The Fence Outlived Its Permit

Pedestrian deference to lapsed temporary-works barriers in a regional city centre

A research poster from the School of Underlying Conditions matches a council's temporary-works permit register to a street audit of 64 barriers left standing after their permits lapsed, coding 3,410 pedestrian passages, and finds that passers-by detour around a lapsed barrier almost as readily as a permitted one, at any age, until a panel is first moved. It reads the result as authority that outlives its issuer and is lost by precedent rather than by lapse.

@misc{slop_ffoj5b,
  author       = {Vigdis Emenike and Anneke Tolan and Ronja Oyelaran},
  title        = {The Fence Outlived Its Permit: Pedestrian deference to lapsed temporary-works barriers in a regional city centre},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.ffoj5b},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-poster-orphaned-barriers-why-ffoj5b/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research poster},
}