Legislation

The most recent planning legislation is the Housing and Planning Act 2016, which sits alongside older statutes. The legislation and other government documents set out when planning permission or other forms of consent are needed. Early planning legislation specified that all development (defined as building, mining, engineering works and changes of use) required planning permission. Later legislation and associated orders give certain types of development automatic permission, often called deemed consent, and set out when express consent is needed.

Recently the list of development types given deemed consent (also know as permitted development) has grown. For example, change of use from office or shop space to residential no longer requires express permission. This means that planners have no real say over the design of such works or the quality of the homes created. In such cases national building regulations determine the quality of the development.

The 2016 Act also changes the process for larger housing schemes, through the introduction of ‘permission in principle’. At the time of writing, details of how this will work are still awaited. It could mean that housing schemes on brownfield land will be fast-tracked, with lighter-touch scrutiny of their particulars. This could dramatically affect how planners can deal with the design of such schemes, requiring firm, clear design parameters to be set at an early stage, rather than the design of applications being scrutinised after having been submitted.

Another example of where legislation and associated documents are vitally important is in plan-making. The Housing and Planning Act 2016 provides an updated framework for creating neighbourhood plans. These plans have the potential to set the ground rules for locally specific design assessments of development proposals. Planners are charged with working with local communities to ensure that policies and proposals at the neighbourhood level articulate broader design and other requirements by being informed by existing policies and local context.

Standards and Non-Planning Requirements

Planning operates in a context of building regulations, transport and works orders, licensing legislation and much more that can influence the form of development, so planners need to understand them. They also need to listen to the advice of partner professionals, but they should be able to challenge that advice. Often there is more flexibility than first assumed.

A good example of this is the requirements for traffic signs. The government’s Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2016 (TSRGD) explains what particular signs should look like to ensure consistency across all streets and roads. However, the document allows a great deal more flexibility than previous versions, and it is described as guidance, not law, so local authorities can deviate from it if they justify their approach.

The TSRGD does not specify that certain signs must be used; it just specifies what form they should take if they are used. In the case of a mini-roundabout, for example, if a circular object in the middle of the street is defined as such, it has to have certain signs on and around it, with their size, colour and other characteristics matching the official specification. On a busy street this might be the right way to ensure safety, which is the main aim of the TSRGD. But a new housing scheme might include a traffic-calming feature that acts as a mini-roundabout but is not officially called one. In such cases the signage guidance would not apply and the feature might end up with no signs at all which might be a better design approach for the scheme. Planners should be prepared to challenge what other professionals say is laid down in law if the consequences look likely to prevent the creation of a successful place.

Plan-Making

The planning system is said to be ‘plan-led’: Any planning decision should be made in accordance with the relevant policies for that area. These may come from the NPPF, regional plans (where they exist), the local planning authority’s local plan, area-specific plans that supplement part of the local plan, or neighbourhood plans. Design issues can feature in policies within plans of all kinds.

Clear, well-evidenced and robust plans explain why the area should change, in what way it should change and how this will be achieved. In particular:

• Good plans start from a deep understanding of the area. Many planners have such an understanding but find it hard to translate this on to paper, either as words or visually. The best local plans are tailored to the specific challenges and opportunities facing the area. One effective local plan split its area into three: a part that was likely to change hardly at all, being mainly homogeneous conservation areas and green belt land; a part that was likely to change a great deal, with brownfield land and infrastructure investment schemes and a part, established residential areas and suburbs, that might change to some extent, in an incremental way. This plan set out what was most important for the different areas, relating to the type of planning applications felt likely to come forward in each.
• Too many plans have one illustration, which is on the cover. There is often a series of maps that are rather hard to fathom and which, though they should not be site-specific, are often too vague to convey anything useful about what the plan intends. Such plans can end up feeling rather generic, identifying aims that are vague and hard to achieve.
• Plans should have a clear structure and set out qualitative issues in a robust way. One way of starting to think about an area in qualitative terms is to ask: what is good about it, what is bad about it, and what do we want to improve? This simple set of questions, devised for Placecheck (www.placecheck.info), can be a useful start when drawing up a plan.
• A plan can have indirect, unexpected impacts on the design and built form of the development. For example, a few years ago a London borough introduced policy requirements for private amenity space, alongside policies requiring relatively high densities. These were later adopted as pan-London requirements, leading to a proliferation of new housing forms with balconies and roof gardens throughout the capital. This has since been identified as (for good or ill) a ‘new London vernacular’, even though policymakers might have never intended the new forms to emerge.

