User:Hassocks5489/Crawley Sandbox 2

Lead for economy
Crawley, a postwar New Town with borough status in West Sussex, England, has a distinctive economic profile influenced by factors ranging from its ancient status as a market town to the proximity of a major international airport. Before its rapid 20th-century growth, the town supported a successful small-scale economy based on its market, some agriculture and a High Street with numerous inns and shops, supplemented by bicycle and car workshops and garages catering for passing traffic on the important London–Brighton road. After its designation as a New Town in 1947, it became a major industrial and commercial centre and later a regional shopping destination. The 1950s brought rapid development of factories on a purpose-built industrial estate; offices and large shops came to the town in the 1960s; and from the 1970s the increasingly dominant role of Gatwick Airport brought about more changes.

The Crawley Development Corporation, which planned and laid out Crawley New Town from the late 1940s, had several aims for the town's economy. Enough jobs were to be created to ensure that most new residents could work locally rather than commuting elsewhere. A wide mix of industries was to be pursued rather than allowing one to dominate. London-based firms were encouraged to move to the new industrial estate—intended to be a spacious modern alternative to cramped, war-damaged buildings in the city. The policy was very successful, despite occasional industrial unrest: firms such as A.P.V., W.C. Youngman, Vitamins Ltd and Edwards, each with hundreds of workers, relocated, the industrial estate thrived, and by 1965 there were 20 jobs to every unemployed resident. From the late 1960s, though, the reopened and extended Gatwick Airport generated many jobs and attracted more and more workers: unskilled labour was particularly in demand. Demand from airport-related service companies for land-intensive warehouses and distribution centres changed the industrial estate, as its factories and engineering works gave way to warehouses, logistics and distribution firms. The village of Lowfield Heath was also replaced by light industrial buildings during this period.

Lead for housing
The housing stock of Crawley, a town and local government district with borough status in West Sussex, England, has been influenced by a wide range of factors and shows significant differences from the housing profiles of England as a whole, the South East England region and similar-sized towns. The town is divided into 13 residential neighbourhoods which themselves show large variations in housing type, tenure and design. Most residential buildings in the town date from the 1950s and 1960s, after Crawley was selected as the site of a New Town by the Labour government; the speed of development has given much of the town "a relatively monotonous character", but factors ranging from the town's geology to changing demand patterns have influenced the planners' choices and given some parts of the town distinctive features.

Crawley grew slowly as a market town for seven centuries until the opening of a railway link to London in the mid-19th century caused a flurry of development south of the town centre. Suburban sprawl and ribbon development in the interwar period began to blur the distinction between the town and its outlying villages, and local councils raised concerns. Crawley was then brought to national attention in the 1940s by its designation as England's second New Town—conceived as a carefully planned self-contained urban area where Londoners affected by slum conditions could live and work in a high-quality semi-rural environment. The expansion of Crawley's population from 6,000 to at least 40,000 (a total which was regularly revised upwards) was achieved by designing and building residential neighbourhoods with a wide variety of housing: the intention was to create a series of mixed communities inhabited by people of all incomes and ages. Despite the rapid growth, demand was so high that housing shortages occurred; meanwhile, residents staged a long-running rent strike in the 1950s, and Sussex-born people's inability to rent houses intended for displaced Londoners caused resentment.

Although much of Crawley's housing is 20th-century, many older buildings remain—especially in former villages which are now part of the borough, such as Ifield and Tinsley Green—and several dozen residential buildings have been awarded listed status. A group of almshouses also survive in the town centre. Caravan sites also exist, and the need to create sites for travellers is a cause of ongoing debate.

As of the 2001 United Kingdom Census, approximately 99,000 residents were accommodated in about 40,000 dwellings in the Crawley borough area. A fourteenth residential neighbourhood is being planned, and infill development on brownfield sites continues throughout the town.


 * Needs sections on housing type, housing tenure, travellers' sites, history (pre-New Town era housing: farmhouses, Victorian villas, "New Town" around Brighton Road, stuff in West Green, interwar stuff up the London Road and in Pound Hill; New Town era to the present day) (eras are mentioned at p4 here: historic pre-Victorian devt in Ifield and Worth; pre-New Town expansion (Victorian era to 1930s); New Town Phase 1a (first 5 years after masterplan: LG, IF, TB, NG, SG); New Town Phase 1b (mid-1950s to early 1960s: TB, GG, FG, PH); New Town Phase 2 (expansion to PH/FG/SG in 1960s/early 1970s, plus building of BB and BF); New Town Phase 3 (MB plus infill devt elsewhere in 1980s/1990s).
 * This has stuff about communal establishments (hostels, care homes, hotels etc)
 * Household composition
 * Lowest floor
 * Number of people in household
 * Number of rooms
 * Housing tenure

"Crawley has a reputation for good housing standards and a pleasant living environment".

