Planning to build beautiful future

THERE is a saying that ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ but, all too often, the answer to our housing needs has been developments consisting of rows of plain but functional new housing.

That’s why we are making sure that beautiful and environmentally sustainable developments are at the centre of the planning changes, which were announced by Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick at the end of July.

Our Building Beautiful Places plan will mean that good quality design will be paramount, with local communities put at the very heart of decisionmaking to help shape their towns and cities.

We are amending the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) so that the Building Beautiful Places plan will make it easier for residents and planners to embrace beautiful, practical design while rejecting the ugly, unsustainable or poor quality proposals.

The changes will set an expectation that all councils should develop a local design code with input from local communities, who will be living with the new housing. Digital tools, social media, face-to-face workshops, roundtables and exhibitions will all be ways in which local people should be able to have a say on their area – from city centres to rural villages.

With our planning system becoming increasingly digitised, our communities will be better able to both access and navigate planning processes, and we will be emphasising map-based local plans.

This will help to visualise development proposals and allow people to participate and more fully understand planning applications.

The revised NPPF will ensure that communities are more meaningfully engaged in how new development happens, and that local authorities are able to confidently turn down schemes which do not meet locally set standards. These changes also set the expectation that poor quality design should be rejected, and more sustainable and attractive projects prioritised – including a new environmental commitment which will ensure that all streets are lined with trees.

It is so important that our planning system makes beautiful, sustainable and high-quality design the norm – instead of a ‘luxury’ it so often is.

We must put people – not developers – in the driving seat and ensure that local communities will be fully involved in how they want new developments to look and feel, with a much greater emphasis on environmental sustainability and beauty.