Impact

Create Streets has had real impact on opinion-formers and on government:

  • In November 2018, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, James Brokenshire MP welcome our in-depth report on the future of the English planning system, co-published with the Legatum Institute, More Good Homes. He said: “This paper asks important questions on how we maintain an efficient and collaborative market to build the type of homes that people like, whilst maintaining popular and political support. We have strengthened the rules-based approach to planning through the publication of our updated national rule book, but I welcome the challenge on what more we should do to provide greater clarity and certainty. Building more homes better and faster to meet our country’s needs is our absolute priority.” 
  • Create Streets’ research into public preferences was cited in a House of Commons debate on November 30th on the importance of beauty in the built environment by John Hayes MP. Speaking in the same debate, the Housing Minister Kit Malthouse MP’s response echoed very many of our own points: “We are therefore supporting high-quality, high-density housing such as mansion blocks, mews houses and terraced streets, typical of the English urban townscape and rural context with which we are all familiar.”
  • In the October 2018 Budget review on Planning Reform  our policy recommendations on the use of design codes and permitted development were cited, as well as two of our reports: Create Boulevards, and Better Brownfield
  • In October 2018 the Centre for Social Justice Housing Commission published its interim report. Our director, Nicholas Boys Smith, is a member of the Commission which was chaired by Lord Best.
  • In July 2018 the new National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) was published which gives a new centrality to design, to early engagement with residents and design codes. From our first publication five years ago some of our key suggested policies, process and priorities are now at the very heart of the English planning system (though there remains much more to do). More detail will follow shortly….
  • The Policy Exchange publication Building More, Building Beautiful echoes closely many of the key Create Streets arguments about the importance of popular support for new buildings and beauty in design, as well as the use of community codes to achieve both of these outcomes.
  • In the May 2018 Local Elections in Kingston, London, the Liberal Democrats included a commitment in their manifesto to ‘work with others, such as Create Streets, learning from them, to make sure Kingston gets high quality, low rise, suitable density developments that create homes, rather than the current developments of tall luxury tower blocks.’ The party won control of the council.
  • On Wednesday April 25th, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government held a ‘Design Quality’ Conference, attended by two government ministers. The shift towards high-level and high-profile discussion of quality in design and how to achieve it is in line with Create Streets’ arguments that improved quality will lead to increased support for new housing.  
  • The new Neighbourhood Planning funding arrangements, announced on March 15th 2018, follow on from the new NPPF (and our research and arguments) with much more focus on the allocation of sites and design codes. They also use the BIMBY toolkit of which we are a partner
  • The new draft National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) was published on Monday 5th March 2018. It contains many welcome steps that very strongly reflect and appear to be influenced by Create Streets’ research, work and arguments. Our response can be read here
  • The Sunday Times British Homes Awards Readers’ Choice Awards are for terraced housing. The brief and coverage is strongly influenced by our argument and research
  • The draft London Plan, published in December 2017, requires that new plans should be ‘street-based with clearly defined public and private environments.’ (Policy D1) Beautiful street-based design with clear fronts and backs underpin much of our research into great and popular places.
  • The draft London Plan also supports the greater use of Design Codes. ‘All outline applications referred to the Mayor should be accompanied by thorough design codes’ and boroughs will be required to prepare area-wide design codes on small sites, to ‘promote good design and to proactively encourage increased housing provision.’  Create Streets have frequently argued for the increased use of Design Codes in the UK planning system to increase certainty and lower ‘barriers to entry’ to SMEs and self-builders. This addition to the London Plan is a potentially significant change to how planning works in London – though the codes will need to be worked to be worked  up with communities not at them.
  • In September 2017, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn used his speech at the party conference to call for councils to hold ballots of tenants and leaseholders before pursuing estate regeneration; and also for people living on estates to be given a home on the same site and on the same terms. These are both things that Create Streets have advocated.
  • In September 2017, co-design, which Create Streets have consistently argued is preferable to mere consultation, was discussed by the Mayor’s Design Advocates at their first meeting.
