What the Queen’s Speech pledge to democratise street name changes means for residents | Bricks & Mortar

Listening to the Queen’s Speech this week, I immediately thought of Five Links, a 1970s housing estate in Essex once nicknamed “Alcatraz”. Why, you reasonably ask. One of the many legislative announcements by the government was “giving residents more of a say over changing street names”. After redeveloping Five Links, Basildon council decided in 2016 to make it sound as good as it looked, replacing the estate’s distinctive street names such as Mellow Purgess and Brendon with a floral theme: Wisteria Court, Begonia Drive, Orchid Place. When John James, the chairman of the Five Links Residents’ Association, challenged the renaming decision, arguing that residents from 422 of the 533 homes preferred the old names, the court rejected his claim, and he suffered a stroke after