Supplementary Planning Guidance
Fareham Town Centre Design Guide
Introduction
1. Good design and quality are an integral part of creating places and environments in which people want to live, work and spend their leisure time. There has been an increasing emphasis on design, both at national and local levels. Good design is seen as a key part of the government's Urban Renaissance agenda and the regeneration of towns and cities. There is a significant level of government policy and advice towards enabling the achievement of good design and quality environments.
2. In Fareham, achieving good design and quality environments is a fundamental part of Local Plan policies and corporate objectives. Design Champions at Member and officer level help to promote the importance of design as part of service delivery.
3. This Design Guide is part of enabling and promoting good design.
The Purpose of the Design Guide
4. In accordance with Section 54a of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, decisions on planning applications shall be made in accordance with the policies contained in the Development Plan (comprising the Hampshire Structure Plan at the county strategic level and Fareham Borough Local Plan Review 2000 (FBLPR) at the local Borough level) unless material planning considerations indicate otherwise.
5. The purpose of this Design Guide is to help to provide clarity for owners, developers and decision makers in relation to the interpretation of policies contained in the FBLPR, the current adopted Local Plan. In particular, policies that seek to ensure that development is sympathetic to or in keeping with the character of the locality.
6. This Design Guide provides character assessments of the different areas that make up the Town Centre and indicates the important natural and man-made elements of each area which are integral to its character. The identification of these characteristics is intended to provide a basis for the design of new development and as a mechanism to assess its impact.
The Town Centre Boundary
7. For the purposes of this Design Guide the boundary of the Town Centre encompasses a wider area than the Town Centre Boundary defined on the FBLPR Proposals Map. It covers more peripheral residential areas within the central part of the town centre and is shown in Plan 1. Further explanation is contained in Methodology on page 6.
Planning Policy Context
Fareham Borough Local Plan Review 2000
8. Chapter 3 of the FBLPR deals primarily with the impact of development proposals under the heading 'Development Guidelines'. In particular, Policies DG3, DG4, DG5 and DG6. These policies place an emphasis on development being in keeping with or respectful of the character of the locality and are reproduced in full in Appendix 1.
Policy DG3
9. This is concerned with the impact of new development on the area surrounding a site. It is concerned with ensuring that development is in keeping with an area's character including streetscene, skyline building line, scale, layout, density, form, height, mass and space around and between buildings.
Policy DG4
10. This is concerned with protecting important site characteristics such as important historic features, natural landform landscape views into and out of the site.
Policy DG5
11. This is concerned with design in general and seeks to ensure a high standard of design as well as materials and design elements sympathetic to local character where appropriate.
Policy DG6
12. This is concerned with landscape design and seeks to ensure that the design respects the character and appearance of the site and any adjoining spaces and buildings.
Extract from Appendix 6 of the Local Plan
13. Appendix 6 of the Local Plan contains the Council's Residential Design Guidelines which contain a number of technical requirements. However, it is underpinned by an emphasis upon new development reflecting the character of its immediate surroundings, with due regard for scale, space about buildings, density and design.
Crime Reduction Through Design - Supplementary Planning Guidance (February 2000)
14. This provides guidance on designing new development and environments which help to prevent crime.
Planning Policy Guidance Notes
15. Other material planning considerations relevant to the assessment and determination of planning applications include the latest Planning Policy Guidance Notes (PPG) and best practice advice. Planning Policy Guidance Note 1 entitled 'General Policy and Principles' (PPG1) and 3:'Housing', lend considerable weight to the objective of securing quality design in new development, particularly with regard to the context of development. In addition, PPG 15, PPG13 and PPG6 also provide guidance on matters of design. Appendix 2 contains relevant extracts from the PPG's.
PPG1 - General Policy and Principles
16. PPG1 sets the basis for the consideration of design in the planning system. It highlights the importance of context and carrying out character area assessments. It identifies the contribution of urban design as a basis for performance criteria and its relationship with character and development form.
PPG3 - Housing
17. PPG3 demonstrates a commitment to quality in design and the creation of attractive residential areas. It indicates that new housing development of whatever scale should not be viewed in isolation and that considerations of design and layout must be informed by the wider context. It suggests that there is compatibility between efficient development and ensuring that the character of a locality is respected.
PPG 15 - Planning and the historic environment
18. The guidance seeks to ensure detailed control of the appearance and architectural integrity of buildings and spaces within conservation areas and for listed buildings. There is an emphasis on the importance of the appropriate use of materials and design having regard to the character of an area and individual buildings.
PPG6 - Town Centres and Retailing
19. PPG6 seeks to ensure good design within town centres and highlights the importance of a high quality environment to ensure that they are to continue to be places where people wish to come.
PPG13 - Transport
20. The guidance seeks to ensure that new development is located to create sustainable patterns of development and ensuring that places are connected with each other. These connections should be designed to provide the appropriate conditions to encourage walking and cycling and the use of public transport and to put people before the ease of traffic movement.
Best Practice Advice
By Design - Urban Design in the Planning System: towards better practice. [Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment - May 2000]
21. By Design is a companion guide to all PPG's and provides more detailed guidance on achieving good design. In particular it seeks to create an aid to the understanding of the principles of what makes for a successful place and how new development should contribute towards this aim. This is done through describing the objectives of urban design. These objectives are based on analysis of the common characteristics of streets, spaces, villages, towns and cities that are proven to be successful. A copy of the objectives with a corresponding definition is contained in Appendix 3.
