Jenrick sets out government's vision to “build beautiful places”

Housing secretary Robert Jenrick, speaking at a recent Building Beautiful Places event, has set out the government's strategy and a new range of planning measures “to enshrine quality, beauty and sustainability in the heart of local decision-making.”

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Property Reporter
23rd July 2021
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Jenrick said that the National Planning Policy Framework would be updated to reflect the government’s Building Beautiful Places plan, putting an emphasis on beautiful, practical design, with residents and planners able to reject scheme designs that are of poor quality, unsustainable or “ugly”.

The revised NPPF will also focus on placemaking and the importance of local design codes. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said local authorities would be expected to develop a local design code - an illustrated design guide that sets the standard for a local area and shaped by local people.

Local design codes form part of the now published National Model Design Code - another measure announced by Jenrick. This is a “toolkit” providing guidance for all elements of new development, including tree-lined streets and sustainable drainage.

The Housing Secretary also announced the previously trailed Office for Place which will “drive-up” design standards and test and pilot the NMDC with more than 20 local councils and communities. An advisory board of industry experts, chaired by Nicholas Boys Smith, will advise the Office for Place.

With communities being offered a greater role in planning through local design codes, MHCLG also pointed to the increasingly digitised planning system, which will allow communities to access online map-based local plans and enable them to participate more fully in the planning system.

The measures also mean that the word “beauty” will be included in planning for the first time since the system was created in 1947, “echoing an era when a greater emphasis was placed on delivering attractive buildings for people that installed a sense of local pride”.

Jenrick said: “I have set out the government’s vision for a planning system that make beautiful, sustainable and life-enhancing design a necessity, rather than a luxury.

“Our revised National Planning Policy Framework will ensure that communities are more meaningfully engaged in how new development happens, that local authorities are given greater confidence in turning down schemes which do not meet locally set standards.

“This is about putting communities – not developers – in the driving seat to ensure good quality design is the norm, and the return to a sense of stewardship – to building greener, enduringly popular homes and places that stand the test of time in every sense.”

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