Government has an ‘ambition’ for National Model Design Codes to enable a more ‘positive’ and speedier planning approval process by bringing engagement, discussion and focus of what is going to happen right up front. The new codes – being piloted across the UK, with more to follow – may also help to ‘demystify’ the plan-making process, even if local authorities are facing issues over skills and resources in making them work.

Those were some of the key findings from Planning’s Latest: National Model Design Codes, a webinar run by NLA at which Sarah Allan, the head of architecture at the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities was the keynote speaker. ‘It certainly makes sense that if you’re taking the engagement and the discussion and the focus on what is going to happen in an area and bringing it right up front in the process to align with the plan-making stage’, she said. ‘Hopefully it will be a more positive process, and therefore it can be faster’.

Allan had earlier presented the ‘fast-paced journey’ her department was on and broader ambitions in relation to design and placemaking with some of the lessons that have been drawn from the National Model Design Code thus far. The Levelling Up White Paper, said Allan, emphasised the role of local design codes to ‘support how we think about our places’ and how communities can be engaged to bring out the value of neighbourhoods. 

The National Planning Policy Framework provides this ambition more clearly, while the National Model Design Code represents ‘an important point of departure in talking about place’ and toolkit for local authorities to shape the future of their place thinking. 

Engaging with communities is key, both face to face and through digital tools, said Allan, but although the guidance sets out specific illustrations, they are a ‘template’ rather than anything rigid. A pilot programme with 14 local authorities established that the document’s engagement methods proved useful, but some of the terminology was deemed ‘complicated’ and unclear, and many local authorities lacked all the in-house skills and resources needed to produce codes documents. But political buy-in was also felt to be very important, along with local politicians engaging more people in the process. The department is now going to run further testing to produce design codes with organisations, local authorities and neighbourhood planning groups, added Allan.

The webinar also heard from Jane Manning of Allies and Morrison, who spoke about the concept of using characterisation studies to develop design codes, avoiding the preservation of places ‘in aspic’. ‘The Holy Grail is promoting character and context-led design’, she said, emphasising that choosing the right scale to apply to codes was crucial, along with the language used all the while being mindful expectations of the community. ‘Codes have to allow places to evolve’, said Manning. ‘They have to shape the next chapter of the story’. 

Matias Piazza of Farrells and Tara Gbolade of Gbolade Design Studio took the audience through their work on the Hatcham and Ilderton Road pilot design code in Southwark near the Old Kent Road. The main task was bringing character and identity in the area, said Piazza, on a fragmented site with many stakeholders, while Gbolade stressed how much consultation with local people provided a ‘deep dive into the area’. The concerns of its residents and businesses was at the heart of the process. 

Finally, head of regeneration for the Old Kent Road area at Southwark, Colin Wilson said that the local authority had tried to ‘mainstream the design code idea’ in the borough’s plan policy to make things more ‘fruitful and simple for everyone’. It was important that politicians buy in to the proposals, Wilson agreed, and to address cultural issues in local authorities so that many teams are involved seamlessly and actively. But the process of engagement is ‘incredibly resource and time-heavy’. ‘It’s easily underestimated how much of your time you can spend’, said Wilson. ‘But it’s a terrible false economy not to invest in that’.