High-quality, well-designed homes for every stage of life

Through good planning, we can seek to ensure homes are well-designed and of high-quality, respecting the unique characteristics of our areas. We can also make sure there are a variety of homes to suit different stages of life from apartments and starter homes to family homes and homes for older people looking to downsize.

Many of our towns and villages have strong heritage and unique character. We already have a Design Guide in place that sets out our requirements for designing high quality developments and allows us to reject poor design. Through the new Local Plan, we can make our design policies stronger, to ensure developers build homes that are in keeping with the heritage and character in that area.

We could also strengthen our policies around accessible design to incorporate design solutions for visual, hearing, cognitive and mobility impairments. Everybody should be accommodated within the built environment. This includes older people, those that are blind or partially sighted or use wheelchairs, children, those with pushchairs or those with a range of other disabilities. Consideration could be given to the spaces outside of the home. Creating and maintaining accessible public spaces in our towns and villages is crucial to ensure that people with disabilities are not excluded from playing a full role in society.

Climate change is a key consideration. Having new homes in the right places, avoiding flood risk areas, and providing walking and cycling access to local services, can all help to reduce our impact on the climate. Consideration can also be given to our position on building homes that have specific low carbon features such as solar panels and heat pumps. These can be expensive for developers to include so it is important we consider our options from the outset and understand what importance you place on this.

To help provide affordable housing for those who need it, the Local Plan can include policies which set out the proportion of new homes that will be ‘affordable housing’. The current Local Plan requires 30% affordable housing for sites for 10 or more dwellings. Affordable housing can include affordable and social rented housing and a range of affordable homeownership opportunities including shared ownership.

Whilst new market homes can be sold to anyone, we already have policies in place to ensure new affordable homes (and some other types of new homes) are provided to those people with a local connection as a priority.

Understanding what is most important to you when designing new homes will help inform our approach in the new Local Plan.