as a condition of sale, the purchaser must obtain outline planning consent for their scheme. The proposed scheme must meet the requirements of both the chosen development brief, national planning policy and local authority planning policy (Unitary Development Plan and Supplementary Planning Guidance). In seeking outline planning consent, the developer must include details relating to the site layout, means of access and indicative landscaping areas. Matters such as design, external appearance of the buildings and the detailed landscaping scheme will be 'reserved' for later approval.

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Stage one

In the first part of the module (3rd year) undergraduate planning students and (2nd year) undergraduate landscape architecture students worked in mixed discipline groups of four or five students.

Having been briefed on the scenario a short lecture/workshop followed which dealt with physical and functional site appraisal techniques. A paper copy of an OS plan (Map 1 scale 1:1250) was supplied to each student with the module document and a base map (Map 2 scale 1:500) to each group. The OS Land Line tiles were downloaded from Digimap as NTF files and converted into drawing files in AutoCAD Map 2000i. After the session students were required to visit the site in their groups (advice on health and safety on site was provided). The visit was not accompanied by staff. They were advised that this visit should also be used to decide the exact boundaries of the area which they wished to include in their brief. For example, areas of poor housing could be included, along with any premises needed to allow better access.

Map 1 Paper copy of the OS Plan. Reproduced from Ordnance Survey map 'National Grid Series 1:1250' © Crown Copyright NC/emap/24419

Map 2 Base Map, EDINA Digimap/JISC supplied service © Crown Copyright Ordnance Survey NC/emap/24419

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Each group was also required to research the social characteristics of the area, together with an identification of any relevant land-use planning policies which may impact on the future form and type of development proposed.

A one hour workshop on Digimap skills and the opportunities it provided was followed by a 3-4 hour introduction to GIS. This was undertaken over a period of approximately 2 weeks. Tutorial support was also available on request and the completion of the task relied upon student centred learning.

Digimap and GIS skills were then applied by students to produce the visual spatial data required, for example to identify a boundary to the area which would be included within their group brief. They could identify and map characteristics of the surrounding area, for example house conditions, areas of open space, public transport links etc. This in turn allowed them to explore the nature and form of the spatial data available. The findings from these investigations were mapped onto the base map. Each group was given a folder on the server to store their drawings. Students were shown how to develop hyperlinks to connect visual (photographic) information and socio-economic data to particular parts of their site and surrounding areas.

Photograph 1 Group Work

The groups were assessed on the basis of an oral and visual presentation, and submission of the full written development brief with accompanying illustrations and plans. This presentation was required to address the following:

• Physical and functional appraisal of the site and its surrounding area.
  
• Key issues within the local area which might influence the type of development on the site.
• The various constraints on development and opportunities for redevelopment which emerge from their evaluation.
• Various options/responses to these challenges.
• Propose a recommended solution.

Presentations were limited to 10 minutes each, and involved every group member in some way. Electronic communication, using projected images of the mapping data alongside PowerPoint, was encouraged.

Photograph 2 Group Presentation

After the presentations, students were asked to vote for the brief they would most like to work to as a developer (which could not be their own). The chosen brief (Map 3) was a clear winner - interestingly it was not the one which had scored the highest mark, but the one which the students felt offered the greatest opportunity to design a response to meet the challenges set - an interesting lesson and something which they were asked to reflect upon.

Map 3 Preferred Development Brief, EDINA Digimap/JISC supplied service
© Crown Copyright Ordnance Survey NC/emap/24419

Each development brief included both a written element and an accompanying map with hyperlinks to other data, photographs etc.

Presentations were generally of a high standard with students making good use of the electronic mapping data and hyperlinks in association with PowerPoint and oral delivery techniques. The presentation carried 25% of the total marks and the written brief a further 25%.

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Stage two

In the second stage of the project the Town Planning students and the Landscape Architecture students worked separately. This case study is only concerned with stage two of the Town Planning students.

The selected brief was made available to the Town Planning students. Working as individuals their task was to work up an outline planning application for the site. As far as possible, the scheme should seek to address the requirements of the development brief, Unitary Development Plan and Supplementary Planning Guidance issued by the City Council (copies of key documents were made available in the Module 'box' which was located in the Faculty Resources Centre).

