Is design becoming more important in planning appeals?

Quality as well as quantity is a persistent theme in the Government’s messages to planners.  After the introduction of The National Design Guide in October 2019, we speculated in a previous blog that it would be cited with increasing frequency in appeals.  We put this to the test below.

Impact of ‘Planning for the Future’ on design

Last year’s direction of travel is repeated in the Government’s Policy Paper “Planning for the Future” published on 6th August which promises, “a new focus on design and sustainability” with a “fast-track for beauty”.  This is to be achieved in the short term by updates to the National Planning Policy Framework and in the longer term by encouraging locally produced Design Guides and Design Codes. 

With regard to design, ‘Planning for the Future’ is more evolution than revolution.  Last year’s change to National Planning Practice Guidance (NPPG) on Design encouraged LPAs to produce their own Design Guides and Design Codes to add local detail using the structure provided by the National Design Guide.  There does not seem to have been a stampede of local planning authorities taking up this challenge so far, but this may change if development management policies are set nationally in future as ‘Planning for the Future’ proposes.

Appeals citing Design Guides

Last year we tested how many appeals referred to the National Design Guide over a ten-week period and were surprised that only 8 appeals did so.  A repeat of this keyword search for the ten weeks ending 23rd August found 22 appeals specifically referring to the "National Design Guide", which although higher than last year is still surprisingly low.  It equates to only 0.7% of the 2,993 appeal decisions logged on AppealFinder over the ten week period 15th June - 23rd August. 

Perhaps, we thought, Inspectors are simply referring to the National Planning Policy Framework’s section on Design instead?  We tested the keyword “Chapter 12” and were surprised that only 41 appeals (1.4%) over the past ten weeks have included this specific term.  More encouragingly, 311 appeals mentioned the term “Design Guide” in relation to locally produced guidance and SPDs.  This is 10.4% of the 2,993 appeal decisions over the ten week period, slightly higher than last year when the same search found 8% of appeals included the term “Design Guide” in their Decision.  Perhaps the Government’s efforts to highlight design quality is slowly producing fruit.

The majority of appeals refer to design

While only a small proportion of appeal decisions make specific reference to the “National Design Guide” or a local “Design Guide”, this should not obscure the fact that good design is a significant consideration in the majority of appeals.  The keyword “design” was mentioned in 2,115 out of the 2,993 appeal decisions issued in the ten weeks to 23rd August, namely in 70.1% of all appeal decisions during this time.

Identifying specific design issues in appeals

You can delve into specific aspects of design using our keyword search to quickly identify relevant appeals.  For example, “separation distance” “+overlooking” (use inverted commas if you want to search for a phrase and + if you require all the words).  To narrow down your search geographically, use the filters for region, authority or keyword.  To test it out, use the search on our Home page.