Why Does All British Housing Look the Same?

The RIBA Journal recently ran a comment-piece by Hana Loftus of HAT Projects in which it was suggested that widespread deficiencies in local authorities’ five-year land-supply (5YLS) is allowing badly designed housing developments to pass unchallenged through the planning system.

I enjoyed Hana's plea for a plan-led planning system, and am in general agreement with its sentiment. However, in my experience, developments approved at appeal in the absence of a ‘five-year land supply’ are very similar to those approved by planning committees having passed through the ‘proper’ local plan process. The lack of a 5YLS may allow an inspector to grant a permission on land outside a development boundary, but only if its location is otherwise ‘sustainable’, and to maximise their chances of success most housebuilders will comply with all other requirements placed on them by the local plan.

The really depressing fact is that the UK planning system allows, even encourages, the ubiquitous ‘modern vernacular’ of almost all new housing developments.?The modern housing estate is a finely tuned response to a fairly limited set of ‘rules’ – see below. Any architect thinking of diving into the speculative housing sector should be aware of these rules, and should not expect them to be set aside easily by an experienced house-builder client or by the local planning authority. I would venture that any housing development standing out as well-designed has probably benefitted from one or more of these rules being set aside, deliberately or accidentally.

One thing that the best examples seem to have in common (the Great Estates of London, Edinburgh and Bath, the Garden City new-towns, inter-war ‘Homes for Heros’, the SPAN estates, Milton Keynes, Derwenthorpe in York, Eddington in Cambridge) is the vision of a legacy-aware developer or landowner whose business model is to stay involved and share in the long-term value-growth of a well-made place.

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The ‘Rules’ of UK Housebuilding

• Profit: The national PLC housebuilders are by their nature profit-led and risk-averse. They will seek to maximise sales values and minimise build costs. Most smaller regional housebuilders think in a very similar way.
• Financing/Timeframe: Most housebuilders need to take their development profit out of each site as quickly as possible, using it to help capitalise their next development. Dwellings are sold free-hold, roads and green spaces are ‘adopted’ by the local authority. The housebuilder has no long-term interest in the future value-growth of the development.
• Dwelling Format: The market says detached houses are generally worth more than semis or end-terrace units, which in turn are worth more than mid-terrace units, particularly for larger dwellings.
• Parking: In most suburban/rural contexts, minimum parking rates are set by local policies (2 or 3 spaces per unit). Unless and until public transport is improved, residents will need and expect adequate parking.
• Road Design: Visibility at junctions, speed control and access requirements for refuse and fire vehicles all directly influence road size and geometry, according to detailed rules set by the local highways authority. And most will adopt only the most basic road surfaces (tarmac) and street-lighting.
• Character: Most local ‘design’ guidance places emphasis on ‘local distinctiveness’ which in most peri-urban or rural contexts makes ‘neo-traditional’ design the path of least resistance. And most punters don’t mind it…or at least have no choice! The new emphasis on locally approved Design Codes seems likely to reinforce this preference.
• Variety: Both housebuilders and planners seem to prefer visual variety over visual continuity. For housebuilders and their punters it means ‘individuality’ – i.e. one house in a street is not like the house next door. For planners it means more ‘interesting’ streetscapes, and intermingled unit sizes for ‘social inclusion’.
• Density: The default density is 25-30 dwellings per hectare. A minimum density of around 35dpha was first set out in ‘Towards an Urban Renaissance’ (p61) as part of a recipe for well-serviced, mixed-use, walkable neighbourhoods. Most new housing development remains monofunctional, but notional density targets around 30dpha persist because planners and developers agree they make ‘good use of land’ compared to lower densities, and can still deliver a sort of ‘village-y’ feel. Higher densities mean reduced parking, or taller (3-storey) houses, or more flats and terraces, giving a more urban feel – none of which is popular with housebuilders for reasons of cost and value.
• Landscaping: The standard ‘freehold + adoption’ development model deployed by almost all housebuilders sees green spaces and trees as construction costs for the developer, and as a long-term maintenance burden for the adopting authority. Any long-term value they create for adjacent dwellings accrues to those residents, rather than to the housebuilder or the local authority’s wider tax-paying citizens.

Based on a letter to the RIBA Journal, published in the November/December 2022 edition

Edited 22/11/2022 (Para 4 '...or landowner...' added; headings added)