  • In September 2017, the Mayor’s Draft Housing Manifesto was published. Much in it supports Create Streets’ argument, particularly section 5.3 which seeks ‘Community support for homebuilding.’ The Draft Manifesto states that the Mayor will ‘support Londoners to be involved in planning and delivering new homes,’ and community-led development where ‘the community is integrally involved in key decisions, such as what kinds of homes are built, where, and for whom,’ as well as a ‘Community-led Housing Hub’ to empower residents.   There was also a focus on ‘quality’ of new homes and ‘well-designed’ new homes and new neighbourhoods, and support for ‘mid-rise residential’ typologies.
  • In September 2017, Create Streets and our research were cited in a British House of Commons debate on New Housing Design by MPs from both sides of the house including the Conservative Neil Parish MP and Labour’s Luke Pollard MP. Neil Parish MP also wrote widely about the need for good design in winning support for new homes, in Politics Home, the Mid Devon Gazette, and Conservative Home.
  • In August 2017, the inaugural report from London pressure-group, London YIMBY, Yes In My Back Yard: How To End The Housing Crisis, Boost The Economy And Win More Votes, cited our work and ideas frequently: ‘Nicholas Boys Smith of Create Streets is right: making new buildings more attractive is a crucial part of increasing consensus for new housing’ 
  • In June 2017 the Housing & Finance Institute cited our work and argued that ‘Government should champion a change in planning to immediately move away from high rise to low and mid-rise architectural solutions, such as those put forward over many year by global leading architects Farrells as well as Create Streets, Sir Mark Boleat and others’
  • In June 2017 Create Streets and our ideas were reflected in the manifestos of both the main parties for the British General Election. The Conservative manifesto stated their support for: ‘high-quality, high-density housing like mansion blocks, mews houses and terraced streets.’ The Labour Housing Manifesto promised to ‘build the homes and neighbourhoods that local communities want.
  • In March 2017, Housing Minister Gavin Barwell made a speech echoing our points on the importance of good design and the politics of new housing.
  • In February 2017 the Government’s Housing White Paper reflected much of our research, publications and policy suggestions into popular co-design – you can read our essay on the White Paper Eleven Pipers Piping… here.
  • In December 2016 the Government’s Estate Regeneration Strategy reflected much of our research and advice – particularly in the Good Practice Guide which also cited our book, Heart in the Right Street. Our Director was one of the members of Lord Heseltine’s panel.
  • Officials in The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea have recommended that plans lodged to demolish the Affinity Sutton Estate in Chelsea should be rejected. This was because they do not include enough replacement social and affordable housing, and the proposals are of insufficient high design quality and would not positively contribute to the surrounding townscape. Congratulations to the campaigners on the estate. We wrote about the estate previously, outlining how the proposed plans actually reduced the overall amount of housing on the site.
  • In November 2016, London’s Deputy Mayor for Housing, James Murray, echoed one of our core arguments in an interview with the Evening Standard: “We need to decide what high-density accommodation will look like. At the moment we tend to think about towers but you can actually get very high density with six, eight, 10 storeys — like the terraces you see in Kensington.”
  • In November 2016, Transport Minister John Hayes MP, made a prominent speech calling for more beauty in design and citing our 2014 research, What People Want, for the Prince’s Foundation for Building Community that ‘84% of those asked want new buildings to reflect historic form, style and materials.’
  • On 10 July 2016 we were named as one of the 2016 New Radicals, one of the “50 radical-thinking individuals and organisations changing the UK for the better” by Nesta and The Observer.
  • On 27 April 2016 at at the Mayoral Assembly London Mayoral candidates signed up to London Citizens’ Good Development Standard reflecting Create Streets principles of co-design.
  • On 8 April 2016 an op ed by Ed West in the Evening Standard cited and supported our research at length arguing for a more conventional streetscape and citing our survey for Save Oval where, as the article puts it: “92 per cent of 147 residents preferred “Kennington”-style Victorian architecture over “Vauxhall”-style tower blocks.”
