This study explores the potential for British housing developers to use virtual reality (VR) for the design and evaluation of housing developments. Four research questions were formulated after a review of relevant literature on house-building, VR technology and industrial innovation. These cover the context, technical problems and implementation issues related to VR use in the house-building industry. To address these questions the following tasks were undertaken: firstly a survey of the top 100 British housing developers' use of computer-aided design (CAD) and visualisation software and their attitudes to VR; secondly practical trials of PC-based VR systems for the modelling of housing developments; thirdly a case study of VR implementation in a British house-building company; and fourthly a multiple case study of VR use in Japanese house-building companies. The overall research problem is addressed by recourse to the findings of the different research methods. The use of IT and the house-building organisation, similarities and differences between CAD and VR implementation, and comparison between Japanese and British house-builders VR use are discussed. VR in house-building practice and policy is then considered. A number of general conclusions are drawn from this study. First, that PC-based VR is of use to British housing developers for explaining design intent to non-designers, both within and outside to the organisation. Second, that housing developers' use of virtual reality at the early design stages is hampered by the current state of the technology. Third, that organisational transformation is required for housing developers to implement and obtain maximum benefit from virtual reality. Finally future scenarios are explored to provide the house-building industry and policy makers with information on which to base decisions about how to invest or promote investment in virtual reality.

This research considers the regeneration of peripheral estates within the context of shifts and trends in government policy, and suggests that three principal approaches to policy development, the delivery of services and to urban governance can be identified. These approaches are - the Welfare Approach of the post-war period, the Entrepreneurial or Privatism Approach of the later 1970s and 1980s, and the Community Based or Communitarian Approach, which although a theme in practice and thought, has not been developed on a systematic basis. The principal method of investigation is a case study of Sunderland, which follows a literature review. Sunderland is a city in the North of England with a population of just under 300,000 and is typical in having had a local economy dependent on a cluster of traditional industries and in having built a large number of peripheral estates. The case study consists of three estate based investigations using a series of interviews with field work professionals, community activists and residents supported by the reading of appropriate documents. The estate based studies are embedded into a city wide framework established by reading policy documents and by a series of interviews with decision makers. The case study enabled a specific focus to be placed on peripheral estates and enabled the problems on the estates to the linked with policy responses at the regional, local authority wide and local scales. The literature review and the case study were reinforced by visits to current regeneration projects. The evidence from these sources is used to establish a framework for regeneration which it is suggested should include all estates where there is evidence of widespread multiple deprivation and social exclusion rather than only the "worst" or "stigmatised" estates as at present. Mainstream service provision should be supplemented by community based projects which should be planned and delivered by community regeneration organisations and estate based partnerships. Projects should form part of a holistic small area approach to regeneration.

RIA methodology has evolved over the last 30 years and has moved through several stages. At the same time there have been new directions in planning theory which have in turn influenced planning policy. Shifts have taken place in government policy towards retail development with changes in attitudes towards new forms of retailing, particularly in out-of-centre locations. A key issue in retail planning is whether major shopping developments have an unacceptable impact on existing town centres. In the mid 1990s this question has achieved high political profile and has become more significant because of growing public concern about the cycle of decline perceived in many town and city centres. Approaches to assessing retail impact have changed considerably over recent decades because of technical advances in planners' understanding of the retail system and through learning from past experience on the effects of new retail developments. But at the same time there has been a realisation that assessing the impact of a new shopping development is not simple; it is concerned with outcomes which cannot easily be predicted or quantified. Human behaviour and the retail system are too complex for retail impact assessment to be treated as a mechanistic exercise.