Ref for Harris EUS...

"The rapid growth of the town following the New Town designation and the dominant two storey housing typology presents a relatively monotonous character in many of the New Town neighbourhoods. Later neighbourhoods including Maidenbower are based on a maze of cul-de-sacs with poor pedestrian connectivity to the centre of Crawley.  [...] Bewbush and Broadfield [...] suffer from poorly thought through residential and commercial layouts."

p20 of the Baseline Character Assessment is very useful!!!!

Local Development Framework Core Strategy (October 2008)

Of top importance (linx)

 * CRAWLEY E.U.S.!
 * CRAWLEY BASELINE CHARACTER ASSESSMENT!
 * Town Centre North stuff (including mention of Woodall-Duckham House)
 * Local Plan Urban Capacity Study Update (October 2012)

Generic bit for leads
xxx is one of the 13 residential neighbourhoods in Crawley, a town and borough in West Sussex, England. Crawley was planned and laid out as a New Town after the Second World War, based on the principle of self-contained neighbourhoods surrounding a town centre of civic and commercial buildings.

Bewbush

 * Bewbush Resident Survey 2008
 * Bewbush page
 * 3,173 households and 9,081 residents
 * Regeneration project

Broadfield

 * Broadfield Resident Survey 2008
 * Broadfield page
 * 4,824 households and 12,666 residents

Furnace Green

 * Furnace Green Resident Survey 2008
 * Furnace Green page
 * 2,403 households and 5,734 residents

Gossops Green

 * Gossops Green Resident Survey 2008
 * Gossops Green page
 * 2,093 households and 5,014 residents

Ifield

 * Ifield Resident Survey 2008
 * Ifield page
 * Regeneration plans (map)
 * 3,452 households and 8,414 residents

Langley Green

 * Langley Green Resident Survey 2008
 * Langley Green page
 * Parade regeneration
 * 2,879 households and 7,286 residents

Maidenbower

 * Maidenbower Resident Survey 2008
 * Maidenbower page
 * 3,355 households and 8,070 residents

Northgate

 * Northgate Resident Survey 2008
 * Northgate page
 * 1,958 households and 4,407 residents

Pound Hill

 * Pound Hill Resident Survey 2008
 * Pound Hill page
 * 2,714 households and 14,716 residents

Southgate

 * Southgate Resident Survey 2008
 * Southgate page
 * 3,422 households and 8,106 residents

Three Bridges

 * Three Bridges Resident Survey 2008
 * Three Bridges page
 * 2,311 households and 5,648 residents

Tilgate

 * Tilgate Resident Survey 2008
 * Tilgate page

West Green

 * West Green Resident Survey 2008
 * West Green page
 * 2,005 households and 4,400 residents

West Green is one of the 13 residential neighbourhoods in Crawley, a town and borough in West Sussex, England. Crawley was planned and laid out as a New Town after the Second World War, based on the principle of self-contained neighbourhoods surrounding a town centre of civic and commercial buildings. West Green was the first neighbourhood to be developed, and is one of the smallest and closest to the town centre.

West Green is a roughly triangular area of 123 ha, bounded by the Arun Valley railway line to the south, the A23 (Crawley Avenue) to the west and north, and the High Street to the east. The latter formed part of the main London to Brighton road until it was bypassed in the 1930s.

The neighbourhood is coterminous with the administrative ward of the same name, which is one of the fifteen wards in Crawley. These divisions are used for collecting census and other statistical and demographic data. It had a population of 4,404 at the 2001 United Kingdom Census. Its population density was therefore 35.82 PD/ha—much higher than the figure of 22.18 PD/ha for Crawley overall. There were 2,005 households, of which 1,125 (56%) were owned by the occupier, 668 (33%) were rented from Crawley Borough Council or other public-sector landlord, 143 (7%) were rented privately and 69 (3%) were occupied rent-free. The rate of owner-occupancy is much lower than in Crawley as whole, and a much higher proportion of housing is rented from the council.