Councils in England are failing to use new powers to block shoddy housing schemes
Whilst most of the examples here are urban I can think of some very bad rural examples. This story tells us:
A survey revealed last year that 41% of councils do not employ any urban designers, and 76% lack access to any advice on architecture.
The change to the country’s planning rules was part of a package of measures that ministers claimed would ensure new housing was “beautiful and well-designed”. The government is setting up an “Office for Place” to help “communities encourage development they find beautiful, and refuse what they find ugly”.
The report, published by the UCL-based Place Alliance, highlights 12 schemes rejected on design grounds since last July. The inspectorate found proposals for an unattractive block of 15 flats on the site of a demolished car park in Crawley in West Sussex would offer “unsatisfactory living conditions”. Some flats had limited natural light and the outside spaces were close to roads and railway lines. Others lacked privacy as windows were next to people passing on a walkway and close to cars queueing on a traffic gyratory system.
The inspectorate also backed Braintree district council’s efforts to block two estates on the edges of villages in Essex, where developers were trying to squeeze in large numbers of houses, jarring with houses nearby. Officials also turned down an appeal relating to five tower blocks on the former Westferry newspaper printworks site in east London. It was ruled the scheme – which led to a row about media mogul Richard Desmond’s contact with ministers tasked with planning decisions – would harm appreciation of the Greenwich world heritage site.