Building Better Building Beautiful Commission

ask for beauty. The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) defines the planning system’s purpose as ‘to contribute to the achievement of sustainable development.’ a. References to the importance of ‘placemaking’ and ‘the creation of beautiful places’ should be placed in chapter 2 as well as in chapter 12 of the NPPF, particularly in paragraphs 7 to 10, at the end of the first sentence of paragraph 17 and in paragraphs 72(c) on new settlement, 73 on buffers and 91 on green infrastructure. Beauty and placemaking should be strategic and cross-cutting themes. b. References to ‘good design’ in the NPPF should be replaced with ‘good design and beautiful places’ particularly in the section on ‘achieving sustainable development’ c. Beauty and placemaking should be embedded more widely across relevant government strategies.9. They should also feature in relevant forthcoming government legislation, such as the Environment Bill.

ensure enforcement. Where masterplans or designs are approved, it is those schemes that should be built – not a diluted version down the line. There should be more efficient management of conditions applications, of alterations and a greater probability of enforcement, with stricter sanctions where necessary. Clearer, shorter, more visual local plans should help, but additional ways to achieve this which we recommend include: • Encouraging specificity on issues such as materials in detailed planning applications. • Supporting the use of centres of excellence to aid local planning authorities’ enforcement teams. • Strengthening enforcement penalties for a Breach of Conditions Notice from a maximum of £2,500 to perhaps ten times that. (Breach of Enforcement Notice is already unlimited). The Government should also consider permitting authorities to obtain proceeds from a Process of Crime Act order in relation to breach of condition notices. • Tightening the approach and digitising the process of signing off the discharge conditions and regulating non-material and minor alterations. Might it be a requirement that building control sign-off cannot be achieved without adherence to design quality requirements? • Involving enforcement teams in early discussions about the scheme. This would permit them to understand the relative priorities of members and officers, and the importance of the design features of a scheme. This appears to happen very rarely, if at all, at present. We recognise that these suggestions make requirements on the capacity and the capabilities of local planning authorities. The evidence we have received suggests many would currently struggle to meet these. The crucial issue of how we can help improve the capacity of the planning system is explored in chapter 13.

ensure public engagement, is wide, deep and early using tried and tested tools for engagement such as ‘Enquiry by Design’ as well as testing place and visual preferences more widely by using surveys. Democracy needs to move forward to the local plan phase. • Regulation 18 of the Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2012 sets out the minimum consultation requirements at the start of the local plan preparation process. Regulation 19 requires publication of the proposed submission documents, before submission to the Secretary of State. Neither stage is really appropriate for effective community engagement on general or site-specific design matters. This is effectively recognised by many local planning authorities who often carry out more informal consultation exercises. We need to strengthen community engagement requirements in the regulations. • In addition, landowners and developers might be able to fund local authorities to run a strategic planning exercise to plan for the most appropriate areas for future growth, based on predicted housing numbers. As part of this process, landowners and developers could be encouraged to put forward representations on specific sites with commitments against place standards and mixed use, specified by the local authority, to give an objective and equitable assessment process that would level the playing field before a housing allocation is granted. That would put those landowners and developers prepared to commit to higher standards in a better position at the local plan stage. Very careful protocols would be necessary so that participating landowners or developers could not exert undue influence. • On large sites, many landowners and developers already prepare their own design codes. This should be supported and use of the Model National Design Code structure as a template encouraged when published. In this case perhaps a smaller commuted sum could be paid to provide resource within the local authority to help with the coordination of engagement events where local urban, architectural, landscape types and building materials are collated to avoid the local community being consulted separately multiple times on individual sites, creating consultation fatigue. Centres of Excellence could help with this. (See policy proposal 39).

move public engagement from analogue to digital. Despite some improvements, there remain huge opportunities to use digital technology more effectively to improve decision- making, option testing and to engage with a wider section of the community earlier in the plan-making and development process. The attractiveness or otherwise of the proposals should be an explicit topic for engagement. Government should encourage these for both plan-making and development control. Three years from now it should be required that fully digital massing models and images of proposed developments or local codes are routinely available online and in a machine-readable format to the general public for all-round visiting, feedback and voting. Planning needs to shift from being an analogue process to operate more effectively in a digital age. Clearer language and a lack of jargon should continue to be encouraged alongside greater use of imagery of possible development. Stewardship through community and neighbourhood-led development. There is currently a welcome renaissance in community-led development and community land trusts (CLTs). Community land trusts are not-for- profit entities that develop and steward housing, affordable housing, civic buildings, community gardens or other community assets. They are normally set up and run by local people. They act as long-term stewards – above all of housing‑ensuring that it remains affordable, based on what people actually earn in their area, not just for now but for every future occupier. The evidence the Commission has received wholly corroborates what the National CLT Network told us in their response to our Interim Report:

