In 2021, the UK government made beauty an explicit objective of the English planning system. The Levelling Up and Regeneration Act, which received royal assent on October 26 2023, now requires local authorities to use design codes to deliver beauty in new developments.
Driving this emphasis on beauty (which is likely to be strengthened through further planned revisions to national planning policy) is a particularly knotty problem in England’s approach to housing. Everyone agrees that more housing is needed, but no one wants it to be built near them. The government’s hope – as the secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities, Michael Gove, has put it – is that “communities will welcome development when it is beautiful”.
