Building Better, Building Beatiful
- TrustNews Jun 19
All-Party Parliamentry Group for Civic Societies Parliamentary meeting held on Tuesday 7th May 2019 in the Jubilee Room, House of Commons.
This was arranged by Civic Voice to present interim results of their survey in response to the BBBB Commission and to ‘move the conversation about building homes away from confrontation, into one of collaboration.’
Craig Mackinley, MP for South Thanet and Chair of APPG for Civic Societies, opened the debate by stating the need for 3 million new homes and outlining some of the issues demands of such building entails, i.e. the conflicts of interests concerning land, costs, numbers, affordability, materials and beauty, and how we must learn from the past when local councils allowed dreadful aesthetic mistakes in planning development. Kit Malthouse, MP for NW Hants and Housing Minister, took this further enthusiastically declaring how much he enjoyed encouraging building. He had discovered, however, that the prevalence of nimbyism and resistance to change were obstacles difficult to shift because bad, ill-considered developments had made local communities nervous of any further spoiling of their areas. His was clearly a political stand to meet the need for 300,000 new homes on a sustained annual basis though he was insistent that good design, improved technical processes with sustainability should guide developments so these aspire to become the Conservation Areas of the future. The discovery that new homes proved to be least popular because often such dwellings had little detail and variety in the use of architectural language, and, not least, poor construction led him to state he had confidence in the latest National Planning Policy Framework which allows more local assertion for the styles of locality and affordability for the area, citing Morris Homes’ new development in Stamford, Lincolnshire, as a good example of this.
The CEO for Grosvenor Britain and Ireland, Craig McWilliam, spoke on restoring public trust in place-making and developers by encouraging closer collaboration between commercial interests and those of communities since where this fails to meet expectations it inevitably leads to a deterioration of relations. He felt public trust must be developed from the outset of projects and that new ways of working together should be found to ensure that a balance across interests will aid harmony. Matthew Carmona, Chair of Place Alliance, followed this by an examination of the local councillor perspective on high quality design. Because councillors tend to be woefully ill-prepared to meet such responsibilities design quality is undervalued by councils as it is not taken seriously enough. Often they fail to see that better design can make development more acceptable to communities and where this does not occur it is further compounded by the standard practices of developers (who are manufacturers), the inflexibility of local highway authorities, the loss and lack of design skills in local authorities, and overdevelopment conflicting with local character leading to mono-culture development. Local authorities need to be bolder in rejecting poorly designed projects and insist on better local and neighbourhood plans that respect character, choice of materials, green spaces, prevailing densities, history and architectural quality, and to seek good local advice from the professions and civic societies.
From the few questions permitted due to the time limit (the MPs had already left after Craig McWilliam’s contribution and this further curtailed the nature and number of possible topics which brings into doubt the efficacy of an APPG beyond it being an opportunity for parliamentary statements rather than discussion), the answers given may be summarised thus:
The Raynsford Review on Permitted Development Rights and a re-appraisal of the current planning system was referred to and informed that this is presently being considered. It was generally felt, however, for expediency the existing system should be made to work better by insisting on greater control of developments. It was remarked that local authority planners were overwhelmed by departmental constraints and to help improve matters civic societies were urged to engage with their local councils. Suggestions were made that architects become developers and councillors trained so to avoid the intransigent ‘follow my leader’ approach in decision-making. The importance of infrastructure was raised and this must be enmeshed with developments from the outset rather than being an add-on, and should come through the local plan.
Sarah James, Civic Voice Membership and Policy Officer, gave a review of the interim findings from the members’ survey conducted earlier, stating “The findings will demonstrate to the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission, and the Government, that Civic Voice members want to move towards a more collaborative planning system to tackle the challenges of poor-quality design and build of housing."
- 86% stated that ‘beauty’ is important to how a development looks;
- 72% stated that new developments do not need to be identical with neighbouring buildings, but the design, scale and context all need to be given serious consideration in the decision-making process;
- 68% stated that if the aesthetic appeal or beauty of a development was given more focus, it would receive more community support (the Civic Design Awards prove this);
- 42% stated they want training to understand the benefits of using design codes and style guides;
- Communities want greater support to engage with the design agenda, with Building for Life, Design Review and Neighbourhood Planning stated as areas that Civic Voice members want more training and support.
67% stated modern buildings can be beautiful;
Joan Humble, Chair of Civic Voice, had announced these findings by saying, “We need to rebuild public trust and confidence in the planning system. For too many people, planning is about confrontation and not one of meaningful participation. This must change. Developers, councils, communities and civic societies must all be prepared to work together in a collaborative and meaningful manner to remove confrontation and increase certainty. "