Issue - meetings

RESOLVED, that the Urban Design Guide Supplementary Planning Document be supported, subject to minor changes to be considered by the Renewal, Recreation and Housing PDS Committee.

Report HPR2023/039

The Committee considered a report recommending the adoption of the Urban Design Guide Supplementary Planning Document which provided guidance to inform development proposals coming forward in Bromley with the aim of ensuring consistent high-quality design. 

The Head of Planning Policy and Strategy and the Planning Policy Officer made a presentation to the Committee outlining the development of the Urban Design Guide.  This included a public consultation undertaken between 28 October 2022 to 9 December 2022 that had resulted in a number of amendments being made.  The final draft Urban Design Guide Supplementary Planning Document would also be considered by the Renewal, Recreation and Housing PDS Committee at its meeting on 15 June 2023 and for adoption by the Council’s Executive at its meeting on 5 July 2023.

The Chairman thanked officers for the excellent work undertaken in developing the final draft Urban Design Guide and observed that the purpose of this document was to provide clear guidance on urban design to inform planning policy.  The Urban Design Guide was not policy in itself but would carry weight in planning applications.  A Member suggested a number of small amendments to be made to the draft final Urban Design Guide and underlined the need for guidelines relating to Tall Buildings to be sufficiently flexible to ensure that development within the Borough was appropriate in both scale and geographic location.  In answering a related question from another Member, the Head of Planning Policy and Strategy confirmed that developers were required to submit detailed information within their planning applications regarding the anticipated impact of the development on local infrastructure, including discussions with local infrastructure providers.  A Member was pleased to note that the Urban Design Guide recommended the use of solar tiles in place of solar panels in more sensitive areas of the Borough, including conservation areas. 

In response to a question from the Chairman, the Head of Planning Policy and Strategy confirmed that while the majority of photographs within the Urban Design Guide depicted examples from outside the Borough it was anticipated that as more high-quality schemes were progressed, these could be replaced with Bromley images in future iterations of the document.  A Member suggested that shop frontages in Chislehurst could provide excellent examples of good practice in the Urban Design Guide and observed that the Urban Design Guide itself had been informed in places by the original Chislehurst Shopfront Design Guide.  The Member went on to emphasise the importance of promoting the Urban Design Guide to local businesses once adopted, as well as raising awareness around the requirement to obtain planning permission for certain changes which could help reduce future breaches of planning control.

With regard to other matters, a Member welcomed the dedicated section on access and inclusion in the final draft Urban Design Guide and suggested a minor amendment be made at Paragraph 5.254 to underline that development proposals ‘should’ rather than ‘can’ promote good health and wellbeing.  Another Member saw that there was little mention of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8