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Town Design Statements - Pro's & Con's
A Town Design Statement (TDS) is a document that sets out the kind of physical development that a Town (ie either a Town Council or a Community Regeneration Partnership) would like to see in future.
They often focus mainly on new housing but can include the public realm (inc the streetscene).
Town Design Statements (or documents with similar titles like TD Frameworks) sometimes figure in Community Plans as identified Priorities. Often these are in towns with significant historic townscapes (buildings and public spaces) or where there has been a large amount of development and the community wants to have more of a say in future development.
This fits very much with the Government's recent agenda on Community Empowerment, and SMTF is keen to help its members engage more fully with the Planning Policy system at this crucial time with the Local Development Frameworks being developed or recently in place (depending on which Planning Authority your town has).
There are quite afew issues with them - the people writing them often think they are going to have a certain weight in determining planning applications but more often than not they don't. They cannot stop development. Some people think they can also guide what development goes where, which isn't true - Planning Policy documents do that.
They can be useful in giving a shared understanding of general principles, and some enlightened developers have asked for them before they design a development or submit an app.
Town or Parish Councils can refer to them in comments on planning apps but theres no weight attached to them - they'd have to be adopted as Supplementary Planning Documents (SPD's) for them to be Material Considerations. However a TDS could identify existing Local Plan or LDF Policies that reinforce a point or issue.
The Local Plan or LDF, the Regional Spatial Strategy and any existing SPD's will be taken into consideration before any TDS, whether its an SPD or not. So in Planning terms its well down the list.
Some towns may not need one as they have a good working relationship with their Policy Planners - for instance Radstock as we heard at the last Network Event.
Some towns who would like a TDS have found little support from Planning Authorities. Though they are admittedly always very busy due to the development pressure in Somerset (and a lack of capacity to undertake their own Local Development Schemes, which is the work programme of an LDF), they appear to have not thought about how a small amount of guidance at the start of developing a TDS could set it off on the right path ie to give the most useful outcomes to both the group and the Planners. Planning Policy Officers often refer to 'getting the right methodology' for these kind of documents so it would help it they told groups what that was.
TDS's could help Development Control Planners to come to their decisions - giving an overview of a town's historic development pattern, its distinctiveness and flagging up some issues regarding previous 'unsuitable' development - without them needing to be SPD's.
Planning Authorities may also be understandably wary of possible conflict between their existing and planned Policies and any TDS's.
However, there are opportunities for any town interested in developing a TDS or something similar. Planning Authorities are having to carry out Conservation Area Appraisals and would probably welcome offers of volunteer time to do the legwork of photographing and notating buildings and streets for that - perhaps they could offer some guidance on producing a TDS at the same time?
Planning Authorities are planning to carry out Area Action Plans - for instance, in South Somerset these are Chard and Crewkerne - perhaps there are elements that Community Regeneration Partnerships could help with, ie community engagement (events, surveys etc) or mapping or photographic work as above.
So, in conclusion, if your town is thinking of producing a TDS or similar be aware of their limitations and the Planning Policy context you would be working in. I would suggest drafting a short summary of what you would like to do and having an early discussion with your Planning Authorities' Planning Policy Officer(s).
If SMTF members would like to add to this article, email Matt Day on matt@somersetrcc.org.uk
Below are links to some examples of Town Design Statements.
New Forest Town/Village Design Guide - a useful guide to producing TDS's
Countryside Agency Guide to Town Design Statements - useful though process chart seems overly complicated
Caradon SPG - Not a TDS but an example of a Community Planning document (in this case a Parish Plan) being adopted as Supplementary Planning Guidance (SPG's being replaced by SPD's in LDF's)
Mendip support for Village Design Statements - although refering to VDS's, the principles this document mentions are applicable to TDS's too
Created on August 6th 2008
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