empower communities. We believe that the government should continue to support community-led development and to consider what policy changes can help CLTs, neighbourhood groups and small businesses to deliver more new homes and improve places. Many of our proposals should help with this, but in addition we would specifically recommend: • Ongoing funding support for community housing projects, with a sensible long-term commitment, such as for the next five years; • Considering how to align community housing, planning and regeneration funding alongside section 106 agreements and other resources to turbo-charge community-led development; • Expanding the scope of the 2011 Localism Act’s Community Right to Build Orders and strengthen and streamline community rights to buy assets of community value31; and • Empowering communities from council-owned estates with greater responsibility for their homes and their neighbourhoods’ development by investigating the facilitation of stock transfers to CLT housing associations32.

permit intensification with consent. The government should investigate ways of facilitating gentle suburban intensification and mixed use, with the consent of local communities. In particular, it should consider the possibility of allowing individual streets to vote to opt in to limited additional permissions, subject to design codes. The government should investigate which types of streets this approach might work in, how to pilot it and what the challenges might be. As in chapter 6, these suggestions make demands on the capacity and the capabilities of local planning authorities that the evidence we have received suggests they would currently struggle to meet. The crucial issue of how we can help improve the capacity and capability of the planning system is explored in chapter 13. Intensity can be popular and beautiful – low rise is not always best

support the right development in the right place. We recommend that the government: • Investigates how county councils, unitary authorities and mayoralties might be further encouraged to work collaboratively, together with the Local Enterprise and Local Nature Partnerships (LEP and LNPs) – perhaps by extending the Duty to Co-operate to more public sector bodies in an area; • Investigates whether in some cases county councils can be encouraged to produce spatial development strategies (without duplication of districts) as unitary authorities are required to do by paragraph 119 of the NPPF; • Investigates the scope to increase modelling capacity and bring together datasets that sit within different government departments to help improve geospatial and market data to inform larger than local decision making41; and • Investigates more widely whether counties, city mayors and parishes should be taking a more material role in the strategic and spatial planning process. If there were to be a reduced role for districts in strategic planning, it may be appropriate in some circumstances to recreate counties lost in the 1974 reforms to help link decisions to local identity. Any changes of this nature should be phased in slowly. Public sector land. There is an associated problem with public sector-owned land. As our and previous research has highlighted, public authorities are under a legal obligation to sell their land ‘for best consideration.’ This does not necessarily or always mean for the maximum cash payment immediately. But in practice it often does, particularly if the difference is greater than £2 million.42 This is a further effective disincentive to long-term development models if public sector land is ‘in the mix’ for a potential development.

end the disincentive to public sector involvement in stewardship schemes. In the medium term the government should update guidance on when sales below highest value can take place in order to facilitate long-term schemes especially where it would further the goals of the Public Sector Equality Duty. In the long-term reform of S123 of the Local Government Act 1972 should be considered.

expect net gain not just ‘no net harm.’ The planning system operates on the principle of minimising harm. The important paragraph 130 of the NPPF should be reworded to say: ‘Development that is not well designed should be refused. Well-designed development will take the opportunities available for improving the character and quality of an area and the way it functions, be properly served by infrastructure and will contribute towards meeting the needs of the wider community. It will also take into account…’

appoint a Minister for Place. Placemaking and supporting the spatial quality of life of our citizens in villages, towns and cities should become a primary concern of government. Caring about people means caring about place, as up to 40 per cent of our personal health outcomes are a function of where we live, not who we are. • There should always be a member of Cabinet who is a ‘champion for place’ and whose responsibilities include the quality of place in England. • This would at present be the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government but might in a future cabinet be the Deputy Prime Minister or Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. • In addition, there should be a Minister for Place at the Minister of State level.

