皇家华人

This new project looked again at the question of urban design skills in local authorities across England.

Overview

In 2017 the Place Alliance conducted a survey of urban design skills in local authorities across England, the first such survey since 2003. It concluded that: 鈥淯rban design skills and capacity within local planning authorities are woefully low and declining 鈥� Critical gaps now exist within local planning authorities, including the ability to produce proactive design guidance in-house with a focus on positively shaping the future of places.鈥� The Housing Design Audit for England that followed three years later concluded that the design of new housing developments in England remained overwhelmingly 鈥榤ediocre鈥� or 鈥榩oor鈥�, with three quarters of the 142 schemes surveyed falling into those categories. The two are strongly related.

This new project looked again at the question of urban design skills in local authorities, the lack of which numerous reports over many years, including that of the Building Better Building Beautiful Commission highlighted as a key barrier to raising the general standard of our built environment across the country. The resulting report summarises the findings of a short survey of urban design skills and approaches within England鈥檚 local planning authorities, and how they have changed over time.

Reviewing the evidence, it was possible to conclude that whilst urban design and related skills in local authorities have stabilised, they remain at a low ebb and far below where they need to be in order to address the ambitious national agenda on raising the design quality of new development. Signs of the growing use of design review and design codes are positive, but recruitment of design officers into local government remains challenging, proactive community engagement in design is minimal, and design related training remains basic.

At the current rate of change it will take until 2077 to have at least one urban design officer in every local planning authority in England. This is the critical public sector design deficit.

This project ran from March 2021 to June 2021.

People

Professor Matthew Carmona (Lead PI), The Bartlett School of Planning
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Valentina Giordano, The Bartlett School of Planning
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Funder

Urban Design Group

Outputs

Carmona M & Giordano V (2021) The Design Deficit, Design skills and design governance approaches in English planning authorities, London, Place Alliance & Urban Design Group,

Related links

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