Design review in the UK

Introduction

As a recent and unprecedented debate in the UK parliament revealed, widespread concern exists regarding the generally poor standards of urban design across the UK, particularly in the speculative housing sector (Hansard 2018). Many argue that concerns about the poor quality of new buildings, public spaces and associated infrastructure play strongly into anti-development attitudes. Indeed, surveys into the social attitudes to new development consistently reveal that the promise of ‘better’ design is amongst the factors most likely to garner public support for development. Citing such evidence, the 2017 Housing White Paper in England argued that: ‘Good design is fundamental to creating healthy and attractive places where people genuinely want to live’ and that 73% of people say they would support building more places if they were well designed (DCLG 2017). Similar sentiments are expressed in the other nations of the UK, as reflected in the Scottish Government’s 2013 statement, Creating Places, which argues that the design of the built environment can form a focus around which communities can cohere (Scottish Government 2013).

Despite the warm words in policy, the fiscal austerity of recent years has seen a period of significant retrenchment as regards government interest (and investment) in the governance of design and place-making more widely across the UK. In England, the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) was wound up in 2011, and a 2017 survey revealed that nearly half of local planning authorities in England now have no dedicated urban design staff (Carmona and Giordano 2017). This is despite profound and proven benefits – economically, socially and environmentally – from investment in a high quality built environment (Carmona 2018).

Devolving (and diverging) place-based modes of operation across the UK

In England, the withdrawal of the state has led to a flowering of private, voluntary and alternative public sector provision that is filling some of the leadership gaps relating to the governance of design,¹ most notably in the area of design review. Very different paths have been followed in the other nations of the UK. This is because the last decade has been marked by the maturing of a further national project, this time to decentralize power from Westminster to the devolved administrations of the UK: Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and, in England, to London. Whilst these processes began almost a decade earlier, it was in 2007 that the first SNP government was elected in Holyrood, and significant new powers were awarded to all the devolved administrations in the years that followed.

Although urban design and the built environment more widely has not been a specific focus of the devolution settlement, competences relating to planning, regeneration, conservation, environment, housing, highways/infrastructure and local government generally are all now devolved responsibilities. They were areas that the devolved administrations were, from the start, quick to engage with, with each taking a different trajectory on their own strategic place-shaping continuum (Carmona 2014).

Churning power relationships (and stakeholders)

In the UK the period of technical recession after the financial crisis was relatively short-lived and the private sector, especially in the south-east of England and London, soon recovered. Resources in the public sector, however, have continued to be systematically removed by successive administrations. In England, most dramatically, CABE was closed, the regional Architecture Centre Network closed not long after, and Design for London, the Mayor’s design advisory arm, went the same way two years later. In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland the national design advisory bodies – respectively: Architecture and Design Scotland (A+ DS); the Design Commission for Wales (DCfW) and the Ministerial Advisory Group (MAG) – have survived, but have each been on their own journey cutting back, re-defining and developing their services and key relationships.

In Scotland, there has been growing political interest in the potential links between good design and more healthy and sustainable places where communities have greater control over local decision making. This has precipitated a range of national design initiatives and tools for local authorities and communities to use in place-making activities, including: the Place Standard; the nationwide roll-out of charrettes; and a recalibration of A+ DSs design review process away from a peer review panel towards a design facilitation model.

Wales and Northern Ireland each have their own unique dynamics that have been little written about, but which sit between the Scottish and English cases. Each have a continuing national role, with DCfW having been most stable, and through its design review services, most clearly reflecting the former ‘CABE model’ that predominated in the 2000s (see Carmona, de Magalhaes, and Natarajan 2018). DCfW also gives some additional support to local government in Wales and publishes national guidance. Of the five models (including London), The Northern Ireland MAG has had the most direct link to government (at least when the Assembly is sitting in Stormont) and a focus almost exclusively on design review, but this now needs to change to better support the new local planning authorities in Northern Ireland that were established in 2015.

In England, the absence of top-down leadership following the demise of CABE has led to a burgeoning of the market in areas, notably design review (now a paid for service), that have been commodifiable. This has changed the relationship between many providers of design governance services and their ultimate clients, and the nature and legitimacy of the services on offer. At the same time there has been a flowering of voluntary action to fill at least some of the non-commodifiable gaps. The result seems to be a very differentiated and fragmented approach, but has also led to significant innovation in practices. This innovation (market and voluntary) appears most pronounced in London where the market sustains the highest concentration of activity: private, public and voluntary, and where some Mayoral (London-wide) bodies still receive public funding.

The case of design review

In this themed issue of the Journal of Urban Design, the focus is on how design review practices have evolved over the period. Two research papers focus on design review in England where the greatest amount of churn has been evident. These papers look at evolving practices from different perspectives. The first looks from the perspective of how a market has developed and evolved in England during this period, and what that has meant for practice, both across the country and in the specific case of London. The second examines the perspective of three public sector panels in and around Cambridge. A third research paper examines the process from the perspective of the design reviewers themselves, and through the insights of members of the national panels in Scotland and Northern Ireland explores the basis on which decisions are made.

The research papers are complemented with three shorter Practice Papers which document the recent experiences at the national level in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Over the six papers, profoundly different state and local responses are explored.

For every built environment intervention, the line-up of stakeholders, the leadership and the power relationships are different, although design remains a common and constant means through which the built environment is negotiated and re-negotiated over time. The same, arguably, goes for the governance of design where leadership is continually shifting as political initiatives wax and wane, both nationally and locally, and where economic conditions – rather than a public vision for better places – still has the whip-hand when it comes to decisions about the design of our built environment. Design review in the UK provides a valuable lens though which to view these shifts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. As a series of cross-sector ‘Big Meet’ conferences hosted by the Place Alliance have shown: http://placealliance.org.uk/big-meets/big-meets-archive/.