Urban Design Learning

December! We’ve got four events coming up this month before school holidays and the party season really kick in (our programme restarts on 15th January). These sessions are for UDL Full Programme members – you can book here: https://lnkd.in/eYvZvkQE 3rd December: Planning for Movement in New Development 4th December: Housing and Density 10th December: Managing Freight in London 11th December: Designing Buildings that Can Change Meanwhile, just a reminder that all our members have access to our video library (391 videos at last count) until the end of 2024: https://lnkd.in/egPAgaJb

The draft NPPF said that the presumption in favour of development would apply as long as schemes are sustainably located, well designed and provide appropriate amounts of affordable housing (I paraphrase). If this policy finds its way into the final NPPF it could be pretty significant. It could help pave the way to ensure quality as well as quantity, but of course it poses the question - how do you tell if a scheme meets design requirements so the presumption applies? Design guides, codes and policies can help set out what is required, but Design Review Panels can help ensure individual schemes are 'good enough to approve'. It feels like we have been talking for ever about Design Codes - but very little about Design Review At UDL we want to help rectify this. So, with encouragement from MHCLG, we are going to start looking at how to support high quality, useful Design Review across England The first thing we are doing is creating an on line directory of local authority panels so everyone can see who is doing what. If you are involved in a panel that supports a particularly authority or group of authorities please do get in touch and we can include details of that panel in the directory. We also wonder if a national good practice charter would be useful, so panel users can check the ones they are using represent best practice. Also maybe networking opportunities and training for panel managers, chairs and members? Guidance on how best to set up and use a panel? Maybe a forum for panel users to feedback? And what about research into the impact of panels? If you think any of these, or other ideas would be useful please do let me know. Please share this with anyone you know who is involved in panels. Chris Lamb Deborah Denner Pooja Agrawal Amy Burbidge Sarah Allan Robin Nicholson

In October, we held a session on Movement In the Suburbs. It makes sense that if we are to address issues like carbon from travel and low levels of exercise, then we have to look at places that were designed around private car ownership. You can read our summary of the learning that came from the event in the article. If you are a UDL member, you can also watch some of the talks from this event for the next few weeks on our video library: https://lnkd.in/ezZrGQDs Many thanks to our excellent speakers: Edmund Bird, Richard Dilks, Ben Addy and Dr Elanor Warwick.

Exciting news: we are now recruiting all year round, through the Associate Programme. Over the past seven years, our Associate Programme has supported almost 100 Local Authorities in recruiting over 370 built environment professionals. In keeping with our commitment to innovation, we're now offering Authorities the ability to recruit an Associate all year round to better serve the needs of our partners across Local Government. This means we can fill roles more quickly using our excellent pool of motivated candidates and help Authorities achieve their placemaking ambitions. The formation of cohorts and Learning and Development remain essential aspects of the programme, supporting Associates as they step into public service. Learn more about recruiting through the programme: https://lnkd.in/eSeWsNRX Contact our Partnerships Manager to discuss your needs: https://lnkd.in/efFfMPb8

"Housing and Density" - delighted to be one of the speakers lined up for this Urban Design Learning event on 4th December to talk about the role of density in improving communities, sustainability, and housing delivery. I'm joining Marcus Wilshere of The Collaborative City, Andrej Mećava of London Borough of Hounslow, Cany Ash of Ash Sakula Architects, and David Birkbeck of Design For Homes. Looking forward to sharing some of our experience at Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios (FCBStudios) on Chalgrove with Homes England, Brabazon, Accordia, and others. Looks like being an excellent and topical debate: https://lnkd.in/epEu56nH #AffordableHousing, #SustainableHousing, #Densification, #HousingCrisis, #FCBStudios, #PublicSectorHousing, #UrbanPlanning

For our final site visit of 2024, we explored some of the changes happening in Manchester, kindly and very expertly guided by Lily Feasby from TfGM, Liam Crichlow from Manchester City Council and Dom Smith from Steer (but very recently of TfGM). The sun was shining so brightly our photos might have lens flare, the trams were swift and efficient and there's a real sense of dynamism to the city. Our route took us out to New Islington, back to the city centre to see pedestrianisation, some very impressive urban trees and an ambitious mix of old and new and then off to the universities along Oxford Road to see the bus and active travel works there. Big thanks to everyone who came along, to everyone we chatted to on the route and to a lovely bus driver. If you're interested in hosting in a UDL site visit next year, do drop us a line or leave a message in the comments.