appoint a Chief Place-maker in all local authorities to champion beautiful placemaking. Championing good design and placemaking should come from the top in each council and should include an understanding of the whole place and what necessarily distinct silos (housing, highways and infrastructure) are trying to achieve. • Quality of place should be a primary corporate responsibility of the Leader and Chief Executive of all local authorities. • There should be a Cabinet Member responsible for place and a senior officer with this responsibility within the senior management team. This role will often (though not always) be the Chief Planning Officer, though they will need experience beyond planning, particularly in infrastructure or the environment. • Quality of place needs to be understood in terms not of ‘good design’ but of provable relationships between urban form with health, well-being and sustainability, as well as empirical data on what local people like. • This role should explicitly operate across departmental silos so that placemaking is used to enhance environment, social, economic and built capital. • Placemakers should receive support to underpin their understanding of the relationship between urban design with well- being, health and sustainability.

regenerate ‘regeneration’ to being place-led. It should become normal to expect both central government and local government to have very clear strategies and operating plans for places. Public sector equity and investment should be used to help share risk, and future rewards, over a longer time horizon than five years. In this context, we welcome some of the government’s recent spending announcements on towns and high streets.

align tax for existing and new places. We believe that the government should make bringing derelict buildings back into use VAT free, or charge at most a reduced VAT of 5%. It should do the same for core improvements to existing buildings, including reroofing, extensions, conversions and renewable heating. It is not necessary that VAT be reduced for DIY or interior decoration, which do not have corresponding environmental significance. We believe that it is possible that such a move could; • Provide a £15.1 billion stimulus to the wider UK economy and 95,480 extra jobs by 2020; and • Lead to almost 240,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent savings from 92,000 homes56 Similar VAT reductions have resulted in an increase in consumer demand and employment in the Isle of Man and the Netherlands.57

encourage the recycling of buildings. Government and local authorities should consider an ‘adaptability test’ embedded in the process of granting planning permission. We should take the measure one stage further, since adaptability is the sine qua non of durability, and therefore part of any long-term environmental success.

encourage resilient high streets. We recommend that central and local government strategy for high streets needs to be focused on the surrounding town centre streets, not just the high street itself, and should focus on helping town centres be attractive places to spend time, live and work, which can respond flexibly within a clear framework to changing demand. • We need to rebalance the rating system to favour shops below a certain floorspace. A good approach would be zero rating for single outlet shops (or single in that settlement) below a certain size. This would encourage independent stores. (A corollary for this would be an empty stores penalty, to encourage reoccupation, or repurposing.) • We support the use of local policy to permit the shrinkage of A1 space where appropriate. High streets will often get shorter, more concentrated and more diverse in their uses. However, this is a very delicate area. Given the systemic under-supply of homes in some parts of the country, there is a danger that an unregulated implementation of the current policy will see all shops converted to homes. This might be very hard to manage, with consequences for ground floor design and location of bin stores. This can lead to a ‘disastrous impact on the beauty and character of local high streets and contribute further to their decline.’62 To prevent this we, recommend the protection through what are known as Article 4 Directions of the ‘core’ of high streets and the very strict use of design codes through which change of use is facilitated. At present, it is not possible to insist on design codes when a permitted development right is the route being taken. As set out in policy proposition 8, this needs to be resolved. • Local policy should encourage ‘gentle density’ style increased residential densities in and around high streets (many parades of shops were once houses. Some can return now to being so). Offices should also be encouraged near high streets.

banish ‘boxland’. As long-term retail demand and shopping habits change, local policy should encourage authorities to work with investors on the redevelopment of low density single use commercial space, retail parks and large format supermarkets (‘boxland’) into mixed use ‘finely grained’ developments of homes, retail and commercial uses which can support, and benefit from, public transport. This is a matter for local government, but should be strongly encouraged in guidance by the government for reasons of sustainability and well-being. This should be co-ordinated with guidance in the new design code and other proposals in chapter 6.64 Living with Beauty 98 10. Neighbourhoods: create places not just houses We need to develop more homes within mixed-use real places at ‘gentle density’. As evidence the Commission received, particularly from the Town Country Planning Association (TCPA), Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) and the Green Building Council, emphasised, the polling, focus group and pricing data is fairly consistent and compelling on the types of homes, places and settlement patterns that most people want most of the time. The precise nuances and relative weightings vary from time to time and place to place. There may even be generational patterns. However, the research is remarkably consistent. Most of us prefer places we can walk in, where there is greenery frequently present and where we find the streets and squares beautiful to look at and be in. We prefer places that do not cost the earth but can help us live in harmony with it. This, the evidence seems to say fairly coherently and consistently, is what most people want and where they flourish.65 As the RTPI put it to us: ‘Nor is good design subjective; there are clear, objective criteria against which the quality of design can be assessed – yet there seems to be a reluctance to take such an approach and as a consequence, there is a widely-held view that planning should not consider design in detail.’66 SEMI-DETACHED DETACHED TERRACE MID-RISE TOWER BLOCK GENTLE DENSITY