  • On 6 April 2016 the Evening Standard editorial wrote: “As Zac Goldsmith has pointed out, there also needs to be a focus on high-density, medium-rise housing in central London. London could accommodate far more people, as Paris does, by dint of building apartment blocks, like mansion blocks, which house large numbers of people without impinging on the skyline. How we build matters.” We think that means they are supporting us!
  • In March 2016 Sadiq Khan and Zac Goldsmith launched their Manifesto and Housing Manifesto respectively.
  • Sadiq Khan has proposed intensifying estates with a mixture of ‘in-fill’ development and estate regeneration where ‘there is resident support, based on full and transparent consultation, and that demolition is only permitted where it does not result in a loss of social housing or where all other options have been exhausted, with full rights for displaced tenants and a fair deal for leaseholders.’ Amen to that.
  • We were delighted to see that Zac Goldsmith has really engaged with our work and the issues of direct planning, community consent and the need for rules and processes to change in order to deliver that.
  • Pointing out that ‘there is a huge disconnect between what gets built and what most Londoners actually want’, he has promised to ‘work with government to reduce the nonsensical planning rules that make it harder to build the homes London loves’, referred to the popularity of conventional streets and promised to ‘help communities co-design development’ – and speed up planning approvals for developers who follow these locally-led rules. It is great to see a politician profoundly taking on the importance of community consent, consultation and co-design. And it is really encouraging to see (we like to think) the influence of our work in these policies: ‘As the organisation Create Streets has argued, the complex planning system in London has created ugly blocks designed by committee rather than the human-scale streets for which there is greater popular demand.’
  • On 17 February 2016 the Centre for Social Justice (chaired by member of Create Streets network John Moss) published Home Improvements, a Social Justice Approach to Housing Policy. In reflecting the importance of design and of co-design for estate regeneration, this picked up on much of our research and evidence.
  • On 9 February 2016 our director joined the Prime Minister’s Estate Regeneration Advisory Panel chaired by Lord Heseltine to ‘look at how the layout of estates can be best used to deliver more quality homes that people can buy and rent’. The panel met for the first time at the York Road Estate in Battersea.
  • On 5 February 2016 The Mayor’s Design Advisory Group published their report, Growing London. Importantly, for the first time in a GLA document, this conceded that ‘policies in the London Plan and associated Supplementary Planning Guidance’ might have unfortunate unintended consequences on what we build including ‘poor quality street frontage [and] the “poor door” phenomenon.’ Much more to be done but a very welcome step in the right direction…(We gave evidence to the Advisory Group last year)
  • On 29 January 2016 GLA Planning Committee report Up or out: a false choice reflected our arguments on role of terraced streets, cited our work and even used one of our pictures!
  • On 26 January 2016 Lord O’Shaughnessy spoke in Housing and Planning Bill Debate: ‘a trade-off between allowing more freedom to build homes and giving authorities more powers to ensure local design principles are met might be one way to deliver the homes we so desperately need …Residents are much more amenable to new homes if they conform to the aesthetic norms of the area.’
  • On 25 January 2016 London Citizens’ Housing Manifesto 2016 called for “a decision-making steering group made up of local people affected by a development must be included to work alongside the developer.” We were delighted to sit on the independent panel that fed into London Citizens’ manifesto.
  • On 25 January 2016 the Barnet Labour Housing Commission chaired by Nicky Gavron ALM supported our policy to ‘involve residents on regeneration estates in the co-design and planning of their new estate from the outset’ and cited our research.
  • On 11 January 2016 Savills published their report to the Cabinet Office, Completing London’s Streets to which Create Streets contributed urban design and policy analysis
  • On 10 January 2016 David Cameron announced the Government’s plans to “announce that some of the country’s most run-down housing estates will be replaced with attractive and safe homes” with an article in The Sunday Times. We were particularly pleased that he identified issues with ‘pointless planning rules’ preventing progress and the need for ‘binding guarantees for tenants and homeowners so that they are protected.’
