Housing Design Quality: Through Policy, Guidance and Review

This book directly addresses the major planning debate of our time - the delivery and quality of new housing development. As pressure for new housing development in England increases, a widespread desire to improve the design of the resulting residential environments becomes ever more apparent with increasing condemnation of the standard products of the volume housebuilders. In recent years central government has come to accept the need to deliver higher quality living environments, and the important role of the planning system in helping to raise design standards. Housing Design Quality focuses on this role and in particular on how the various policy instruments available to public authorities can be used in a positive manner to deliver higher quality residential developments. Part one of the book provides the theoretical and policy context for the in-depth research to follow. Debates on housing design and planning control are explored, alongside an in-depth review of government guidance and an exploration of the key theoretical constructs prescribed for effective design control process. Part two constitutes the empirical heart of the work and examines current practice and innovation in the control of residential design. The result of a country-wide survey and content analysis of residential design policy and guidance is next discussed as a means to review mainstream practice and the priorities of planning authorities in attempting to influence residential design quality. A range of innovative experiences in delivering housing design quality through planning action is examined. These are supplemented throughout the book by case studies on which the analysis is based. The final part of the book offers a detailed agenda for delivering housing design quality. It assesses the latest and complimentary policy initiatives from Central Government on residential design and concludes with a look to the future.