end the unintended bias against ‘gentle density’ neighbourhoods. The following changes would make it easier to build more attractive, healthy and walkable settlements at ‘gentle-density.’ • Strongly encouraging councils not to impose suburban parking requirements in non-suburban situations; • Strongly encouraging councils not to impose minimum back to back or front to front distance between habitable room requirements which make it impossible to build more finely grained and popular traditional settlements; • Making more explicit the existing guidance in the NPPF to councils not to use daylight and sunlight regulations to make it impossible to build more finely grained and popular traditional settlements; and • Encouraging councils to consider what proportion of homes with above ground floor entrance require lifts so as not to impede viable infill in existing sites. Underpinning these detailed points, government and the Planning Inspectorate should have a consistent message about placemaking. They should ensure that the rhetoric and policy doesn’t relate solely to housing numbers in a way that excludes other priorities. These proposals can in part be supported by the local versions of the National Model Design Code discussed in policy proposition 7. A range of changes to public transport investment and street design policy and practice are also relevant if we are consistently to deliver more attractive and walkable places. These are set out below.

create healthy streets for people. This is an important need to update and improve the government’s guidance on street design (known as Manual for Streets). Again, this should be co-ordinated with the government’s new National Model Design Code (see policy proposition 7). • Manual for Streets 1 (2007) and Manual for Streets 2 (2010) should be brought together into one combined manual. • More visual and measured detail and clarity and prescription should be provided on street layout for different street types such as tree lined avenues, lanes, courtyards, squares, variable width streets and other typologies. A framework should be provided nationally which councils can then adapt or amend locally. • The government should consider and formally consult on upgrading all or part of Manual for Streets to become policy rather than guidance. This would require highways authorities to adopt it. Following the same logic as set out in chapter 6, this should remove a degree of speculation on negotiating down planning requirements. It also follows the success of (the Scottish) Designing for Streets whose strengths and weaknesses should be considered by the government. • Previous guidance (known as DB32) which is unhelpful should be more firmly withdrawn and superseded by the Manual for Streets. At present some local councils continue to apply the poor DB32 layouts which were withdrawn (rightly) in 2007. They should stop. The Planning Inspectorate should reject any evidence for the design of schemes based on DB32.

clean urban air. As the data on poor air quality in our towns and cities becomes clearer and as the effect this has on people’s health becomes better understood, there is a seismic shift in attitudes taking place. We are encouraged by the recent Environment Bill and encourage the government to consider the full range of potential policies to improve urban air quality. In addition to re- greening actions (set out in chapter 11), these could include: • Supporting a National Car Free Day. Guidance and support for a programme of car free days across England’s towns and cities; • Supporting a denser network of air quality sensors with live monitoring available online (you can’t act on what you can’t measure); • Supporting expanded cycle networks, car-pools and station e-bike hire; • Supporting more walking in towns and pedestrian neighbourhoods; • Imposing tougher emissions standards for cars, consulting on legalising e-scooters and encouraging small clean city cars; • Planning car routes away from schools; and • Encouraging the restriction of lorries or highly polluting vehicles from towns and cities, particularly at peak hours. Reworking local materials anchors a building in a place and its history

say no to ugliness. We have found good examples of schemes being turned down by the Planning Inspectorate on well-argued design grounds after developers appealed against rulings from local authorities.12 Such examples should be publicised, celebrated and used to encourage beautiful and popular placemaking and they should encourage neighbourhoods or local media to argue for less unpleasant development. Local planning authorities should feel the full support of government when they reject ugliness. Government and the Planning Inspectorate should have a consistent message about placemaking.

ask for more access to greenery. The NPPF should be updated to place a greater focus on access to nature and green spaces – both existing and new – for all new and remodelled developments. This must not be negotiated away on ‘viability grounds.’ Policies such as those set out in policy G5 (‘Urban greening’) in the London Plan and the concept of the Urban Greening Factor should be applied more widely though adjusted as necessary for less urban environments.