Land is a natural resource. The way it is used is important for us all. Decisions over its use impact on all aspects of society, locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. Moreover these impacts affect future as well as present generations. Those holding power over land-use decisions, those able to direct and control its use, those able to convert its nature by changing it from one use to another and those who develop or withhold it from development, exert great influence over society. They carry heavy responsibility for shaping places, for influencing economic activity, for the quality of life and for caring for our environment at every scale and across every dimension. In so doing they should exercise a duty of care, consideration and competence to the rest of creation. Addressing one small aspect of this task, for centuries governments have been concerned to balance a variety of interests in land and to ensure that land-use decisions were equitable between these. More particularly, since around the middle of the last century a range of instruments to 'plan' land-use and to direct its development equitably have been devised and implemented. Specifically, in what may have been varying notions of 'the public interest', they have attempted to constrain presumptions of unrestricted land-use conveyed by constitutionally held rights to land ownership, however limited. Embodying liberal-democratic principles, the regulations which emerged provided for certainty in land and related rights to be protected by local plans. On the continent these were often given legal status along with other codified 'rules' but, from roughly the middle of this century, the United Kingdom departed from this model. Architect and Engineer planners were joined by lawyers, economists, geographers, sociologists, demographers and the like in creating a new, distinctive, 'planning' profession. Rather than planning for 'conformance', they now planned for 'performance'. What mattered was not the plan, per se, but development outputs and how they impacted on society. 'Equity' became a matter not for pre-determined certainty, but for the exercise of professional judgement and discretion through the control of development on a case by case basis. Such changes did not seem to occur in the mainland European countries considered here and, with the advent of the European Union, UK land and property development professionals increasingly looked to the continent for ideas and inspiration. Many admired, even longed for, the well ordered, clearly planned, certainty which they thought they saw there. But, how certain was this planning and, if it did exist, to what extent were mainland systems able to deliver 'equity' in their outputs? Testing the hypothesis that Continental planning and development control is influenced more by politics and markets than formal 'rules', this thesis considers the proposition that decisions to permit major private developments in continental countries are neither transparent nor equitable. To do so it reviews the theory of both planning and development processes as the background for a series of 21 case study investigations of mainland application and permit decision practices. These are compared with 11 English cases, obtained from a pilot study used to test and improve the research method and objectives. Summarising each case study to illustrate discussion of the research findings, these are sieved through 4 stages of analysis as in-depth detail is converted to knowledge. With field assumptions being verified by the testimony of expert witnesses, cross case and cross country comparisons are used to validate findings. These are then consolidated to enable further analysis and theorisation to address various of the needs for an improved understanding of mainland practices and other questions raised in the Introduction. The thesis concludes that European Development Control practices are converging, but at the expense of the due process and protections theoretically embodied within regulatory systems. Seized upon by contemporary politicians to further the aims of economic competition, it suggests that these 'rules' are now managed with an inherent disregard for the principles of due process. This obfuscates both practices and intent, overrides concerns for justice, faimess and impartiality at the level of local, historic interests in place, and threatens wider problems for society. Relating these conclusions to the current literature, emergent theory is compared with the research results and several potential areas for further research identified which might help clarify planning philosophy, principles, professionalism and practices for service in the 21" Century.

This thesis concerns the noise nuisance that results from the operation of urban railways and reports on a case-study of the impact of the Tyneside Metro on residents living in close proximity to the railway tracks. The study was based upon parallel related surveys in the vicinity of Wallsend and Walkergate, during the period August to November 1983: one, a subjective questionnaire survey of perceived noise-nuisance and the other, an objective set of measurements of the actual noise conditions prevailing there. A review of the methods of current practice in the control or urban railway noise demonstrates that regular maintenance of the rails and train wheels is still the most effective way of keeping noise under control at source. Nevertheless, with high speeds of operation, considerable noise nuisance is likely to be experienced by residents nearby. The Metro is the biggest source of noise and noise-nuisance for people exposed to noise levels of over 60 18H Leq dB(A), although the noise annoyance model constructed from the data showed that half of the annoyance felt by respondents could not be explained. Other factors which affect annoyance include vibration, perception of other transport noises, the subjects' ages and whether or not they own the property they occupy. Metro is generally perceived to be quieter and to cause less vibration than the diesel trains (DMUs) which preceded it. The equivalent continuous noise level (Leq) appears to be the most practical of all the various noise indexes for measuring railway noise annoyance. Finally, informal conversation with respondents in the course of a social survey can provide valuable insight into the mental and psychological processes of perception.

