I remember an interminable meeting in the mid 1990s arguing with the city engineers in Manchester over the wording of the Hulme Guide to Development. They were deeply unhappy about our draft guidance which stated, among other things, that “all streets should end in other streets”, “all buildings should face on to streets” and “all streets should meet at crossroads”.

None of this was acceptable in their view. Indeed it was downright irresponsible. However, having been worn down by our eloquent arguments and more pertinently by the backing we had from the council leadership, the engineers said, “Well OK: we don’t agree, but provided these rules only apply to Hulme and are treated as an experiment then I suppose…”*

We had similarly fraught discussions with planning officers, the police architectural liaison people and the local housing associations. Urban design was politically fraught at a time when the predominant development model, even in inner city Hulme, was the semi-detached house and the cul-de-sac.

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