Following the announcement that the words ‘beauty’ and ‘beautiful’ were to be effectively stripped from the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) — no longer to be strategic planning requirements for new housing — this Policy Exchange report calls for a new polling mechanism to establish public popularity of new buildings. This is a vital tool in getting Britain building and to provide a blueprint for high quality, beautiful, popular buildings that have public support. 

Policy Exchange recommend:

• A new mechanism for carrying out high quality community engagement on design schemes, as part of a robust and rich community engagement process in the UK planning system.

• New mandatory polling, organised by the Department of Levelling Up, Housing & Communities, to gauge public opinion on large, completed building projects.

• Polling to be conducted after buildings were constructed, to allow appreciation of them in their real-world setting, rather than theoretical renders.

• They would not be binding in planning, though planners could use these polls as part of their toolkit of measures as part of a holistic judgement of a building’s design quality and contextual value in place.

• The polling – which would be organised by the Department of Levelling Up, Housing & Communities – would only be conducted on large buildings offering floorspace above 1,500m2 but would be used to create a comprehensive statutory database showing how the public react to new additions to their built environment.

• This would help to support the development of new buildings by providing a clear reference point for the kind of new buildings that local communities would support being built.

• While the polling will be conducted after the building has been completed and after the planning process has been concluded, having a more readily available indication as to what does and does not prove popular with the public could be a major asset in getting Britain building.