plant two million new street trees. The government working with city mayors and local government should set a target to plant two million street trees and provide the funding for their planting and maintenance. Achieving this will not just be a matter of top-down targets and central funding – though it will cost money. It will also mean helping councils change the whole way that they think about their role and their priorities. • Local councils should be further encouraged to change highways guidance so that in most situations, trees are considered as essential as the structure of a road or surface water drainage. If they are a non-negotiable, then planning will need to take place up-front with the presence of trees as a given. • Given their provable health benefits, it should be considered whether other public budgets (above all health) should support their planting. • Parishes, civic societies, neighbourhood forums and other local groups should be able to apply for funds to plant trees. It should be made much easier for neighbourhood groups to win local councils’ support for new trees – particularly if there is neighbourhood commitment to support their maintenance.

plant urban orchards – one fruit tree per house. In addition to the wider benefits set out above, there is a need to reconnect children with nature and with the sources of their food. The government should: • Support a programme of urban orchards within our towns and cities; • Encourage, via guidance, local councils to require one fruit tree per new house built; and • Encourage housebuilders to plant one fruit tree per house.

regreen streets and squares. Other actions which the government should support and encourage should include: • Bricks for bees and birds in new build homes; • Greenery low to the ground to capture particulate matter; • The retention of existing hedges in greenfield developments and planting of new hedges; • The designation of some streets as ‘green corridors’; • New garden squares to provide safe and easy-to-access greenery for residents; and • Sustainable drainage systems (known as SUDS) to integrate urban drainage better into natural drainage systems

promote planning excellence. The government should extend and fund professional training for highway engineers and planning officers and inspectors in urban design, its effects and public preferences and in public engagement. It should also support, both financially and by way of subsequent career advancement, planning officers who wish to take mid-career postgraduate qualifications in urban design. It should investigate the possibility of providing a short course on the relationship between urban design and well-being, health, sustainability and public preference for councillors on planning committees. We need to change the culture of planning, so that it reflects the seriousness of its task, and both the stress suffered and the devotion exercised by planning officers in their daily work. The planners and their role should be celebrated as part of the culture of placemaking, and all public bodies, such as Homes England, should be encouraged to emphasise the importance of planning in safeguarding the public interest in beauty.

promote a common understanding of place. Empirical research on the relationship between urban design and well-being, health and sustainability, as well as public visual preferences and preferences on urban form, should form a central component of all courses in architecture, planning and other built environment qualifications – particularly highways engineers. The RTPI should require this of validated programmes, as should the ARB once regulatory powers return to it. Also subsequent to Brexit, the government and the ARB should investigate the possibility of opening a route to validation as an architect based solely or primarily on professional experience rather than academic study. This should help aspiring architects with a more diverse range of backgrounds than at present.

support design review but not from ‘on high’. Design review is an important tool for bringing specialist assistance to local authorities that they are not able to maintain permanently. Design reviews need to be empirically grounded and should take advantage of community engagement, visual preference evidence and consultation with local civic societies and amenity groups. We advocate the proliferation of competing design review bodies, with none emerging as a final ‘court of appeal’. There may be the need for a design review to focus on national infrastructure. Thoughtful treatment of corners, not ‘lopped off’ end terraces

streamline planning and shift resources from development control to strategic planning partially, through revolutionising the use of digital technology. Local planning authorities need radically to improve the efficiency of the planning process. The government should: • Support local planning authorities moving from an analogue to a digital culture; • Introduce digital building passports;85 • Where possible write common policies, such as those governing householder-development, as machine readable code which can be visualised and shared easily; • Encourage digital repositories of architectural knowledge; and • Encourage digital feedback loops.

limit the physical length of planning applications. Outline planning permission was initially created to provide a light-touch way of achieving more certainty. It has ended up becoming a complex process in itself, with needlessly long and verbose applications obscuring the key points. The government should consider issuing guidance on the maximum physical length and complexity of planning applications. 86

support centres of excellence. The government should review whether they can more effectively help support public or third sector bodies that can act as centres of excellence. Government should consider a national expansion of these types of programmes to help build and support high quality planning, landscape and urban design skills within local authorities across the country. Expansion should be based on consultation.87 There is an unavoidable risk that such centres of excellence, at one remove from the democratic process, lose their link with genuine public preferences. It should be a condition of any government support that they can demonstrate how they are effectively managing this risk, and ideally involving interested citizens as much as possible. Counting happiness to encourage ‘good lives.’ There is also a crucial need to change the management targets for teams and officials in Homes England, as well as the highways, housing and planning teams in central government and councils, creating a new focus on quality and outcomes as well as quantity. They should be targeted on objective measure for well-being, public health, nature recovery and beauty (measured via popular support). Examples might include air quality, average distance walked, bike use, polling on popularity of new streets or buildings. The Planning Officers Society suggests that, in order to measure local opinion on beauty, ‘an electronic stand could be placed outside a new building with green to red

