Benchmarked
Benches are a part of street furniture which are often overlooked. They can be a signal of belonging or one of social exclusion. I have been taking a look at the benches in my home town.
Benches are one of the smallest pieces of social infrastructure but can play vital roles in towns and neighbourhoods. Their number, design and placement provide important messages about a town’s understanding of community and civic participation. A well‑placed bench enables the brief encounters, the nod to a neighbour, the chat with a dog‑walker, the shared comment about the weather. These informal connections accumulate into something larger: a sense of familiarity, trust, and civic ease. Benches allow people to be present in public without needing to buy anything or do anything except sit. In an era where truly public space is increasingly threatened by private interests, the humble bench remains one of the last non‑transactional invitations to linger.
But do they live up to these claims? I’ve been doing a bit of observational work into the usage of the benches in and close to the town centre where I live.
The town’s benches
The town where I stay has a long history stretching back some 900 years and is a service centre for the county in which it sits to the east of Edinburgh. Its rich heritage is very visible as one moves around the town. It has a compact town centre and plenty of accessible green space in and around the town. The majority of the town’s benches are located in its central green spaces, parks and historic sites. Many are located along the river walk, close to the main church, and in the popular parks and play spaces. This seating provides a place to rest, a place to sit and appreciate the natural environment and local heritage, a place to seek peace, or a place to meet with others. Picnic benches by the river and in the playparks provide opportunities for outdoor eating and socialising whilst keeping an eye on children at play.
The town’s central streets have benches located close to bus stops, and at the civic heart of the town by the Town House, a civic area by the Corn Exchange and in a couple of other shady spots, some 11 ‘public’ benches in all. Several are placed between flower beds with an attractive range of flowering plants and bushes. As in many other town centres, public benches are increasingly outnumbered as cafés and restaurants expand their outdoor seating. To use these you have to buy something, even though much of this seating is located in the public realm.
Most of the central benches are of a rather austere functional design, formed using metal slats. There is one more futuristic sculptured seating area in a pedestrianized space close to a play centre. The bus shelters originally had integral seating in them, but some has been removed after being vandalized. Here is a selection of the town’s benches.
An invitation to linger?
The benches in the town seem a bit of a motley collection. The standard metal design (top left) is the most common in many parts of the town: easily maintained and hard to vandalize but not very comfortable to sit on. The picnic tables (lower left) are solid and functional but often show the debris left by previous visitors. The brown seats (top centre) are an impossible shape to sit on comfortably although kids seem to find a way to contort themselves over it, whilst the river walk boasts some interesting designs (top right) but many of these have seen better days.
Commemorative benches, that is benches which carry a small plaque in memory of people, events or organisations, are located in many spots around the town (see lower right above for example). They are a popular way of providing an amenity for the community whilst maintaining a connection to people and local stories. In the face of rising demand, the Council has now introduced a policy for the placement and design of such seats..
My observations over the last few weeks would suggest either townsfolk here are too busy to linger, or the benches are not much of an attraction to do so. Most of the benches in the town centre are empty most of the time. The most frequently used, not surprisingly, is the one by the bus stop. Another is used most days as a lunch spot for staff in of a local business, and others occasionally as a place to sit for a coffee or sandwich. Some are used by touring cyclists for a break and to re-fuel.. I have seen few people just having a sit to watch the world go by, enjoy the sun, or as a place to read a book or check their phone.. Most such sitters were on their own.
The picnic tables by the river and the playpark are busier with both adults and groups of young people. However some of these facilities have had a troubled history. A few months ago the Council removed the seating from beside a play area because repeated vandalism had damaged them beyond repair. However new benches have now been put in place and are in use.
Memorial gardens or local heritage sites are places one might expect people and visitors to linger and reflect. But not so very often it seems.
Benches and place
Architects and place planners frequently write about the importance of benches within streets and for the community. Benches offer an insight into how people experience place. They shape how long people stay, who feels welcome, how social life unfolds, and even how equitable a place feels.
Benches may be one of the smallest features of a place but they can also be a powerful form of social infrastructure. They can create conditions for brief encounters, cross-generational mixing and community visibility. A well-placed bench can become a micro-hub for all kinds of social interaction that can help build stronger communities. More fundamentally, in a public realm characterized by movement as busy people go about their business or recreation, the basic role of the bench is to allow people to stop for rest, observation, micro-participation, or simply waiting or just being.
For many, benches are not amenities but are enabling infrastructure. For older people, disabled people, parents with small children, or anyone with limited mobility or managing fatigue, benches extend the distance people can comfortably reach and enjoy expanded access to community facilities.. They make walking viable. Without benches walkability is undermined. Benches promote accessibility and social inclusion.
Benches, of course, are not neutral. Where they are placed, or not placed, can reveal a town’s priorities. In some areas they are plentiful. In others they are scarce or broken. They may have been removed or never installed for fear of attracting antisocial behaviour. Benches may be designed in such a way to discourage some kinds of activity, justified as anti-vandalism or anti-loitering, and as such become instruments of social exclusion. Benches create sociability, but sociability is not always welcome in some neighbourhoods, creating a tension which needs to be managed.
Benches can be markers of investment or neglect. Broken or graffitied benches in neighbourhoods already struggling with limited resources compound feelings of marginalisation. On the other hand, a town that invests in benches, locates them well and keeps them well maintained signals an appreciation and respect for people and enriching community living.
Benches as an indicator of the quality of communities
I would suggest that if if you want to know how a place regards itself, look at its benches. The number, location, design and maintenance of its benches are good indicators of the quality of life signaled by a place. Ask
Are they plentiful or scarce?
Are they comfortable or defensive?
Are they placed for people or facing traffic?
Are surroundings attractive and safe?
Do they promote social mixing?
Do they encourage easy access to other community resources?
Do they all appreciation of the natural environment and/or local heritage?
Are they maintained or left to decay?
Are they in every neighbourhood or only some?
These are not just questions of design. They suggest civic values. They shape who gets to rest, who gets to linger, who feels welcome, and who is quietly pushed along. A street or a walk without benches is a street that tells you to keep moving. A street with benches invites you to ‘feel’ the place and to belong.
Benchmarking benches
The bullet points above are suggestive of a benchmarking tool for assessing the provision of benches in a local area and the implications for community belonging. I have more to do before I can provide a valid analysis of my home town benches. As I have been walking around the town in recent weeks I am surprised how little the benches are used even when they are well placed and in good condition. The weather has been mixed, but I have seen little evidence of casual interaction on or around the benches even on the better days. Does the modern lifestyle make it hard to pause. Are people too busy to sit? Or does social interaction take place elsewhere? A benchmarking score in my town would be high on some of the above indicators, mainly those to do with placement and condition, but not so good on those concerned social interaction and with strengthening community. Promising, but could do better is a likely conclusion.
As we think about the future of our streets in the light of evolving social changes such as ageing populations, climate adaptation, the need for sociable public life, benches will matter more, not less. They are small, but they are not trivial. They are where the character of place becomes visible. A town that gets benches right is likely getting other things right too.