In this thesis it is suggested that the cost-effectiveness of road safety expenditure on low cost engineering remedial works could be improved because the currently adopted methods for assessing expenditure priorities do not necessarily identify thosa sites at which the greatest potential for accident reduction exists. An alternative method for the generation of more cost-effective programmes of works is proposed and justified. This method adopts the rationale of identifying those sites at which accidents are occurring in higher numbers than would otherwise be expected for such sites with equivalent traffic volumes and locations. The justification for the method involves detailed statistical analyses of over 10,000 accidents occurring in Lothian Region for the years 1979-1982 which demonstrate that there are significant relationships between accidents and traffic volumes and location details (eg junction type, form of junction control, adjacent roadside development and carriageway type). On this basis, models for accident occurrence have been determined. The analyses show that the temporal distribution conforms with a Poisson process and that the spatial distribution is negative binomial. It is shown - for both links and junctions - that whilst there are significant differences between the models for different accident types, they do not, in aggregate, produce significantly better models for all accidents than simple all accident models. In addition, the importance of regression-to-mean has been established as an effect which should be accounted for not just at the monitoring stage of completed schemes but as an integral part of the initial site selection process. Finally, it is demonstrated that the proposed method, which is called Potential Accident Reduction (PAR), may provide an improvernent of cost-effectiveness of road safety expenditure of up to 25% over the currently adopted methods.

It has often been recognised that planning and design can play an important role in the achievement of sustainable development of cities. However, problems still exist with regards to both a clear understanding of sustainability in the built environment and a means of evaluating it within the context of urban planning and design. This thesis has compared different evaluation methods in urban planning, both ex ante approaches and monitoring, and their philosophical paradigms. Some significant limitations are identified and discussed in the context of sustainability, such as the reductionism within many of the approaches and the lack of holism in the evaluation. The identified deficiencies provide the motivation for the development of a new framework which is able to integrate the different dimensions of sustainability in the built environment. This is based on the Cosmonomic theory of Dooyeweerd which has proved to be more appropriate than other philosophical paradigms in achieving this task. The theory is applied to the built environment for understanding sustainability and developing a framework in planning evaluation. The framework helps decision makers to critically identifSr the sustainability aspects involved in a (re)development planning project, guiding them in the evaluation on the basis of a number of problem solving methods. Some existing case studies are adopted to show the benefits of the framework in the context of regeneration programmes for cities, management policies for cultural heritage and environmental services. The resulting framework provides a significant step forward in understanding and evaluating the built environment in the context of a sustainable urban development. It also has the potential to allow evaluation of the concept of sustainability over time.

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Modal shift from road to rail for freight movements is a potential means by which the negative environmental and social impacts of such transport can be reduced. As such it features strongly in contemporary transport policies in Great Britain. This thesis examines the interactions between logistical structure and freight modal choice, to determine the extent to which rail's mode share is likely to be increased. The research assesses the influence of recent logistical changes both within companies and along supply chains on mode choice and identifies the likelihood of future changes resulting in greater rail usage. A combined approach involving a postal questionnaire survey and in-depth company interviews was adopted. Further, to consider the interactions between the supply of rail freight services and their level of uptake, original databases of rail freight services at the disaggregated level have been constructed and analysed for the years 1991, 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2000. The research thus provides a greater understanding of the importance of modal choice in individual firms' logistical decision-making processes, as well as through supply chains from source to customer. Key logistical issues that have affected, and are likely to affect, mode choice are identified and utilised to assess the potential for rail. Significant potential for modal shift is found to exist though many obstacles are also identified for many types of movement, relating to both supply- and demand-side factors. The importance of a coherent transport policy to deal with these obstacles to allow rail freight to meet its potential is highlighted.