discover beauty locally. Local authorities, neighbourhood forums and parishes should be strongly encouraged to embed the national requirement for beauty and placemaking from the outset, before any decisions are made about allocating land or making development control decisions. What beauty means and the local ‘spirit of place’ should be discovered and defined empirically and visually by surveying local views on objective criteria as well as from deliberative engagement with the wider local population. Where appropriate, more detailed design codes should also be included in local plan documents, supplementary planning documents or neighbourhood plans. (See policy proposition 6 for more details). These local codes should be living documents, able gradually to evolve, informed by ongoing engagement with residents on local preferences and desires. (See policy proposition 12). To affect this, the ‘achieving well-designed places’ section of the NPPF should, at paragraph 125, be more specific about what level of design detail is required and how local preferences are empirically understood. Paragraph 127 is helpful in defining some characteristics of good design. A requirement to apply this approach to policy for allocated sites would take it a step further.

count happiness and popularity. Council chief executives, chief placemakers, highways, infrastructure and planning teams should be set key targets and performance indicators which speak directly to the beauty and popularity of what is being permissioned, and to the effects on community well-being, health and sense of neighbourliness. Key targets and metrics which we would suggest for both residents of new developments, and for all residents, could include: • Standardised scores on local health, well-being and reported happiness; • Standardised scores on place satisfaction; • Local polling and visual preference surveys on local council new buildings, new development and investments in public realm; • Average minutes walked per day and level of cycling; • Local perceptions of community safety; • Number of neighbours known; • Local air quality; and • Ratio of new trees to new homes.

value design as well as price. Homes England (and other government agencies) should: • Ensure that the strategic focus on design in public sector land sales, or joint ventures, is real and is fully percolated throughout the organisation in decisions ‘on the ground’; • Place a greater weighting on design quality in their scoring of land purchasers and development partners. This should be achieved through both weighting and scoring; • Be more transparent and simpler about scoring and weighting mechanisms. One option might be to set a target price and encourage bidders to ‘solve’ to that price. Alternatively, only top scoring bids on quality might pass through to the final round; • Evolve a wider framework for quality which goes beyond ‘Building for Life’. There do not appear to be clear qualitative standards or requirements for grant funded affordable housing. We do acknowledge that Homes England funding comes in many forms and programmes and, for example, where they are providing debt funding, often on challenged schemes, it would be difficult for them to impose additional standards that a bank or other funder would not. However, where grant or equity is provided, they should exert a much stronger influence on the outcomes.

review Homes England’s remit, targets and investment timeframes to increase the focus on quality and long-term placemaking. To support this, Homes England will need longer‑term business planning periods and targets – often 40 years is a better timeframe for planning places than 5 years. This will permit Homes England more flexibility to not have to reduce quality in order to manage cashflow challenges within the financial year. It would also make it easier for them to say ‘no’ to poor quality proposals in low‑value areas. We would like to see government supporting Homes England with a more balanced scorecard, demonstrating a wider definition of success that addresses the quality and sustainability of the places they invest in within their future Strategic Plans. This should also include reference to support for schemes meeting the ‘stewardship kite mark’ discussed in policy propositions 15 to 17. HM Treasury may also need to give latitude to enable Homes England to be geographically agnostic, to ensure equitable outcomes and quality in all areas. This could allow a more creative approach to cross subsidise across their portfolio.

encourage Homes England to take a clearer master developer role and consider establishing a code zone (‘permission in form’) approach to large sites to increase the role for smaller firms. Code Zones’ for larger sites would mean Homes England working to create a popular result, though a masterplan and form-based code. Development would then be possible ‘as of right’, via permission in principle, for buildings that met the masterplan and code.92 Civic pride. Beyond points concerning procurement mechanisms, there lies a deeper cultural question about public buildings. Surely, they should be worthy of their civic purpose, popular and beautiful? Many of the proudest buildings in England’s towns and cities are civic buildings built with public funds, particularly in the nineteenth century: the Houses of Parliament in London, Leeds or Rochdale Town Hall, or St George’s Hall in Liverpool. However, somehow, somewhere, we have lost not just the ability but even the desire to create public buildings of beauty and moral worth. We were very struck by the evidence of Anna Mansfield, who told us earlier this year:

