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Housing Quality & Design

What Is It?

Essex is an area of high housing demand, due to its proximity to London which is causing pressure on the quality and quantity of housing being delivered across the County.

Through the Essex Planning Officers Association all Essex Local Planning Authorities are collaborating to improve the quality of housing development in Essex through establishment of a pan-Essex innovation and quality project.

What Are We Doing?

To help deliver the Essex Design Guide, Essex County Council has set up an Essex Quality Panel, Essex Planning & Viability Protocol and established the Home Quality Mark in Essex.

Operating countywide the guidance materials and initiatives outlined on the pages in this section and in the attached link will provide support, advice and additional direction to all 14 Essex LPA’s and developers to enhance the quality, affordability and provision of infrastructure in new developments. This work seeks to complement and enhance the aspirations of district councils for the establishment of high-quality and vibrant communities throughout Essex by ensuring sufficient resource is available to support the delivery of good quality, well built, affordable development.

Quality Design Place-based approach

This work is about more than just quality design; it seeks to bring about a step-change in how public and private sector collaborate to create the distinctive places that people want to live in. In addition to enhancing the pace of housing delivery, it is equally important that the new places we create are of an excellent standard and which are great places in which to work, live and enjoy.

There has always existed an inherent tension between being prescriptive on style, scale, density and form to protect the character and context of an area whilst alternatively being flexible based on local need. With the quality design agenda coupled with local plan making underway in Essex, the Essex Planning Officers Association hope to create a more holistic planning and design system that will;

Ensure excellence in design across Essex
Create quality communities where people aspire to live.
Ensure the right level of infrastructure contribution is secured through the planning process.
Ensuring appropriate levels of affordable housing is delivered by developments, responding to the housing white paper and reducing the risk of homelessness.
Encourage investment and positive appetite
Responding to the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission and the changes in the NPPF (see latest factsheet below).

Urban Design Group – What developers really want

Essex Developers Group has been working with the Urban Design Group to help deliver good ‘pieces of town’ not housing estates, capturing valuable insights with recommendations.

Developers said it about telling a story with vision and rigour, creating a framework for others to deliver. A good designer can bring all the benefits together and manage through the delivery process. Especially where there is competing demands for different housing types, highway requirements etc.

However, often, there is a poor understanding of the development sector in terms of use of standard house types, managing supply and demand, shareholders’ profits whilst trying to deliver sustainable housing strategies.