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The National Planning Policy Framework and Community Led Design

Submitted by Sophia de Sousa

Yesterday, the final version of the new National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) was released. I would like to draw attention to three very simple points that Minister Greg Clark makes in his foreword to the document:

1.    Our standards of design can be so much higher.

2.    Planning must be a creative exercise in finding ways to enhance and improve the way we live our lives.

3.    This should be a collective exercise.

Community led design aims to do all of this, and the support that The Glass-House has given communities leading built environment projects over the past decade has been founded on these principles. We firmly believe that a participatory design process that places local people at the heart of changes to their neighbourhoods can lead to neighbourhoods that are more economically, environmentally and socially sustainable. With the right support, community led design and planning can lead to more creative and better informed solutions to local problems, and to places that are both functional and delightful.

However, let us be under no illusion that this is a quick simple process. In order to achieve great placemaking, the emerging neighbourhood plans will have to grapple with urban design principles and planning legislation, feeding them into an inclusive and participatory design and planning process. They will need to consider the social, economic and environmental impact of their plans in the short and long term. Their community will need to include those who live, work, study and play in the area.  It will need to consider and include local residents, businesses and government, as well as those who manage, maintain and service the area.  Each neighbourhood plan will have to fully understand and respond to issues around land ownership and to the local (social, historical, economic, environmental etc.) context. It must also consider how the neighbourhood links to and complements the neighbourhoods around it. Neighbourhood plans must begin with a thorough understanding of place, a collective vision for change and an informed and aspirational brief.

So Minister Clark, we agree with your declaration of the importance of design quality, achieved through a creative and collaborative process, as a means of improving quality of life. We hope that the application of this new National Planning Policy Framework, and in particular the presumption in favour of sustainable development, creates the space for inspired and inspiring design and planning by, with and for communities. And we hope that adequate time, resources and practical support will be made available to help make this happen.*

Read the whole National Planning Policy Framework document here


*The Department for Communities and Local Government made a commitment to providing up to £50 million until March 2015 to help make neighbourhood planning a success. As one of the organisations delivering the 'Supporting Communities and Neighbourhoods in Planning' programme this year we look forward to hearing more about how government intends to carry forward this commitment and to exploring how The Glass-House can work with DCLG and other partners to continue to support community led design and planning within our new National Planning Policy Framework.

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The Glass-House Debate Series 2011/2012: London

Submitted by Louise Dredge

Our final Glass-House Debate of the 2011/2012 series was held earlier this week with our partner Design Council Cabe providing the venue for a discussion on the topic ‘Community Led Design: what is it and does it work?’. With four dynamic and diverse speakers and an engaged audience the evening took us through the many issues and perspectives involved in any community led process.

Dave Smith of London CITIZENS and East London Community Land Trust (ELCLT) outlined his concept of community led design which he summarised as creation (not placation), ownership and management. The priority of ELCLT is to provide affordable housing the residents of East London, a massive challenge in the context of a major global city.  Agreeing with the difficulties faced by the ELCLT, property developer David Roberts of Igloo Regeneration injected what he declared was a “dose of realism” to proceedings, with the hypothesis that community led design is not viable. Roberts qualified this with an addendum that it cannot be a reality on publicly owned land in London because this is prime land that will always sell quickly (where there is a high return on investment with no long term approach).

Should we be despondent? A slide from Dave Smith's presentation.

Johanna Gibbons, a landscape architect who has long practiced deliberative planning in her work as part of the firm J & L Gibbons, gave numerous examples of green infrastructure projects she has been involved in where communities and their health and wellbeing have been at the heart of the whole process. As a key member of Southwark Council’s Planning Department, Alistair Huggett discussed some of the creative engagement techniques employed by planners, while acknowledging that their approach is largely community responsive design, as opposed to community led design.

