The Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) has called on ministers to use the planning Green Paper to put good design at the heart of an efficient and properly resourced planning system.
In a submission to the DTLR and the Treasury published today, the Government’s architecture adviser said that the planning system should “reward developers who propose high-quality buildings and space”.
Sir Stuart Lipton (pictured), chairman of CABE, said: “After 50 years, characterised mainly by mediocrity of new buildings and spaces, it is time for a major reform. That is what the Government must strive to deliver. Planning must cease to be a passive noun and become an active verb again.”
Lipton added: “The planning system has become incomprehensible to almost everybody. For the general public it is a mystic art. It is akin, in Harry Potter parlance, to a group of muggles trying to participate in a game of quidditch.”
EGi News 07/11/01