22. The guide also identifies what are considered to be the eight most important characteristics of the physical form of development. These are contained in Appendix 4 and have been used as the basis of the Character Area Assessments contained in Annex A.
Better Places to Live: A companion guide to PPG3
[Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment - Sept 2001]
23. This guide deals specifically with residential design and has been developed from the approach of 'By Design' in terms of the consideration of context and character and the pursuit of the 'objectives of urban design'.
24. There is clearly government and local commitment to ensuring that quality in the design of new development is a high priority and fundamental to the determination of planning applications. Advice is provided through various documents to create the basis for ensuring quality in design. In particular, through pursuing the objectives of urban design as a performance measure, but having regard to the wider context and character of an area.
Methodology
25. This Design Guide defines Fareham Town Centre as a wider central area than identified in the FBLPR to include more peripheral residential areas as well. The FBLPR area is defined essentially for retail and economic development policy purposes. This Guide seeks to define a central area based on physical and locational characteristics. For these reasons the Design Guide town centre is principally defined by the physical and visual severance caused by the major transport infrastructure that is the railway and Eastern /Western Way to the south and west; by Wallington Way to the east and, to the north, a combination of the open space and tree-lined boundaries of Park Lane Recreation Ground and development to the north of Southampton Road and the landscaped embankment and allotments to the east of Wickham Road. This area is shown in Plan 1.
26. This central area has been sub-divided into different character areas defined largely by the age and original function of development. A plan showing the character areas is shown in Plan 2.
27. Each character area has been assessed and analysed to identify the important elements that help to define its character. The following elements were assessed and analysed, which are taken from the government's best practice guidance 'By Design':
- Layout: urban structure
- Layout: urban grain
- Density and mix
- Scale: height
- Scale: massing
- Appearance: details
28. Definitions of these terms can be found in Appendix 4.
29. The Character Area Assessments for each area are contained in Annex A.
How to Use the Design Guide
30. The fundamental purpose of this Design Guide is to help to create quality design as a decision maker or developer. This must involve identifying the extent to which new development, with regard to the eight characteristics of physical form, meet the objectives of urban design, in relation to the context of the site.
31. In order to appropriately assess a development proposal or the design of a new development, the starting point, from a planning perspective, is to fully understand the context of a site. Reference should therefore be made to the Character Assessments contained in Annex A. Depending on the scale and location of a development, one or more of the Character Assessments will need to be considered.
32. The eight characteristics of development form, as contained in Appendix 4, can then be used as a checklist or prompt for assessment or design to determine how well each aspect relates to the characteristics of the relevant Character Area. This approach does not mean that new development must be exactly the same as existing development in the Character Area.
33. At the same time, the urban design objectives, as contained in Appendix 3, need to be referred to in order to assess the performance of a design. This has been carried out for the existing areas and is also contained in Annex A.
34. The assessment or design of new development is an iterative process whereby the development form or emerging design is continuously assessed against the urban design objectives and the character of an area. See fig 1 below
Fig 1. Design as a continuous process
35. It should be recognised that not all of the urban design objectives can always be met to their fullest extent. Depending on the context, some objectives will be more important than others. Conversely, some of the characteristics of an existing area may not be valued or may perform poorly against the urban design objectives and as such should not be repeated in new development. This is a matter of judgement and it is anticipated that Officers will provide clarity and advice in the form of pre-application discussions or more formally within development, planning and/or design briefs for a particular development proposal.
Planning Applications
Pre-application discussion
36. Pre-application discussions with the Development Control Department and/or other relevant Officers are actively encouraged. Such discussions will be an important and fundamental element to the creation of quality in design. Developers will need to demonstrate that they have understood the character of the area within which a development is proposed, and how the development form of their proposal meets the objectives of urban design whilst respecting the Character Area.
37. Developers will be encouraged to discuss design concepts at the very earliest stages of the development process as possible to avoid lengthy and costly alterations in the future.
Supporting information
38. A Pre-application Scheme is being developed by the Development Control Department which will seek to identify the scope of pre-application discussions. It is anticipated that this will encourage developers to prepare sufficient information to enable a meaningful dialogue to commence at the earliest and most appropriate time.
39. The information listed below is likely to form part of pre-application discussions and the submission of planning applications. It should be noted that the level of detail will vary depending on the stage of pre-application discussions and the scale of the proposed development.
- A design statement which needs to indicate the design concept and illustrate the main aspects of development form, as identified in Appendix 2 [this is likely to be a pre-requisite to the registration of a planning application].
- Street composition drawings that show all units together which face onto the same street, including existing properties where applicable.
- A typical vertical section drawing through each property (where different), at a scale of 1:10.
- A materials schedule for all properties and structures, including carriageways, footways, bollards, seating and lighting.
- Sectional drawings through the site from north to south as well as east to west and indicating existing and proposed levels, including boundary treatments and trees.
- A site survey indicating existing and proposed levels.
- A landscape plan showing existing and proposed planting, together with a future maintenance schedule.
- A parking plan that identifies the space(s) allocated to each unit.
- An indication of the main use of the site together with any other ancillary use.
- Floor plans and elevations for each property.
40. The pre-application scheme, once adopted, will provide a more detailed and comprehensive list of requirements. This is due to be adopted in the summer of 2004.
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