Towards a Sustainable Future
| The Kent Design Initiative: Towards a Sustainable Future |
Introduction
Good design is not simply a matter of what buildings look like but how they function and relate to each other. The spaces between buildings are also important in the creation of quality environments. While, in the UK, structure plans and local plans consider where new development should go, design guides inform how development should take place, offering decision makers the parameters by which to judge proposals, and giving developers advice on how to meet design objectives. New development represents only a small proportion of the built environment but it can make a significant contribution to promoting sustainability by demonstrating good practice and raising awareness of environmental issues.
Historically, design guides have tended to focus on aesthetic and highway considerations. Promoting sustainable development creates a particular challenge for a design guide in that many sustainability principles, such as resource management, have not tended to figure prominently within the planning process, or fall outside planning control.
The aim of the Kent Design Initiative (KDI) was to produce a design guide that embraces sustainability, while at the same time raising the quality of development. To meet these objectives it was recognised that all the key stakeholders involved in development in Kent would need to be given the opportunity to influence the principles to be included in the guide. In the context of producing formal supplementary planning guidance this is a fundamentally progressive approach.
This chapter sets out the processes that have been established to take the KDI forward. It presents some of the KDI's preliminary findings and refers to the constraints identified in promoting sustainable development and the potential for overcoming these constraints. The chapter also reports on some of the related activities being promoted by the KDI, including research, education, marketing and demonstration projects.
Background to the Kent Design Initiative
The last Kent Design Guide (KDG) (Kent County Council) was published in 1995. It offered advice on a range of design issues but concentrated on residential development, and was dominated by highway design standards. It has been largely superseded by major shifts in government policy, especially those relating to sustainability and transportation issues. For example, its focus on residential development did not address the relationship between uses, which has become so crucial to the sustainability agenda. One of the key criticisms of the KDG was that there had been insufficient consultation on the proposals contained within it: this had undermined its credibility and was one of the reasons why it was not well used. The desire to produce a new KDG was also influenced by the poor quality of many recent developments which are dominated by highway layouts, and lack convenient facilities. This has led to an increasing dependence on private cars.
There have also been a number of significant developments in policy and guidance in recent years, particularly at the national level, which have had a bearing on design and highway matters and influenced the decision to revise the KDG. Some of the most influential documents are listed below.
- Planning Policy Guidance 1: General Policy and Principles (DoE, 1997a) - gives increased weight to sustainability and design issues, seeking to encourage mixed-use developments and local distinctiveness.
- Planning Policy Guidance 7: Countryside (DoE, 1997b) - acknowledges the need to enrich, as well as safeguard, the character of the countryside.
- Planning Policy Guidance 9: Nature Conservation (DoE, 1994a) - recognises that Britain's wildlife is an integral part of towns, counties and coast, and not confined to statutory sites.
- Planning Policy Guidance 13: Transport (DoE and DoT, 1994) and the Transport White Paper A New Deal for Transport: Better for Everyone (DETR, 1998) - advocate a shift from car usage to walking, cycling and public transport.
- Planning Policy Guidance 23: Planning and Pollution Control (DoE, 1994b) - gives advice on the relationship between control over development under planning law and pollution control legislation. The aim is to avoid duplication and encourage consultation. This guidance states that the potential for pollution is capable of being a material planning consideration.
- The CEC directive on the conservation of natural habitats and of wild flora and fauna (CEC, 1992) - requires member states to endeavour to encourage the management of landscape features which are of major importance for wildlife and flora.
- The Quality in Town and Country initiative launched by the DoE in 1994 (DoE, 1994c), and the Urban Design Campaign in 1995 (DoE, 1995) - aim to stimulate debate and encourage best practice in good quality urban design, sustainable development and community responsibility.
- Circular 5/94: Planning Out Crime (DoE, 1994d) and Advice Note: Secured by Design (Association of Police Officers Project and Design Group, 1994) - aim to encourage the building industry to adopt crime prevention guidelines in commercial and residential design.
