"Is this a dumbing down of design, with priorities shifting from quality to quantity of homes, along with a renewed emphasis on social and affordable housing?"
- Katy Davis - Carter Jonas
One of the most significant changes made in the revised NPPF is the removal of the word 'beauty' from the title of Chapter 12. The title, previously 'Achieving Well-designed and Beautiful Places' has been amended to 'Achieving Well-designed Places'.
Chapter 12 of the NPPF reduces, but does not entirely remove, references to ‘beauty’ and ‘beautiful’ and makes few other changes to this chapter otherwise, the chapter mostly refers to the process of applying the National Model Design Code.
Elsewhere in the NPPF, paragraph 20 removes ‘to ensure outcomes support beauty and placemaking’ from the statement that ‘strategic policies should set out an overall strategy for the pattern, scale and design quality of places and make sufficient provision for housing, infrastructure, community facilities and conservation and enhancement of the environment’.
In Chapter 8 (Promoting healthy and safe communities) the words ‘and beautiful buildings’ are removed from the phrase ‘Planning policies and decisions should aim to achieve healthy, inclusive and safe places’.
The following paragraph goes on to say, ‘Which are safe and accessible, so that crime and disorder, and the fear of crime, do not undermine the quality of life or community cohesion – for example through the use of well-designed, clear and legible pedestrian and cycle routes, and high-quality public space, which encourage the active and continual use of public areas’ – but removes ‘beautiful’ from this list.
Is this a dumbing down of design, with priorities shifting from quality to quantity of homes, along with a renewed emphasis on social and affordable housing?
Speaking to The Guardian shortly after the NPPF’s changes were published, Secretary of State Angela Rayner said that proposed changes will not lead to ‘a load of ugly houses’. Rayner defended the decision to remove the requirement for new homes to be ‘beautiful’, claiming the word was preventing development and is too subjective.
On the point of subjectivity, I agree entirely. Planning is the opposite of subjective, being centred around objectivity and balance. The profession emerged as a set of rules which, through a structured and rational approach, manage the varying, wide-ranging and ever-changing demands of land use.
As professionals facilitating the provision of more housing, and crucially more social and affordable housing, our role balances the social, economic and environmental needs within a clearly defined legislative structure. The term “beauty” was always going to be challenging to define and agree on as part of a national framework.
It follows, therefore, that successful planning depends upon a strong and consistent legislative framework, the centre of which is the NPPF; it fails when that framework is weakened. When this occurs, the supply of housing risks is reduced.
The basics of the planning system – what is permitted and how - have remained fairly constant since planning was ‘created’ with the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act. At the other end of the spectrum, the role of the Secretary of State, with the power to over-rule planning decisions, is much more precarious.
The Secretary of State’s veto – and specifically the previous Secretary of State’s rejection of schemes on the basis of 'beauty' - is subjective in the extreme: subject to political pressure, interpretation and even the personality of the individual minister.
So are we likely to see a different approach under Labour? After two significant schemes were scuppered under the last government in relation to the nebulous issue of 'beauty' (a 165-home development by Berkeley Homes in Cranbrook, Kent and a 200-home scheme near Leamington Spa by AC Lloyd), it will be interesting to see how planning applications will fare under the new government.
Prior to the election, Angela Rayner said that only “attractive homes” would be allowed in the party’s building blitz, as she set out a series of indicative designs (modern versions of Victorian terraces and suburban) aimed at reducing local opposition to development. She promised an end to ‘identikit homes’ and said that the 1.5 million homes Labour plans to build would include “only exemplary design with real character’.
However, it is interesting to note that the government’s ‘golden rules’ for released Green Belt (or 'grey belt') land don’t reference design. The pledge, with features in the revised NPPF, stipulates three types of contributions that schemes on green belt land released for development should deliver. The first of these is that ‘at least’ 50 per cent of housing provided by the scheme should be affordable, with an ‘appropriate’ proportion for social rent (subject to viability).
Secondly, schemes should deliver ‘necessary improvements’ to local or national infrastructure and the provision of new or improved green spaces accessible to the public. For residential developments, new residents should be able to access good-quality green spaces within a ‘short walk of their home’, whether on-site or through access to off-site spaces. No reference is made to the design of the built environment. And yet presumably it is in the Green Belt that design is most sensitive.
Balancing priorities is something that we, as planning consultants, grapple with in our everyday work.
In the past few years, many of us have been disappointed in the way that seemingly irrational decisions undermine our profession and our output. The fact that professional advice and opinions based on quantifiable evidence are ignored makes a mockery of the objective and evidence-based principles that govern planning and provide the necessary new homes. With a new government and a new NPPF, we hope that objectivity can be restored to planning decisions.