Alistair Huggett, Framework & Implementation Manager with Southwark Council

 
Chair and Glass-House Chief Executive Sophia de Sousa was keen to explore the business case for community led design, questioning developer David Roberts and a developer audience member about why it makes good business sense for them to engage with communities in the design and planning process. David Roberts asserted that working with the community generates more value. Igloo Regeneration, according to David Roberts, takes a long term view of their investments and engaging with the community deals issues such as security concerns and identifies the right kind of development to carry out in the first place to ensure a sustainable, viable place emerges from the process.

Thoughts from audience members

The advent of Localism could not help but pervade the entire discussion with one audience member enquiring as to what each speaker hoped or desired from the Localism Act. Unsurprisingly, the issue of funding was raised as a key barrier to real community generated and community led processes. Johanna Gibbons pointed out that while new planning policy demands demonstrable community engagement there is no zone of funding allocated for this to occur, with Alistair giving the example of his own borough, where residents of Camberwell aspire to develop a neighbourhood plan but there are no funds available to support this. David Roberts also cautioned that community led design doesn’t fit the legal processes that we have at present in the UK.

Overall, the theory of Localism was welcomed but as one audience member affirmed, we will need a massive cultural change among local authorities, developers and communities that may take twenty years or more to occur. The following advice seems appropriate:

“As an organizer I start where the world is, as it is, not as I would like it to be. That we accept the world as it is does not in any sense weaken our desire to change it into what we believe it should be — it is necessary to begin where the world is if we are going to change it to what we think it should be.”

(From the book ‘Rules for Radicals’ by Saul Alinsky as quoted by Dave Smith)

Accepting our present reality, how can we collectively transform our future?

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Guest Blog: Building Consensus in Oxford on Leap Day!

Submitted by Stephen Smith

The Glass-House marked Leap-Day with a workshop at Cutteslowe Community Centre in Oxford. Chief Executive Sophia de Sousa was joined by Glass-House Enabler Stephen Smith of Wright & Wright Architects and research partners from the Open University.

Located at a seemingly commonplace residential edge; several complex contextual emerged – the sense of a gateway building to a Primary School and Children’s Centre; an expanse of parkland both adjacent to it and beyond the bypass footbridge to allotments; and the proximity of the site of some nationally significant cartographic scars – the spike-topped Cutteslowe Walls – that previously divided streets between Council Houses and Private Ownership.

The group were engaged in a series of activities to begin to evolve a project vision for the transformation of the Centre. Discussion was animated and thoughts were articulated about creating a warmer and welcoming threshold, cross generational activity and planning and an understanding about further outreach and engagement.

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Lots to learn from Neighbourhoods Study Tour in Sheffield

Submitted by Hannah Gibbs

South Owlerton in Sheffield made a fantastic case study for us to visit on a Study Tour we ran as part of the Building Community programme – supporting communities to become ‘neighbourhood planning’ ready. A number of community groups came with us to hear from South Owlerton Area Regeneration (SOAR) and tour their huge array of projects including a library, a community centre, an enterprise centre, a park and street improvements.

SOAR was originally set up by community activists and has done a huge amount of work to try and make South Owlerton which suffered from multiple deprivation a better place to live.

Groups involved in neighbourhood planning may find these learning points from the day useful:

• Projects need leadership - Each neighbourhood in the area was designated a support worker throughout the regeneration. This really helped to drive projects
• Spend time and money on building quality - SOAR decided early on to spend a bit more money on their buildings to give them distinctive features, giving the area some character. Some residents were unsure about this and felt it would be better to ‘get more building for their money’ but with hindsight, they are pleased they made this decision as the buildings they now have are of high quality
• Speak to others! - In developing the SOAR Enterprise Centre, the group spoke to other Enterprise Centres in Yorkshire & Humber and this really helped to inform their design brief
• Involve young people in a positive way – Young people in South Owlerton were involved in developing local parks and instead of vandalising those parks, were encouraged with an artist to paint graffiti to decorate them
• Work together – We felt that much of the successful regeneration in this area was due to a close working relationship with the council and others

Many thanks to SOAR for hosting us, to Sarah Hollingworth from Architecture 00:/ for  being the Enabler (providing architectural and urban design expertise on the day) and all the groups who came along.

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