ROOF Blog

A consultation on future core housing design and sustainability standards has been published by the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA). It aims to stimulate a debate on how to prioritise the quality of new housing in a challenging financial climate. It seeks views on a series of options for how the national housing and regeneration agency might design and phase in new standards and apply them to its programme. Partners and other interested parties are asked to comment on the proposals and help shape further development of the HCA’s core design and sustainability standards.

The Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) has shortlisted 265 bids totalling nearly £550m in round two of its Kickstart housing delivery programme.

Shortlisted bidders include a mix of RSLs along with national and local developers aiming to unlock up to 22,000 homes across the country.

Bidding opened in September with the criteria that eligible schemes should be housing-led with a minimum of 50 homes (fewer in rural areas or if the scheme delivers to Code for Sustainable Homes Level 5 or 6) and that sites should have detailed planning consent in place or the ability to achieve this by the end of March 2010.

Sir Bob Kerslake, HCA chief executive, said: ‘Kickstart continues to be a crucial component in maintaining momentum in the house building industry.’

A due diligence process will now follow, which will look in detail at value for money, design, financial viability and risk, as well as an assessment of quick delivery.

The locations of four new eco-towns were announced yesterday – Rackheath, Norfolk; north west Bicester, Oxfordshire; Whitehall Bordon, east Hampshire; and China Clay near St Austell in Cornwall. Communities and Local Government said the government would provide £60 million in funding to provide infrastructure to support the towns and a further £5 million would be made available for councils to work on proposals for a ‘second wave’ of six more towns. Construction is not expected to start until 2016.

The Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) has claimed that designing eco-towns to be more inclusive would cost no more if it was factored into the planning process early on, and has produced guidance on how to it. It says that eco-towns should provide for all inhabitants regardless of age, disability, faith or gender, and avoid creating barriers that prevent them from becoming part of their communities. A spokesperson for TCPA said it was essential for each town to be socially as well as environmentally sustainable.

New publicly funded homes built in the London will have to comply with minimum internal space standard major Boris Johnson said. The London housing design guide established six key areas of design that new development will have to incorporate from 2011, including minimum space standards around 10 per cent higher than the Parker Morris benchmark, better integration of developments with the space around them and to reduce crime; and a greater mix of dwelling types to care for London’s diverse living needs.

Plans to build a 40-foot tower for animals above a Leeds canal have been unveiled. The ‘man-made tree’ will provide a habitat for bats, birds, butterflies, insects and foxes. The design was chosen in a competition held because, the organisers said: ‘birdsong had all but vanished’ from the area.

A study by the North West regional design panel has found that quality design can help weather the economic storm, and could even add up to 20 per cent in rents and capital value.  The research urges planners and developers to pay greater attention to ‘cost-neutral’ aspects of good design, looking at the ‘whole life’ costs of a development, and ensure resources are targeted to add value. The study added that sustainability and energy efficiency were becoming increasingly significant factors in competitive markets.

No eco-town will make the government’s shortlist unless they meet the highest standards, Margaret Beckett has insisted. She said that they still all need work to meet the green standards set by the government. She added she was hopeful that 10 schemes would make the mark but that if they do not they would not be approved.

Communities secretary Hazel Blears launched a strategy to improve design standards in new public buildings. She said that badly designed estates and low quality neighbourhoods ‘encourage crime, undermine communities, deter investment, spoil the environment and cost a fortune in the long term’. She added that good design was not a luxury that can be dropped during economic difficulties, and the government urged councils, social housing providers and developers to put good planning, local character and high quality design at the heart of development.

The Prince of Wales is expected to tell Britain’s leading architects that communities should be integral to their work, and the needs of locals should be put forward, as he speaks at this year’s Royal Institute of British Architects lecture tonight. He will suggest three principles that should be followed to achieve the goal – a grounding in precedent, better understanding of developments in the local community and incorporating the best of modern technology. A number of architects have called on the industry to boycott the lecture, after Prince Charles intervened in the Chelsea Barracks development in London.