Beauty in the built environment: the role of neighbourhood planning
Housing and Planning Minister Gavin Barwell joined a fringe meeting at Conservative conference to discuss beauty; its role in both the built environment and the natural environment.
Housing and Planning Minister Gavin Barwell said that the current focus of the debate on housing “is on quantity” and warned of the severe consequences of governments from all parties not building sufficient homes, which has led to what he referred to as “intergenerational inequality”.
He said that when he was appointed as Housing and Planning Minister in July 2016 he was given a clear brief by the Prime Minister to “get this country building the homes that we need to build”.
Barwell added that he was a “passionate believer” in neighbourhood planning and that this needed to be embraced by all communities so they have a say in the new developments in their area, and not just by more settled and affluent areas. "Engaging people early in planning process is key, evidence shows it is enabling more housebuilding"
The minister said: “I am a very, very strong believer in Mayor Giuliani’s broken windows theory” that people respond very strongly to the area they live in and therefore if communities become neglected and run down then social cohesion often quickly breaks down too.
Duncan Sim from Respublica, chairing the event, spoke about the work of Respublica’s Backing Beauty Commission and especially how to ensure that beauty and community engagement were “at the heart of the planning system and public policy making more broadly”. He said a previous report by the Commission had called for beauty “to be reintroduced as the language of public space” and he also supported giving communities and local authorities more powers over developments in their areas.
Beccy Speight from the Woodland Trust reflected on the themes for the conference of 'a society that works for everyone and an economy that works for everyone'.
"Actually we need an environment that works for everyone aswell". She added that she felt if trees did not exist someone would probably invent them given the range of benefits they provide and also how relatively cheap they are to plant and maintain.
She added that in this urban planning context, beauty “is something everybody can relate to”. And she mentioned the Woodland Trust’s toolkit, which is for communities to use when they come together to create a neighbourhood plan, and to ensure that trees are a significant component of the plan.
She mentioned the 50,000 responses the Woodland Trust has received as part of its consultation on ancient woodland and why it matters to people. She added: “These trees are wonderful, beautiful things and stand for something in our cultural history and stand for a sense of place”.
Speight spoke about the importance of street trees in modern, urban residential settings, which she stressed are cheap to plant and have additional benefits to a community in terms of urban drainage systems and improving air quality. She also cited the Woods on Your Doorstep programme run by the Woodland Trust to offer advice on protecting local woodlands under threat, and spoke about the importance of communities and especially young people having access to woodlands and space outside to develop a love and appreciation of nature and the outdoors
Oliver Colvile MP said he was “passionate about the quality of design and new build,” adding that as someone who had previously worked in the development sector before his election, he was concerned about current residential building standards: “Frankly I think some of it is pretty shoddy”.
He wanted to avoid local authorities or private construction firms “building the slums of tomorrow”.
Colvile was clear that local communities and property developers needed quality advice from a local authority surveyor to ensure plans were in keeping with a community and said that developers needed to engage with a community before pressing ahead with plans: “good community consultation is crucial to carry the community with you”. He also argued that not enough developments had taken proper account of tree planting and green space: "Green space is incredibly important". He said that whilst he represented an inner-city seat in Plymouth, he was "delighted" that it had so much greenery around it, including Devonport Park which had recently been restored
The minister said people had to move away from thinking that dense development was bad and always meant tower blocks in cities. He said the borough with the highest property density in the UK was Kensington and Chelsea, which had mostly beautiful architecture and tasteful developments.
Beccy Speight said: "We can do a lot more I think as well around getting trees and woods and green infrastructure put into new development as well"
Julia Unwin, from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, spoke about the great foresight of her organisation’s founder who constructed beautiful housing for the working people he employed in York as early as 1904.
She addressed the importance of the concept of beauty and added: “You know a neglected high street when you see one, and the message to citizens is that they matter less if they live in a less beautiful area”.
Sue Chalkley from Hastoe Housing Association spoke about her organisation’s work in building bespoke housing in rural areas, saying many rural communities are “smart and mature” and had contacted Hastoe about setting up community land trusts or about drawing up their neighbourhood plans.
She was hopeful that with the correct local consultations with communities and landowners, Hastoe provides landowners with “the sort of homes their grandchildren would be proud of”.
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