The UK Government's housing strategy aims to deliver high quality homes and places which are essential to stimulate growth and necessary for social, environmental and economic sustainability.
The Design Council welcomed the Government's commitment to good design and the strengthening of design support to achieve the type of high quality homes. "We do not believe there needs to be a choice between quality and quantity and are committed to working with industry on ways to incentivise good quality schemes that communities welcome and people want to live in.
We welcome the Government's recognition of the Design Council's role to convene the sector to ensure that communities, local authorities and developers have easy access to a comprehensive suite of design support services. We look forward to working with partners to scope out a cross-sector package of design support for communities."
"Design Council Cabe welcomes any initiative to increase housing supply, and will offer whatever support we can to help deliver it," said Paul Finch, Design Council Cabe Chair.
"The Government's commitment to good design, as expressed in the National Planning Policy Framework, should mean that quantity and quality are seen as natural partners rather than opposites, and we note the Framework's statement that proposals of obviously poor quality should be refused.
The other side of the coin is that good proposals should get speedy permission, and we would be interested in exploring, as a matter of urgency, how this might be brought about within the planning system."