Planners at ELC have worked hard to change streets design policy to meet new and emerging housing guidance as a means of ensuring that new places in East Lothian offer a better design standard. Close liaison with their Roads and Transportation colleagues has ensured that planning and roads design policy has remained consistent with each other throughout this process. The project aim was to produce urban design standards that improve the design quality of new housing areas, a key focus being to review standards for road design and to allow Home Zone development in such areas. The new standards revise East Lothian Council's key planning and transportation requirements for the design of new housing areas and detail the urban design principles the Council will apply, as well as establishing the information expected from applicants in support of applications for planning permission and road construction consent. That way, the Council can consider the design principles proposed for these jointly when determining applications for planning permission and road construction consent ( RCC). The new standards fundamentally review the direction of the Council's design policies. In response, applicants are required to review their approach, to place more importance on the process and principles of design, and to widen their range and format of products used in development of new housing areas. The "Design Standards for New Housing Areas" was approved as Supplementary Planning Guidance in May 2008. It became operative and a material consideration in the determination of those planning applications that were submitted on or after 1 June 2008. The guidance brings East Lothian into line with national policy and advice that encourages emphasis on the systems and process of design. The standards focus on key principles and processes of design, including site contextual analysis and establishing a development strategy informed by this; ensuring the creation of positive relationships among buildings and in the public spaces between them; facilitating movement without compromising the quality of the public realm; and on after care issues, ensuring that adoption and maintenance arrangements are in place. A key requirement is that the overall layout of buildings and the spaces in between are given first consideration in the design process so that a framework of public spaces with distinctiveness and identity is created. Road layouts will be integrated with and complement building layouts, so roads no longer dictate or dominate the character of public spaces. The intention was to establish standards within which a variety of housing environments can be created by a designer's creative skill and vision in the interpretation, expression and application of the new standards. The role of the standards is to support the local plan and to explain to applicants how its design policies will be implemented - cross-referencing between the standards and the local plan's design policies is a key feature of this approach. The standards also underpin the development frameworks and briefs prepared for individual sites, so the design principles of the standards are supplemented with site-specific design objectives to ensure development on the strategic and local housing sites reflects and responds to its local context. This is to be achieved through an integrated design approach and masterplans are the expected outcome of this process. They are to establish a suitably detailed design philosophy that sets clear parameters for the overall design and layout of development on the site. The role of the masterplan is to control the successful delivery of development in the planning, design, market and commercial context. It is to provide the basis for determination of land value, with individual investors buying into the masterplan and collectively delivering its proposals. This has ensured a "level playing field" to which all developers must respond. The effect has been that developers are working with the briefs in the preparation of their applications for planning permission and RCC. Sustainable travel also underpins this guidance with promotion of dedicated cycle routes linking into the wider path network and the use of well-connected streets as an encouragement to walking. The "Standards for Development Roads" document has also been adjusted to ensure that both transportation and planning guidance are consistent with each other. The standards are now being applied to proposals for key strategic housing release sites across the council area, some of which will be submitted for planning consent by early 2009. |