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Brokenshire supports report calling for ‘the pursuit of beauty’ in new homes

Housing secretary James Brokenshire has said he “supports the intention” of a new Policy Exchange report which recommends ordering councils to produce a ‘style guide’ to make homes more beautiful. 

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Thinktank Policy Exchange this morning called for ministers to force local planning authorities to draw up documents showing the housing designs that would be favoured at decision stage.

Mr Brokenshire backed the idea aimed at overcoming local opposition to development.

“We want to see local communities intimately engaged in helping to shape the future of the development in their area, feeding in their views on the design and style of new developments and helping local authorities create style guides and codes which developers can use to meet the needs of communities,” said the minister in his foreword to the report.


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In a paper titled Building More, Building Beautiful, Policy Exchange released results of a survey showing almost half of respondents across the UK believed not enough homes were being built.

“Nimbyism often results from a largely justified lack of confidence in the appearance of new developments,” said the report. “Given their fixity to the fabric of villages, towns and cities, it is important new homes are built in a way that people like.”

The report was co-written by Sir Robin Wales, who recently left his longstanding role as mayor of east London borough Newham; Sir Roger Scruton, a philosopher who writes about aesthetics and traditional conservatism; and Jack Airey of Policy Exchange.

“Simply put, not enough new homes are built with beauty in mind. Decisions over space are nearly always financial, not aesthetic, and so the aesthetic needs of the community are too often marginalised,” it says.

“Aesthetic values arise in the course of our most basic social interactions: manners, fashions, ways of dressing and speaking – all are shaped by the need for beauty, grace and charm. We gravitate to places which are beautiful and try to make our own homes beautiful, for the simple reasons that beauty is a sign that other people matter to us: the pursuit of beauty is a way of caring about the common good. If a record number of new homes are to be built in the coming years, therefore, let us aim for them to be beautiful.”

Policy Exchange said this year’s planned revision of the National Planning Policy Framework should “insist every local planning authority produces a design and style guide within 18 months”.

The thinktank called for creation of design panels to advise on proposals for housing developments above 10 units. A third of these panels should be local architects and at least a third “members of the public who are either likely to live in new homes being built, or who already live in similar types of properties” it said.

Mr Brokenshire said in a foreword to the report that he backed its intention to spark debate about housing design.

“We are currently consulting on the revised National Planning Policy Framework with the quality of development an important part of this,” he said.

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