My Lords, I speak in support Amendment 10 in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, and the noble Earl, Lord Lytton. As this is my first intervention at Report, I note my relevant interests as president of the Local Government Association, chair of Hanover Housing Association and, in the context of the amendment, which concerns good design, vice-president of the Town and Country Planning Association and honorary fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects.
In support of the intention behind this amendment, I would like to quote from an excellent speech delivered by the Minister for Planning, Nick Boles, to the Town and Country Planning Association shortly before Christmas. He said:
“People look at the new housing estates that have been bolted on to their towns and villages in recent decades and observe that few of them are beautiful. Indeed, not to put too fine a point on it, many of them are pig ugly”.
He went on:
“Since new housing estates are all too often soulless and formulaic ... existing residents oppose any proposal to build new houses on green field sites, even when the land is of low environment quality”.
He continued:
“In a nutshell, because we don't build beautifully, people don't let us build much. And because we don't built much we can't afford to build beautifully”.
He later said:
“It is now for the planners, architects and developers, large and small, to seize the opportunity we have created and start designing beautiful places, which local people will welcome”.
Poor design not only affects the lives of the people who occupy the new buildings, it also affects those who live in the same neighbourhood. Because so much new development has been, as Nick Boles says, “pig ugly”, the great British public regularly turn out to stymie and oppose the creation of the new homes that are so essential to ending acute housing shortages.
This amendment would strengthen the emphasis on good design, which should always be a hallmark of projects obtaining planning consent. It would, thereby, make it easier to gain the consent of local communities to the building of the new homes this country needs so badly. I strongly commend it.