Part One: Spatial Strategy and Policies

Design Quality

11.81 High quality design is an essential element both in placemaking and in reflecting the distinctive character of the area and will help deliver the Spatial Objectives by setting challenging but appropriate standards. Achieving sustainable development is fundamental to the objectives of the Dudley Local Plan environmentally. Across the borough each area is distinct and successful place-making will depend on understanding and responding to their unique identities through high-quality and sensitive design proposals. Development proposals across Dudley will deliver successful urban regeneration and expansion through high quality design that provides economic, social and environmental benefits.

11.82 High-quality, innovative and modern design will also have a significant part to play in mitigating and adapting to climate change. This is achieved by ensuring that buildings and landscaping are designed to offer comfortable and attractive living environments reflecting the traditional design qualities and features of the area, while also addressing issues around climate change in the form of the use of green energy technologies, a reduction in carbon generation and the efficient and effective use of water, planting and materials.

Justification

11.83 Dudley is made up of a range of urban and rural areas, settlements and towns across the borough, which all possess their own distinct character and identity. Successful place-making will depend on understanding and responding to these unique localities through the delivery of high-quality design proposals that are complementary to local character and vernacular.      

11.84 High-quality design will help to stimulate economic, social and environmental benefits, including ensuring that new homes and other buildings are designed and built to help to mitigate and minimise climate change impacts. Ensuring good design is embedded across Dudley will help support regeneration and the delivery of an inclusive and robust economy, attracting people and businesses to both relocate to and remain in the area.

11.85 The Government published an updated National Design Guide in January 2021 that set out a series of aims and objectives for achieving well-designed places. The document identified the key themes of good design and goes on to set out a list of ten characteristics[39] that drive it. Paragraph 36 of the Guide was clear that the ten characteristics reflect the Government's priorities and so provide a common overarching framework within which issues around good design should be considered.

11.86 In addition to the National Design Guide, Dudley is working on the Lye and Stour Valley Design Code to help improve the quality and design of new developments in the area. The Code will set out what is expected of new developments within the area to create a more beautiful and sustainable places for the community. The Design Code will form part of a supplementary planning document for Lye and Stour Valley. A design code will be developed for other areas of the borough during the Plan period.

11.87 The National Planning Policy Framework addresses the issue of good design throughout, including reference that permission should be refused for development of poor design that fails to take the opportunities available for improving the character and quality of an area and the way it functions.              

11.88 Locally, the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) have published a West Midlands Design Charter[40]. The Charter represents a regional commitment to good place-making and will be used to support applications for WMCA funding for new development (including residential, commercial and mixed use). Its key themes include:

1. character;
2. connectivity and mobility;
3. future readiness;
4. health and wellbeing;
5. engagement;
6. stewardship and delivery;
7. which in turn encompass 12 further principles of good placemaking^[41].

11.89 The Council will support urban regeneration by ensuring all new development exhibits high quality design. The DLP emphasises that the ideas and principles behind successful place-making and urban design will be a key factor in the renaissance of the borough. A high-quality environment is also an essential prerequisite for economic competitiveness and housing choice.

11.90 Great opportunities exist across the borough to transform areas into high quality places for people to live, work and invest in. This will involve, in some cases, the reinforcement or reinvention of a sense of place and local identity within Dudley. The borough needs a collective commitment to high-quality design if it is to maximise the benefits from the opportunities offered by regeneration and development.

11.91 DLP 39 seeks to integrate key design principles with an approach that interprets and reflects both local distinctiveness and the overall character of Dudley Borough. High-quality design relates to buildings, architecture, the spaces within which buildings sit, the quality of the public realm reflected in its streets and spaces and the relationship between the development and the surrounding area. Places should be designed with Active Design principles to increase opportunities for physical activity.

11.92 Everyone has the right to a high standard of residential accommodation, with sufficient space to meet their needs. Within Dudley Borough there are areas where overcrowding rates are higher than the national average. In order to address this, Policy DLP39 adopts national space standards covering internal floor area and dimensions for key parts of the home. The standard is modest and is generally met in most new build housing across the borough; however, in a minority of cases the standard would help to achieve better living conditions. The requirement for a minimum space standard can also add to the attractiveness of a development and increase the marketability of properties. The standard will apply to all tenures. Evidence provided by the Dudley Viability and Delivery Study (2023) suggests that introduction of this standard is very unlikely to impact on development viability, given the relatively modest increases in room sizes.              

11.93 The introduction of the higher water efficiency standard for all new homes in the borough is justified by evidence provided in the Water Cycle Study (2020) and in July 2021 by the Secretary of State's determination that both Severn Trent Water (except in their Chester zone) and South Staffordshire Water are now considered to be in areas of serious water stress for the purposes of water resources planning. This change in water stress classification adds further weight to the tighter limit and will be enforced through the building regulations system.

11.94 To ensure that development proposals accord with policy requirements, the Design and Access Statements accompanying planning applications should follow the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment guidance.

11.95 A key objective for new developments should be that they create safe and accessible environments where crime, or the fear of crime, and anti-social behaviour do not undermine the quality of life, health or community cohesion. Good design, layout and spatial relationships (including the use of sensitively designed and located landscaping that reduces opportunities for anti-social behaviours) can make a positive contribution towards improving community safety in an area. It is the intention of the Council and the police to work together towards the reduction of crime and the fear of crime, and anti-social behaviour across the borough. This will be a material consideration in all planning proposals.

11.96 Meeting the challenge of climate change is a core principle of the NPPF and the fifth principle of the West Midlands Design Charter refers to the need to address climate change through good design. Climate change mitigation and adaptation measures will be addressed through the specific climate change policies in the DLP and the renewable energy and BREEAM requirement for new development, which are set out in Policy DLP47.

Evidence

• National Design Guide (2019)
• Broadening Horizons – A Vision of the Black Country Urban Park, Lovejoy (2004)
• Residential Design Guide SPD 2023
• Housing Audit: Assessing the Design Quality of New Housing in the East Midlands, West Midlands and the South West, CABE (2007)
• Black Country Water Cycle Study 2020

Landscape Design

11.97 Provision of high quality and attractive on-site green space landscaping has an integral role to play in creating high quality residential communities particularly low maintenance solutions with locally occurring deciduous tree planting. This type of provision can help to promote more sustainable development by making development schemes more responsive to future climate change pressures such as urban cooling, reduced flood risk and biodiversity movement.

Justification

11.98 Applicants should consider how habitat and features will be managed post development so that their contribution to local biodiversity and geodiversity is maintained in the long-term. Management of natural habitat often proves less costly than that of the equivalent areas of more formal landscaping.

11.99 For large sites, the Council would recommend the preparation of a management plan. Examples of the types of nature conservation interest that may benefit from management plans are woodlands, hedgerows, wildflower grasslands, watercourses, ponds and wetlands.

Monitoring