Decision-Taking

A planning application sets out the form and use of the development proposed. That application needs to go through a number of processes before a decision to grant or refuse permission can be made. In terms of the design, planners will consider, among other matters:

• What is being proposed? Is it clear from the application drawings and accompanying materials? As well as requiring clear and accurate plans setting out the location, size, position, shape and detailing of both buildings and spaces (where appropriate), applications often come in with an enormous amount of supporting information, including design and access and environmental impact assessments. Those looking at the application can find it hard to know what they are being asked to comment on or approve, and what are just an indicative illustration of a firm proposal. Generally speaking, if a picture is of somewhere else (Barcelona and the High Line in New York are favourites), it is not part of the development being applied for and great care should be used if such pictures are to influence a planning decision.
• Does the proposal conform to development plan policies? This can be trickier to ascertain than it seems at first. What is the relevant development plan? What documents does it include? What if one part of it is older than another and seems to contradict the newer policies? Generally the newer policies will have more weight. It can be useful to look at precedents to see how the policies have been interpreted in previous applications.
• What do other people think about the proposal – especially the local community, who will have to live with the development if built? Those who are being asked to comment need to understand what is being proposed; scale models can be helpful. People also need to know what types of comments will be useful and influential, and what is not relevant and will be ignored.
• What do other experts say about the proposal? A variety of people might be commenting, from historic conservation experts to those who have a responsibility to prevent flooding, for example. They are likely to be looking at the proposal solely from their particular point of view. The planner has the role of consolidating the various comments and weighing them all against each other. It can be useful to ask for clarity if the people consulted seem to have given a standard answer.
• Can the scheme be improved and made acceptable through negotiation? This is an important role for the planner, and can have a considerable impact on the quality of the outcome, so good negotiation skills are essential. The planner should not seek to redesign the scheme, but they can point out problems with it and discuss potential ways of overcoming them.
• A decision could be made by the planner, their boss, the planning committee or the Planning Inspectorate. The process consists of understanding what is proposed; testing this against the development plan policies, in the light of the NPPF’s presumption in favour of sustainable development; considering the views of communities and experts consulted; and putting forward a well-reasoned narrative as to why the scheme should or should not be given permission.

One way of considering the design aspects of a development proposal in such written material is to run through the physical form of the scheme (its height, layout, use, detailing and so on) as described in Chapter 3, and examine how each relates to the relevant qualities and policy objectives set out in the development plan. It might be a matter of saying that the policies require development to reinforce a particular aspect of local character, and the proposed form would not achieve that; or that the policy requires the creation of safe and inclusive public spaces, and that this scheme with blank walls facing uninteresting and hard-to-access open space would not do this – rather than saying simply that the building would be too tall or an inappropriate colour.

Engaging on Design

Here are three important considerations when talking to others about the design of a scheme:

• Make sure that people understand what is being proposed. This includes being clear about the level of detail they are being asked to consider at this stage. Are the graphics clear, consistent and accurate? Have they been created to elicit a certain response? Are they an honest representation of the proposal? Can they be seen alongside images of the existing place, rather than in isolation? Can everyone use the particular format, especially if it is online? Is there fair and equal access to information?
• Make sure that people know what they can realistically have a say on, without patronising them. There is no point in consulting people about a principle that has already been decided. Similarly, if matters such as materials and landscaping are not part of the proposal being consulted on, it is important to make clear when and how people can comment on these aspects, or to make sure that their thoughts are taken account of at a later date.
• Make sure that feedback is given. Planners might be working in the same area, with the same communities, for a long time, so building good relationships matters. Even if that is not the case, planners have a duty to help people feel part of a planning system that works for them. This means taking the time to go back and describe how comments led to changes to the scheme or to explain why they did not, and to set out what will happen next.