re-discover civic pride in architecture. New public sector buildings should be popular, and beautiful sources of civic pride. In addition to the changes set out above, it should be routine for public sector procurement process for new buildings or public realm schemes to: • State clearly in their aims that beauty and popularity with the local population are key elements of the design brief; • Involve charette co-design process following protocols described in chapter 7; • Involve polling on local popular design preferences; and • Seek to make use of the emerging ‘science of place’ on the likely impact of different design approaches on metrics such as resident happiness, air quality and sustainable transport. Throughout, public engagement, citizen involvement in scheme selection and data on local preferences should clearly underpin the process to avoid some of the major errors of the last 50 years in public sector procurement. Public and third sector bodies should also consider publicly- voted prizes for the most beautiful and popular public buildings every year and ‘sin bin’ prizes for the ugliest and least popular. An annual ‘celebration’ of the ugliest building paid for by the public purse, as voted for by the taxpayers who funded it, would certainly attract attention.

monitor the implementation of this report. The government should create a time-limited independent commission or ‘light touch’ body to monitor and report back publicly on the implementation of this report on a regular basis. It should also promote the growing public and professional discussion about how we evolve our villages, towns and cities in ways that are popular, beautiful and good for us. The wider views of the general public should be evident in such a body’s terms of reference. Our proposals are detailed. Some of them are tentative. But all of them reflect the aims of this Commission. We seek to move planning from a culture of fear to a culture of affirmation. We are heirs to beautiful towns, set in incomparable countryside. Our goal should be to pass that heritage to our successors, not depleted but enhanced. That is what it means to build beautifully. As we have tried to show, beauty is not an arbitrary addition to the builder’s aims but fundamental to promoting health, well-being and sustainable growth. Beauty, as Stendhal wrote, is a promise of happiness. We hope that, fifty years hence, more of our fellow citizens will be ‘living with beauty’ and that our labours will have played some small part in helping them do so. For if they are living with beauty, then they are to that extent enjoying good lives.

masterplan, don’t plan by appeal. Local planning authorities should be encouraged to take a more strategic and less reactive approach to their local plans. Steps to incorporate this would include: • More clarity on what and where. The ‘plan-making’ section of the NPPF should make it clear in paragraph 16 that plan proposals should provide a clear indication of the scale and design features of development that is proposed, particularly on strategic sites. This could be elaborated in paragraph 23 (which deals with broad locations for development) and in the ‘non-strategic policies’ section in paragraphs 28-30.The soundness test in paragraph 35 should be reworded to read ‘d) consistent with national policy – enabling the delivery of sustainable development, including the creation of beautiful places..’16; • Thinking more broadly about optimisation. We recommend the addition of text in paragraph 123 of the NPPF on the importance of area-based masterplanning in assessing and meeting the need to optimise, whilst also creating beautiful places. The piecemeal site by site approach leads to poor outcomes. • A process review. We recommend a review of the way in which sites are identified including the ‘call for sites’ process. The review should consider which process changes could reduce the adversarial consequences of the current approach, reduce the resource-pressure on local authorities and better encourage ‘the right growth in the right place.’ • A timescale review. It takes too long to prepare local plans, supplementary planning documents and area action plans. We recommend a detailed review of how the process of creating local plans can be speeded up. Ultimately, local plans should be quicker to write and ‘living documents’ which can be updated more readily when circumstances change. • Thinking long-term as well as medium-term. We understand and respect why the government has increased the focus on five‑year land supply. This has had the very welcome consequence of obliging councils to have local plans in place. However, a longer time frame is necessary when thinking about new settlements, urban extensions and infrastructure investment. We recommend that the phrase ‘within the context of a longer 30-year vision is’ added to paragraph 22 of the NPPF. Throughout, local government should be encouraged and aided to make better use of improving geospatial and market data in achieving this. (See policy proposition 37)

