Design Codes

What does ‘good design’ look like? How do we measure what ‘in keeping with’ or ‘fitting in’ when judging design proposals? And how do capture that in planning policy?

As Governments have increased the emphasis in national planning policy on achieving design quality and ‘place making’ so has the need for local communities to have their own answers. They may need them for their own neighbourhood plan or to use as the basis for their response when the local planning authority consults them on its draft design code.

Over the years of producing design codes, guidance and conservation area appraisals for local planning authorities and neighbourhood plan projects we’ve found the key lies in the quality of the underlying evidence. Even great policy has its limits if the understanding of character is too shallow and generic.

“We are so pleased with our design code. We didn’t have a conservation area appraisal and were increasingly concerned that the general design policies of the Local Plan left too much to the discretion of the developer and LPA. We liked the ONH approach as they demystified coding for us and enabled us to put our thinking about what makes the village so special into practice.”

Parish Chair

We have produced a number of high quality design codes for towns and villages using a method that encourages and enables community engagement and that gets under the skin of a settlement to understand its design strengths and weaknesses and how they differ from one street to another.

They are not just remote technical exercises – we enjoy working with client teams to properly get to know the history of a place and how a community places value on the different features of buildings and spaces that define character. Our GIS mapping platform enables communities to engage with the study to build greater awareness and to uncover little-known stories. And they are highly visual and illustrated to encourage engagement.

Our study outputs are designed to fit seamlessly into the design policies of a neighbourhood plan or with an updated town or village design statement. And they provide local planning authorities with ready-made, technically robust evidence to adopt as conservation appraisals and to support area boundary reviews and local heritage asset identification.

Would you like to know more about Design Codes, Character Area Assessments & Conservation Area Appraisals?

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