Delivering well designed, beautiful and safe places
From "Strategic Objectives"
Go to the project
I am afraid that recent developments have neither been well designed or beautiful. Will we honestly look back on the building done so far this century with any pride? I doubt it. Recent strategic developments in Twigworth and Innsworth are a case in point.
The problem is that developers have been allowed to get away with far too much by falling back on affordability and frankly because of a lack of proper supervision by planning departments. However, beautiful developments need not necessarily be unduly expensive and given the profits being made by the big home builders they have plenty of margin within which to operate. I recommend the following:
Insist on a set of design criteria from the outset which must be agreed at the time of the granting of outline planning permission and from which the developer cannot deviate.
Reduce density and give people some breathing space.
Reinforce planning departments with empowered design consultants who can hold developers to account.