use provably popular form-based codes. Local planning authorities should develop more detailed design policy interventions, such as provably popular form-based codes and pattern books, as a basis for considering planning applications.21 We believe that form-based codes and non-negotiable infrastructure including green infrastructure (as with the Community Infrastructure Levy) are often appropriate ways to embed quality in a popular and predictable way. In time, this should also help making some policies more machine-readable, so that we can use new technology efficiently to support the robust assessment of development quality. A series of changes to guidance documents would encourage this. • The government’s July 2019 guidance on plan-making in the ‘What should a plan look like’ section states that: ‘Where sites are proposed for allocation, sufficient detail should be given to provide clarity to developers, local communities and other interested parties about the nature and scale of development.’ This should be more specific, requiring a minimum level of detail. • The local plan should apply the approach taken in the national planning practice guidance on design at the local level, reflecting local circumstances, by setting clear area-wide design criteria, and local planning authorities should consider adopting a co-ordinating code approach in the local plan, particularly for strategic sites. It should also define the requirement for masterplanned area action plans in order to coordinate development across sites in any defined growth area, as well as the application of a co-ordinating code or similar approach to allocated non-strategic sites. These should be prepared as supplementary planning documents or in Neighbourhood Plans prior to the commencement of any planning application process. • Pages 23 to 28 of the government’s July 2019 guidance on plan- making deal with the evidence required when preparing a local plan. Other than ‘conservation and the historic environment’ there is no section which deals with evidence that might support design policies, such as character assessment. This should be included. • The Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2012 set out the legal requirements for local planning authorities when preparing local plans and supplementary planning documents. They specify their form and content very generally. There is no specific reference to design. There is scope to specify the minimum design policy level for different types of site.

localise the National Model Design Code. We support the government’s proposal to publish a National Model Design Code, which will function as a template for local authorities to develop, their own codes in accordance with local needs and preferences and to support better urbanism and mixed use as described in policy proposition 27. The model code should include the following elements: • Design guidance relying on numbers, specifications and images more than words. The model code should define the segments, ratios, façade patterns or cross-sections that make for popular and well-designed places. Local authorities would not be required to accept these definitions in their own codes, but they would form a template to help local planning authorities understand what they need to define. The national code should provide measured and illustrated exemplars of how all these good principles come together in street segments, public space segments, building and street patterns. These can be stylistically neutral and should take account of parking and servicing. • Guidance on what goes where. A street hierarchy, and the difference between a good central, urban or suburban street (including levels of mixed use), needs to be set out and illustrated so that it is clear where different elements of guidance are most relevant in different types of place. • Guidance on scales of development. The National Model Design Code should give examples of what is relevant for various scales of development so that local authorities are helped to be clear about what is (and is not) being scrutinised • Guidance on turning the The National Model Design Code into a local code. The national code should contain a clear and straightforward suggested process to help turn it into local policy. This will need to include surveying local preferences empirically and should lay great weight on harmonising with local vernaculars.

require permitted development rights to have standards. There is scope for targeted and carefully drafted use of permitted development rights to free up the delivery of new development, whilst ensuring it achieves better placemaking. But we are not there yet. One way to keep the supply-side advantages of permitted development rights but with some basic standards, would be to move minimum home or room sizes into building regulations.24 This would prevent some of the worst excesses that have come to light in office to residential conversion. We support this but it is not enough. The government should evolve a mechanism whereby meaningful local standards of design and placemaking can efficiently apply to permitted development rights. This is not possible at present under the current legal arrangement. It should be. Where it is appropriate, to build housing via permitted development rights or permission in principle should require strict adherence to a very clear (but limited) set of rules on betterment payment and design clearly set in the local plan, supplementary planning document or community code as set out above. If these rules are followed, then approval should be a matter of course. There are precedents for this. For example, permitted development rights for residential extensions requires matching materials. The Commission recommends that adherence to established design guidance, coupled with a certification process, not unlike the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (‘BREEAM’) but directed to the sense of place, is embedded into an overhauled ‘prior approval’ process. It is outside the scope of this report to undertake that drafting, but we consider it to be an important ‘next step’ following these recommendations A fast track for beauty. We also believe that in order to incentivise more attractive and popular development, there are situations where it should be possible for developments which improve their local area to make more speedy progress through the planning system or to have their own special ‘fast track for beauty.’ For example, where a master developer has demonstrated their commitment to quality through the initial phases of a scheme in line with provably popular and pre-agreed standards and design codes then councils should be encouraged and aided to put in place local development order or permission in principle regimes which aid the more certain delivery of these homes. This would remove work from the council.

permit a fast track for beauty. If a robust design policy, which is based on community engagement and which has been properly examined, has been established, the detailed planning application stage should be relatively straightforward. The focus should be on compliance with the site-specific design policy, whether contained in the local plan or in a supplementary planning document. Building on