The government has set an ambitious target of 1.5 million new homes to be built in the life of this five-year parliament. It wishes the legacy of this programme to be well-designed, sustainable neighbourhoods meeting the needs of human wellbeing, whilst also enriching the natural environment.
However, there is widespread disquiet that the housebuilding industry may not have the ambition, and willingness to embrace change, required to deliver both the quality and the quantity of homes to which government aspires. This is especially the case with the lower density urban extensions, typically on greenfield sites, which will continue to provide a large proportion of new homes nationally.
National planning policy already asserts that poor quality design should not be allowed. In this report, four architects, specialising in housing and placemaking, go further. They explain how the current planning system can be adapted to set a threshold for good quality urban design, with a quid pro quo for compliant housebuilders that speeds up the planning system. The outcome would be better quality design leading to more efficient use of land and an increase in supply.
The Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government has published excellent holistic guidance in the form of the National Design Guide (NDG) and The National Model Design Code (NMDC). These are currently under revision, demonstrating an ongoing commitment to achieving good design quality in the widest sense, including community engagement, sustainability, urban design, landscape and biodiversity.
However, whilst housebuilders can deliver good quality housing, some examples of which are illustrated in this report, the general quality of much housebuilding continues to be disappointing, failing to fully deliver the promise of environmental, social and economic sustainability. Such poor-quality speculative development has stimulated opposition to much needed housing development.
This report argues that small adjustments to the existing planning process would help to achieve a step-change in the delivery of more and better homes, delivering improved compliance with the revised NDG and NMDC. The facing page shows a summary of our recommendations.
Application of these recommendations will deliver more efficient use of land as well as a faster approvals process and higher standards of urban design. The outcome should be a new generation of street-based urbanism and a new model for sustainable suburban development – landscape-rich, biodiverse, properly composed, mixed use, accommodating the demand for cars, but not allowing them to dominate.
The document includes a Greenfield Development Design Code Template illustrating the recommended principles, and appendices covering the authors’ background and previous work with further reading.
Read Placemaking, not Plotting – towards a new generation of sustainable suburbs