As part of the one-hour briefing session for stage two, students were shown an example of a plan which included siting and access details - as they were required to do. This demonstrated the level of detail to which they were expected to work - i.e. the plan must be drawn to scale, parking spaces marked, roads and pavements accurately located. The 'footprint' of a building would be sufficient, as external appearance and design were not required - but if they had ideas, they could use other sources of information to 'illustrate' how the buildings might appear. The example plan used related to an area of land adjoining the University, known to all the students. It was also accompanied by a 'supporting statement'. The role and purpose of the supporting statement in practice today was outlined.

A short workshop was held, aimed at allowing students to assess (anonymised) examples of a range of work submitted by students undertaking the module in previous years. (It should be noted that although computer aided design packages had not been available for use at stage two, one student had personal access and previous experience of the use of computer aided design and had made a particularly good submission using this experience.) This workshop was very effective in raising awareness of the capabilities of computer aided design techniques and the requirements of the module.

Students were given the option of continuing with the project using computer aided design techniques or the traditional hand drawings. Students using AutoCAD Map 2000i were allocated password protected folders on the server for the storage of their designs. Weekly sessions on computer aided design techniques for those wishing to develop their skills in this area were made available. These ran in tandem with tutorials on drawing plans to scale by hand. It was made clear that there would be no discrimination in terms of the assessment between those who had made use of computer aided design and those who had hand drawn their layout. Those who chose to use hand-drawn methods made use of the computer mapping skills learnt in stage one to produce a 'clean map' on which to base their drawings. Location plans, required as part of the outline application process, could also be obtained through Digimap for the submission.

Students were required to:

• Submit an outline planning application, together with a note of the appropriate fee, using the relevant planning application forms (which can be obtained from Birmingham City Council Planning Department either on paper or down loaded from their web site) (5% of the final module mark).
  
• Include with the application details relating to site layout and means of access and indicative areas for landscaping. Plans MUST be drawn to scale and the access, parking and other layout details must be capable of accurate evaluation in terms of the standards found in planning policy guidance. You may also include, for illustrative purposes only, indicative sketches of various aspects of the development. (30% of the final module mark).
• Prepare a 'supporting statement' to accompany the outline application. The supporting statement must cover details relating to the philosophy of the approach to the scheme and the extent to which it addresses the issues required by the development brief and supplementary planning guidance. Where it has not been possible to address any requirements the approach taken should be justified. (15% of the final module mark) The Supporting Statement should not exceed 1000 words in length.

In total this stage carried 50% of the module mark.

The submissions for stage two were, with two exceptions, vastly surpassed the expectations of tutors. The group showed an enormous enthusiasm for the task, which appeared infectious and resulted in many hours being spent on the computers, or in some cases hand designing a scheme. Additional tutorial support was provided in response to this enthusiasm, which had a positive affect on all involved - staff and students. Professional advice was also made available through Rupert Dugdale (Leasowes Project Manager, Planning and Leisure Department, Dudley MBC) who was able to comment on detailed design matters.

Marks for the final submissions for stage two were deservedly very high, with six students scoring marks between 80% - 90%. A further two scored marks of 76% and 77%. Of these eight, five had made use of computer aided design techniques and the other three were hand drawn schemes. The quality of all the computer based submissions exceeded the best from previous year groups, used as an example in the workshop session. The quality of the hand drawn schemes had similarly shown a dramatic improvement, the students having seen the computer based designs seemed to know that they had to match this quality and achieved a similar professionally drawn standard of layout.

The work was double marked to confirm the results. External professional comment from Rupert Dugdale was invited and this confirmed the quality to be better than that of many professional planning application schemes received by local planning authorities.

Student feedback has indicated that they felt this module had been a real learning opportunity. One student indicated that it has been influential in determining future career direction; another, who had shown the layout to a local planning authority, stated that their response had been one of amazement and congratulation.

Finally, there were two very poor submissions, hand drawn, using biro pen and a ruler, with little thought apparently given to the layout or philosophy. These scored marks between 20% - 30%.