Design matters

Quality places and urban design

Design matters to us. One of our seven corporate priorities in the corporate strategy 2011-17 is to 'protect and enhance the environment'. Ensuring high quality in the design and management of new and existing places is an important part of meeting this priority. To demonstrate our commitment, we signed a quality places charter (2 MB) with other local authorities in South Hampshire in October 2010.

Design matters at a large scale, such as the new community north of Fareham, and at a very small scale such as the quality of the materials used for a house extension or for a new shopfront or signage in Fareham town centre. We have adopted design policies to help ensure that new development will be designed in a sustainable way and follows urban design principles. Our design policies are set out under CS15-17 in the Fareham core strategy development plan document (3 MB).

The Government has placed a high priority on achieving high quality design through the national planning policy framework (NPPF) which was published in March 2012. It expects local authorities to achieve high quality design and a good standard of amenity for all existing and future occupants of land and buildings. It also regards good design as a key aspect of sustainable development, as indivisible from good planning and as making a positive contribution to making places better for people. It recommends refusing permission for developments of poor design that fail to take opportunities to improve the character and quality of an area and the way it functions.

In future, we will be developing more detailed guidance to support the Core Strategy policies and they will be adopted as a supplementary planning document. For now, there is a number of good practice guidance documents to help inform decision makers, developers and local people in creating quality development and places:

• Urban design compendium  
• By design – urban design in the planning system: towards better practice  
• By design – better places to live  
• The councillor's guide to urban design  
• Building for life: delivering great places to live  
• Manual for streets  
• Hampshire companion document to manual for streets 
• Landscape checklist for new development (21 MB)
• Biodiversity by design  
• Design and access statements: how to write, read and use them  
• Safer places – the planning system and crime prevention  
• Planning and access for disabled people: a good practice guide  

Contacts

By telephone on 01329 236100 or email at: planningpolicy@fareham.gov.uk