Reform four: Plan a park

Every new development should have a park or playground, with local authority planners given the power to demand this.

When you buy a new home, you should be satisfied your house is part of a well-designed estate.

That doesn't mean trendy fixtures and fittings. ‘We're interested in whether kitchens overlook parks or playing fields where parents can see their children playing,' says Matt Bell, Director of Campaigns for the Commission for Architecture and the Build Environment (CABE). It advises the Government on urban design and architecture, and has recently condemned the standard of new developments, describing the quality of 29 per cent of them as so low that they should never have been granted planning permission in the first place.

It's a haunting reminder of the estates built in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s that provided poor quality housing, blind spots that became no-go areas and few facilities. ‘Homebuyers should focus on the neighbourhood as a whole,' says Matt. ‘After all, you can always change a work surface, but if you don't like the neighbourhood, you'll be stuck with it.'Every new development should have a well-managed park or playground, with local authority planners given the power to demand this.

According to CABE research, the things that make new homeowners happy include good road layouts and public space. Equally, people living near a proposed new estate are less likely to object if they believe it's going to be properly designed.

CABE is calling on local authority planners to get tougher: ‘When you're under pressure to build three million new homes by 2020,' says Matt, ‘and a building company is lobbying you aggressively to approve their plans, life is easier if you just say "yes". But planning officers and committees need to be stronger. They need to say "no".'

Builders, too, have a part to play. Most have signed up to the Building for Life standard, a benchmark for well-designed housing in England, which asks questions like, ‘Does the development have easy access to public transport? Is it close to schools, play areas or shops? Do public spaces and pedestrian routes feel safe?' But unfortunately, says Matt, ‘Builders aren't always measuring their development against these 20 criteria.'

As a first step, House Beautiful asked Yvette Cooper to give a guarantee that every new development should have a well-managed park or playground, with local authority planners given the power to demand this.

She said: ‘It's critical we don't just invest in bricks and mortar - we need to invest in communities, too.

‘New planning guidelines, introduced last April, have put strong emphasis on the need for parks, play areas and gardens. We are now asking chief planning officers to take into consideration the needs of children when reviewing an application. Local councils have to implement the regulations and developers who don't take these considerations seriously may lose applications on appeal. Councils are also about to be given powers to raise funds from developers, through a Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL), to pay for play areas.'

To read more about the House Beautiful Built to Last campaign, click here...

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