Kentish Express Ashford & District
Is new homes fury down to design?
submit photos of their recent housing developments.
We stressed we were particularly interested in developments that used local materials or designs in some way.
Ten firms replied from which we have picked a few to highlight.
Fernham Homes’ Hillside Park development of 13 homes at Linton, near Maidstone sits in an area used for quarrying ragstone since the Roman times and the company has designed the houses with a mix of ragstone, brick and render work.
Clarendon Homes’ three developments at Weavers Park in Headcorn, Churchfields in Harrietsham and Woodside Court in Maidstone each provide more than just a nod to traditional materials or character of the area.
Redrow is in the process of building 140 apartments on the former industrial site of the Whatman paper mill in Maidstone and is retaining the mill’s Grade II-listed chimney and its Rag Room, which was a condition of its gaining planning permission.
Bellway has just won permission to build on the 11-acre Eastern Quarry site
at Ebbsfleet to be known as Whitecliffe, with the firm’s land director Dan Merriman promising to ‘reflect the unique architectural character of the local area and draw on its rich farming and industrial heritage’.
“Terraced and semi-detached houses will be built using yellow brick inspired by the Swanscombe workers’ cottages, while the detached houses will be built with red brick in the farmhouse style in a nod to the neighbouring
Alkerden Farm,” he added.
David Wilson Homes’ two recent developments, Perry Court at Brogdale Road in Faversham, and Dickens Gate in Staplehurst have both been built to reflect their orchard or village setting with homes in a ‘local Kentish vernacular’, the firm said.
Hedgers Way in Ashford is the setting for Barratt Homes’ Chilmington Green - Ashford’s first Garden City.
The area will see 5,750 homes built over the next
20 years - plus supporting infrastructure. Barratts says it has designed “striking” town houses, amid a wealth of green space.
The company is also building Aylesham Garden Village, a new development totalling 1,200 homes around the existing village between Canterbury and Dover. Construction is being shared with Persimmon. The development brief promises: “Each home planned has been designed with facades in keeping with the character of the village.”
Clarus Homes’ 24 oneand two-bed apartments in Maidstone Road at Paddock Wood are called The Hop Pocket to reflect the town’s long-standing connections to the hopping industry, though the design is distinctly modern.
Finally, Sunningdale House Developments’ award-winning development of luxury apartments called Sandgate Pavilions, at Sandgate near Folkestone, offer a futuristic style with enough glazing to resemble a Californian beach pad. The apartments with their sea-views and balconies are certainly distinctive, so too are the prices, which range from £665,000 to £1.75m.
Based on 16 submitted examples, I would say the jury is still out. Several of the developments had a unique and distinctive style. Others seem fairly interchangeable.
Where the developers scored less well in my opinion was in reflecting traditional local building styles, though clearly some had tried.
RIBA has argued that all matters relevant to “placemaking,” - how a development fits in with its environment - should be considered from the outset and subjected to a democratic or co-design process.
Its solution is the use of
Local Design Codes, where beauty, not quantity, is the key consideration.
A few years ago, the government created the Building Better Building Beautiful Commission.
It has since been disbanded but in its final report in January 2021, it said the best chance of convincing people of the need to increase house-building was to build developments that people would like: “beautiful buildings gather support; blank ubiquity garners protest and resentment.”
Professor Carmona believes: “Planning authorities are under pressure to deliver new homes and are therefore prioritising numbers in the short-term over the longterm negative impacts of bad design. At the same time, house builders have little incentive to improve when their designs continue to pass through the planning system.”
The design audit also suggests the use of proactive design codes – with local parameters established for each site.
And it seems that finally the government is listening.
Stuart Andrew MP is the new Government Housing Minister – the 20th person to have held the post in the past 25 years, which perhaps indicates one part of the problem.
As Mr Andrew was only appointed in February, it seems unlikely he can have initiated the new thinking, which must have begun with his predecessor Christopher Pincher, but nevertheless Mr Andrew announced in March £3m in grants for its new
Local Design Code Pathfinder Programme.
Twenty-one local authorities and four residents’ organisations across the UK will receive grants ranging from £30,000 to £160,000 to help them draw up a Local Design Code.
Medway Council is one of the 25. It will get £120,000 to “help residents set their own standards for design in their local area, which could include architecture, building materials, standards for sustainability and street layout.”
The code will be aimed specifically at Chatham.
Mr Andrew said: “We want to give people in Medway power over what their neighbourhoods look like and to make sure all new developments enhance their surroundings and preserve local character and identity.”
If successful, the design codes produced will be used as examples, when the scheme is later rolled out across the country, hopefully banishing cookie-cutting back to the kitchen.