Introduction

The Essex Design Guide for Residential Areas first appeared in 1973, published by Essex County Council, and has been used in development control in Essex over the ensuing period. When first published, it was envisaged that the Guide would be implemented by the County Council as planning authority, but the reorganisation of local government in 1974 resulted in its principles being applied as Supplementary Planning Guidance instead by many District Councils with differing levels of commitment to the Guide and its philosophy.

The Guide has been influential and useful, but, though many of its recommendations remain relevant, was due for updating as a result of changing circumstances. The new version has been prepared by a working party of the Essex Planning Officers' Association, representing all planning authorities in Essex, and aims to encourage the best practice in the design and layout of residential development.

The 1973 Design Guide was a response to concern about the poor appearance of new housing areas at the time. It set out underlying visual principles of past and present built environments and objective visual criteria against which proposals could be assessed. Whilst the 1973 Guide has had a measure of success in improving the quality of development, many of the problems originally identified are still present, and at the same time the process of applying the principles of the Guide has highlighted other problems present even in many of the better schemes which incorporate some of these principles.

The 1973 Guide described recent housing of the time as characterless and suptopian, with prairie planning, anywhere type houses and cramped, overlooked back gardens. Unfortunately there is evidence of a return of these characteristics in recent cases where the principles of the Guide have been abandoned.

Even in those cases where there have been attempts to apply them, it is evident that many housebuilders have been pulling in the opposite direction. Thinking is still dominated by the perceived need to purvey the suburban ideal of the detached house on its plot. The problem is that when back gardens and side ways have been squeezed to get as many houses on the site as possible, and multiple car ownership catered for, often in front of houses, this ideal becomes unworkable. In such cases it has been possible to achieve no more than a compromise. Housebuilders often argue that their approach is dictated by the market, and yet, in those cases where there has been a more thoroughgoing acceptance of the principles of the Guide, the more attractive results have engendered a ready response from house purchasers.