Design Council Cabe is to double the size of its national network of built environment experts across England to 500 to help beleaguered planning departments.
The move will help support Cabe’s City Model initiative, which is designed to give developers early independent advice on major planning applications at the pre-application stage.
The BEE advice is intended to shorten the planning process and give more certainty and clarity to developers at the early stages of discussion.
The City Model initiative has been trialled in Oxford and Greenwich, SE10, and is now being considered for regional cities including Birmingham, Bath and Newcastle.
Developers are required to pay for the service, but it has proved increasingly popular. the planning process has come under pressure as local authorities struggle to deal with an increase in major applications and reduced budgets.
Cabe lost its £2.3m in annual government funding in 2011 when it merged with the Design Council. Although the Design Council is still publicly funded, Cabe, a charity with a royal charter, is self-funding.
The organisation’s stable of 250 multi-disciplinary experts includes members of the
London Mayor’s Design Advisory Group, planners and architects including MAKE founder Ken Shuttleworth.