About 5 years ago UDL ran an Urban Challenge project. Over 300 people contributed. I found it fascinating - hope others did too? We produced a little write up below: https://lnkd.in/ed2huxpq We are considering starting a similar Growth Challenge. It would involve outlining key barriers across the industry, collecting ideas for ways to overcome these, and holding discussions on how potentially solutions could best work together. But there has already been so much discussion on growth barriers, and the government is pushing forward with a range of initiatives - so is there a need for UDL to run a Challenge? I guess we can add a platform for solutions sourced from our 75+ local authority members. But would you be willing to contribute? If you think we should run this Challenge, are interested in contributing or have ideas on how we do it, please comment or get in touch. These are the types of barriers we could consider: Is the planning process too complicated? Are the steps necessary to get planning permission expensive and cumbersome without actually encouraging better places?  Are the big winners large developers with the resources to game the system?  Is too much work required both from applicants and from council officers – and, if so, what can we do about this?   Is the need for quality harming delivery? Are we getting the trade-off between quality buildings and places and speed and quantity of delivery right? Is the drive for more homes all important or should we be thinking about the long-term and ensure we aren’t rushing to build only to sow the seeds for a future housing crisis?   How big a factor is under-resourcing in the public sector? Why is it so hard for the public sector to build? What are the reasons why the revival of local authorities building their own homes has stalled?  Can any players other than central government make a real difference?   Is the industry as a whole under-motivated? Are we asking individual schemes to provide too much? Are risk and reward out-of-balance in homebuilding? Is the uncertainty caused by the planning system keeping small and medium companies out of the market? Yolande Barnes Clare Richards Matthew Yates Max Farrell

A couple of weeks we launched the trial version of our new video library, which contains most of the individual talks from the past year and a half of our events (that’s 374 videos and counting). Until the end of the year, it’s available for no extra charge to all our programme members. https://lnkd.in/ezZrGQDs What can you find there? Well, for instance, our June 2024 event Home and Building Types included an excellent collection of case studies. You can hear about 200 Becontree Avenue (new homes and a community space) from Mellis Haward and a reinvigoration of the mansion house form of flats from Kieron Stephens. Plus, how listed industrial buildings were turned into homes and the story of an award-winning almshouse project. That’s just one tiny corner of the library – elsewhere, you can find out about inclusive design, how AI could help with accident prevention, sustainable drainage or tips for those running development management teams at councils to make their working life easier… and much, much more. If you work for a UDL member, dive in. If you’re not sure if you work for a UDL member, drop us a line and we can let you know. And if you don’t work for one of our member organisations but are interested in the video library and its potential, do feel free to get in touch.

It's November – 2024 is rattling by, isn't it? Here's what we've got coming up this month – all events are available to UDL Full programme member organisations only unless otherwise mentioned: 13th November: Designing in Context 14th November: Site Visit to Manchester (we'll be looking at how transport changes and development work together) (Open to Full and Essentials programme members, numbers limited) 19th November: Urban Greening Factor 20th November: Procurement for Design Codes and Other Design Work (Open to Full and Essentials programme members) 20th November: Green Blue Club (Open to Full and Essentials programme members) – this is our monthly session for anyone working with green and blue infrastructure with a question to ask or something they want to discuss with colleagues 26th November: Workshop on Measuring Carbon Impacts of Different Transport Schemes Across Design, Construction and Use – this is an in-person event being held in London (thanks to Stantec), numbers limited, first-come, first-served booking 28th November: Housing Layouts Booking: https://lnkd.in/eA_tkQVm And, if you work for one of our current members (any programme), you have full access to our new video library for the rest of 2024. Do please let us know if you have any questions at all about it. Here's the link to the library: https://lnkd.in/ezZrGQDs

Can you help improve UDL's video library? with around 100 live training events a year, most on Zoom, we have built up a very large amount of recorded material. And we are in the midst of creating a web resource where people can easily find and watch recorded content relevant for them. To do this we have split our event recordings into separate talks, created transcripts for each, and used AI to form summaries and topic key words. The first trial version of the library is live till the end of the year and free to use for all UDL members. Just log in using your work email and have a play. If you can only see a few videos you are not logged in as a member. With over 350 recently recorded videos you can learn about SuDs, housing viability, designing for cyclists, retrofitting buildings and so much more. The current search function is a bit crude, but improvements are on the way. Your feedback will really help us make sure it can work well so please fill in the feedback form on the site. Next year we hope to upgrade the library to include the ability for you to ask any relevant questions you want - such as 'how can density be measured?' The system will show all content, from across all talks, that answers the question. There is quiet a bit of work still to do get this kind of function to work well. we hope that combining content gathered through UDL's extensive live training programmes with an AI supported on line searchable library will provide a really unique and useful resource. We are looking for ways of funding the last phase of this work and ongoing library management so it can be made freely available to local authorities and potentially students. If you would like to support this work, or have suggestions on who we could approach, please do let me know. https://lnkd.in/e9v9BPPT Euan Mills Alex Mohacs Urban Design Learning