  • On 25 November 2015 the Government’s Autumn Statement pledged to “regenerate more run-down estates.”
  • On 23 November 2015 mayoral candidate, Zac Goldsmith MP, supported our argument for community-led regeneration on public sector land and estates and for low-rise, high-density, street-based developments that people actually want to live in.”
  • On 20 November 2015 the Direct Planning (Pilot) Bill received support from Labour and the cross-benches in the House of Lords and passed to Committee Stage. Thank you to Lord Lexden for his support and to the Government for offering to discuss next steps.
  • On 27 October 2015 Create Streets was delighted to be a partner organisation to the BIMBY (Beauty-in-my-back-yard) toolkit for local communities alongside the National Trust, the Local Government Association, Civic Voice and others and to speak at its launch. Read more about this project here.
  • On 8 October 2015 and alliance of architects and place-makers announced their support for the Direct Planning Bill we are promoting in House of Lords.
  • On 28 September 2015 mayoral candidate Zac Goldsmith MP, supported our plans for community-led regeneration in London. He repeated this support in his speech to the Conservative Party Conference on 6 October 2015.
  • On 17 September 2015 our proposals at Mount Pleasant for the Mount Pleasant were supported by Labour’s London mayoral candidate, Sadiq Khan MP and shortlisted Conservative candidates Zac Goldsmith MP and Andrew Boff ALM.
  • On 17 September 2015 our research was cited in evidence to the House of Lords Select Committee for National Policy for the Built Environment.
  • On 17 September 2015 we gave evidence to the GLA Planning Committee on estate regeneration.
  • On 9 September 2015 Nick Hurd MP cited our research in a parliamentary debate in Westminster Hall.
  • We have attracted support for our ideas from a wide range of London mayoral candidates in hustings and debates.
  • On 3 June 2015, Lord Lexden introduced the Direct Planning (Pilot) Bill into the House of Lords. We have been working with on this Bill which is an attempt to give communities greater workable influence on the quality of what is built. Read more here
  • .In March 2015 Lord Adonis (Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and advisor on housing to Tessa Jowell) published City Villages with the IPPR which took on board some of our points and cited our research.
  • In March 2015 the Chair of the London Assembly Planning Committee, Nicky Gavron ALM,  cited our work in a letter to the Mayor of London.
  • In December 2014 we were asked to join the Government’s Design Panel alongside Sir Terry Farrell, Quinlan Terry, Roger Scruton and RIBA, RTPI, the Prince’s Foundation for Building Communities and the Design Council.
  • In October 2014 Lord Lexden cited our research in a House of Lords debate kindly calling us ‘highly regarded.’
  • In September 2014 the London Labour mayoral candidate, David Lammy, called for ‘innovative ways of building high density but high quality housing in the form of Victorian-style terraces or low-rise blocks’ and cited our analysis. (p.15).
  • In September and July 2014 our work and the issue of streets vs. blocks was discussed in the London Assembly by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson who agreed with some of our analysis on the impact of rules on built form. You can see the videos here.
  • In April 2014 the Government commissioned Savills to calculate the potential of our estate regeneration proposals.
  • In March 2014 the Budget followed our suggestion and created a £150m fund to help finance estate regeneration. The prospectus was published in June 2014. It follows many Create Streets principles as well as mentioning Create Streets by name (p.6).
  • In March 2014 we were cited in the Farrell Review into Architecture and the Built Environment (p.78) and gave evidence to the London Assembly Planning Committee on density and design in London.
  • In December 2013, the GLA funding prospectus for London’s housing investment programme followed our suggestion and relaxed standard 3.2.5. It is no longer recommended: ‘for buildings entered from communal circulation at the first, second or third floor where lifts are not provided, space should be identified within or adjacent to the circulation core for the future installation of a wheelchair accessible lift.’
  • The London Mayor’s 2020 Vision echoed our point that “it is simply not the case that good quality high density housing must always involve tower blocks.”