Design
High quality design is absolutely fundamental
to the creation of sustainable communities where people want to
live, work and visit.
The Council’s aims are to:
- Create places, streets and public spaces
which meet the needs of people, are visually attractive, safe,
accessible, functional, inclusive, have their own distinctive
identity and maintain and improve local character
- Promote designs and layouts which make
effective and efficient use of land including encouraging
innovative approaches to help deliver high quality schemes
Building Futures Awards November 2011
The Hertfordshire Building Futures Awards celebrate and reward
the leadership and innovation shown by those bringing forward
exemplary sustainable design and construction schemes within
Hertfordshire – and is the pinnacle of the work of the Building
Futures Partnership of which this Council is a member.
Against extremely tough competition from 32
schemes around the County, two of the five awards went to
buildings in Broxbourne – the Lee Valley White Water Centre won a
special commendation for design excellence, and the overall top
prize for design excellence went to Hertford Regional
College.
Commenting on the Lee Valley White Water
Centre, judge Jeremy Caulton noted that the building was successful
because it was ‘such a harmonious addition to the park, and also
because it is an iconic design that will be recognised as an
Olympic spectacle for years to come’. The judges were
particularly impressed with Hertford Regional College with Jeremy
Caulton saying that ‘a celebration of learning has been woven into
all elements of the Broxbourne campus and the architects behind it
have successfully created an exceptional learning environment that
can service both the local and wider community’.
More information about the Building Futures
Partnership and the Awards is available on the Building Futures
website.
Design guidance and information
The Council and developers should work
together to deliver high quality development by taking account
of:
- Chapters in the National
Planning Policy Framework.
- Design policies in the Broxbourne Local
Plan and the Borough-Wide
SPG
- Best practice guidance produced by Commission
for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) which is the
Government’s design and architectural advisory body.
- The Code
for Sustainable Homes which requires new homes to become
progressively more energy and water efficient until they reach zero
carbon by 2016.
- The Building Research Establishment
Environmental Assessment Methodology (BREEAM) which encourages water and
energy efficiency, low carbon and renewable energy technologies,
sustainable drainage and waste recycling in new business premises
and public buildings.
-
Building for Life which establishes criteria for creating
attractive and well designed homes and neighbourhoods
- Lifetime Homes which
establishes criteria for building accessible and adaptable
homes.
- Guidance from the Shape East centre of
excellence
- The Hertfordshire Building Futures
programme which has been jointly prepared by all eleven
authorities in the county to provide practical guidance on how to
make development proposals as sustainable as possible.
- Adopted Development
Briefs where they are relevant
- Design policies coming forward as part of the
new Local Plan
process.
The Council also intends to complement this
guidance with conservation area appraisals for development
proposals in conservation areas and urban characterisation work to
map the character of streets, estates and towns and identify any
distinctive design styles, building materials and architectural
features.