Lord Falconer insisted last month that "we are not setting ourselves up as design gurus". Putting on one side the use of the royal 'we' (delusions of grandeur?), I find the legal eagle a tad disingenuous.
The planning minister was speaking at the launch of the government's joint guide (with the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment) titled Better Places to Live.
(It is conceivable, of course, that you missed the launch and any news of the event. That is not surprising. It happened on September 11 when the world's media became preoccupied with issues elsewhere.)
The peer rattled off a litany of social ills which could be laid at the door of dodgy design. You will probably recognise most of these as blasts from the past.
"Bad design can facilitate high crime. It can repel people rather than attract them. It creates barriers to building communities and is socially destructive. It contributes to poor services and undermines social regeneration.
"And it's not just in cities - and not just in the rented sector. Across the country identikit estates, often sold as executive homes, have mushroomed. They make no architectural reference to their region. Too many of these housing estates are designed for nowhere but are found everywhere. They fail to sustain local services, they waste land and they promote dependency on the car. They easily end up being soulless and dispiriting".
Lord Falconer's comments came a few days before the former barrister was confirmed as the minister in charge of the government's so-called design champions group, which is meant to ensure that public buildings have some style and panache.
For my money that makes him an aesthetic policeman, at the very least. And if not a guru in the true sense of the word, given his role in the planning system, an individual with a deal more clout than most in this area.
So will the planning minister grasp the nettle and back, on appeal, those local planning authorities who boldly refuse schemes because of poor design? Now that would be an interesting development.
Time for an explanation
The September issue of the Town and Country Planning Association's regular magazine contained an intriguing article by Tony Hall, a member of the association's policy council. He is professor of planning at Anglia University and a local councillor and member of Chelmsford Borough Council's planning committee. So he is involved in the debate about the demand for new housing on a number of fronts.
"It is as though I inhabit two entirely different worlds that do not comprehend each other," he writes.
"The peculiar characteristic of the controversy is the absence of any pressure whatsoever at the local level for additional dwellings. On almost all other issues local politicians are subject to lobbying for and against; on housing, the pressure for new dwellings comes solely from central government, and the pressure against is local and overwhelming. It covers all political allegiances and applies equally well to council estates as to expensive suburbs. No local councillor could hope to get elected on a platform supporting more housing, as there is no electoral group to turn for support.
"On the other hand, all the dwellings built for sale are readily sold, demonstrating that the demand for new housing is real enough. It is the contrast between the take-up of new houses and the lack of call for them from the public that needs explanation".
Hall notes that urban dwellers are every bit as opposed to new development as those in the countryside, and the hostility "is not confined to those directly affected".
The public appears totally and genuinely perplexed about why there should be any need for any more dwellings, says Hall. "Furthermore, they can see no areas of spare capacity where they could be located. All the roads, trains and the buses are full to overflowing, and local hospitals and schools cannot cope with demand; and neither are they aware of any mass building programme to provide additional roads, railways, hospitals and schools. These concerns are more urban than rural and relate to impact beyond the immediate vicinity of new development".
To date ministers have been largely mute on addressing this conundrum. Time for Lord Falconer to get explicit, then? I think so. It's long overdue.
Finally... a little bit of development plan history has occured. The Leeds Unitary Development Plan has finally been formally adopted. It prompted record objections and the longest-ever local plan inquiry.
Source
Building Homes
