Design quality of new homes across the UK remains "stubbornly low"

UofG-led new housing study says design quality of new homes across the UK remains "stubbornly low". The design quality of new homes and neighbourhoods across the UK remains stubbornly low, according to an in-depth study on the issue published today by a team led by the University of Glasgow. The report - Delivering design value: The housing design quality conundrum - which looked at all four UK nations, says new homes and neighbourhoods fail to meet the aspirations of the national planning policy statements in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The new report, which sets out 12 policy and practice recommendations, is timely coming just months after a design audit by the Place Alliance found that many new homes and neighbourhoods built in England were poorly designed with homebuyers increasingly frustrated with the quality of new builds. It argues that the four UK governments, local authorities and the housebuilding industry have been collectively accountable, in different ways, for failing to deliver well-designed places to live and must share the blame for the poorly designed and unsustainable neighbourhoods that are approved and built in the UK. Lead report author, Dr James White, MRTPI, Senior Lecturer in Urban Design at the University of Glasgow and a Co-Investigator at the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence (CaCHE) , said: "Delivering Design Value is the first in-depth study to examine the process of planning and designing new housing in well over a decade.