Handbook: Workshop 1 (PDF) - DDQ - Delivering Design Quality

There are three tiers to the planning policy framework:National Policy1. National PolicyPPS1 sets out the Government’s over-arching planningpolicies and establishes how it wishes to see sustainabledevelopment delivered through the planning system. Itemphasises that design is at the heart of the planningsystem (paras 33-39) and states that ‘good design isindivisible from good planning’. PPS1 is supported bya range of good practice guides. The Commission forArchitecture and the Built Environment (CABE) also has awealth of best practice guidance publications, such as theUrban Design Compendium.Skills Training 2010Other planning policy statements relate to particularthematic policy areas that have a strong bearing on designoutcomes, including:• PPS3: Housing, which emphasises that “good designis fundamental to the development of high quality newhousing” and is supported by the companion guideBy Design: Better Places to Live. Another guide SaferPlaces: The Planning System and Crime Preventionalso provides advice on how to design with safety andsecurity in mind.• PPS4: Planning for Sustainable Economic Growth,which covers certain employment-related development(B Use Classes), public and community uses and maintown centre uses. Policies EC2 and EC3 are concernedwith creating high quality environments and successfulcentres. Policy EC10 establishes the factors to be takeninto account when determining planning applications,which includes “whether the proposal secures ahigh quality and inclusive design which takes theopportunities available for improving the character andquality of the area and the way it functions”. The guidethat accompanied its predecessor PPG6 ‘Going totown: Improving town centre access’ remains a usefulsource book.2. Regional PolicyThe Yorkshire and Humber Plan is the Regional SpatialStrategy to 2026 (published May 2008). This establishesthat a good quality environment is critical to the social,economic and environmental well-being of the Region. Itis supported by two companion guides:• Better Places to Live in South Yorkshire: A guide toresidential development (which is currently beingupdated); and• Better Places to Work in South Yorkshire: A best practiceguide for office and industrial development3. Local PolicyThere are a variety of tools that can be applied at the locallevel:• Policy• Area Action Plans• Supplementary Planning Documents• Development Frameworks• Design Codes& Sustainability StandardsDDQ training 2010 workbook