Setting the benchmark for housing quality

16 Jun 2017 07:19
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DEVELOPERS and their designers are now required to follow a new design guide to maintain a high standard for future housing schemes across Cheshire East.

The Cheshire East Residential Design Guide has been formally adopted and launched to benchmark housing quality in the borough.

The council says the guide is intended to ensure that all new developments achieve a high quality of design, reflecting local distinctiveness and characteristics, including the type of materials, natural features, surroundings and other connections with the locality.
All new developments will be required to meet acceptable design standards to create high-quality, well-designed places.
A council spokesman said: “The recommendations within the guide are tailored to be applied to future developments across the whole of the borough, in urban as well as rural communities.”

The final document incorporates refinements arising from an eight-week consultation in 2016, involving 12,000 people, including developers, parish and town councils, designers and amenity groups.

Frank Jordan, the council’s executive director for place, said: “While we want to see more imaginative developments that are pleasing to the eye, we would like to see designs that reflect the characteristics of the town, village and community in which they are situated.

“Where development is not of the requisite quality, then the design guide, in support of Local Plan policy, provides justification to refuse permission as part of the planning balance.

“The guide will form an important part of a toolkit of measures aimed at assisting designers and developers to better understand the character of the borough and to deliver high-quality new development in the future.”

The guide is aimed at a range of users, including the council, communities, developers and their design teams.

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