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Saturday 3 October 2015

Designing Cranbrook: how to 'respond to lessons learnt from the completed housing'

There seems to be quite a mess at Cranbrook.

Whether lack of infrastructure or failure to live up to expectations:
Futures Forum: The Cranbrook project >>> where's the town centre >>> the infrastructure >>>the 'growth point'?
Cranbrook Town Council has its hands full | East Devon Watch
More Cranbrook teething troubles | East Devon Watch

Or lack of basic design:
Futures Forum: Cranbrook: where's the 'good design'?
Futures Forum: Cranbrook: welcome to dismaland
Those “too small” Cranbrook garages: complaints fall on builders’ deaf ears | East Devon Watch

THAT REPORT ON CRANBROOK AGAIN: DESIGN – OR RATHER LACK OF IT

16 Sept 2015

“The quality of the architecture does not reflect the distinctive characteristics of the built environment in Devon. Cranbrook looks like it could be anywhere in the country. A more detailed and robust design guide should be created and enforced in future phases of the development.”

Place Scrutiny () - Fri Sep 11 2015

Er, didn’t East Devon District Council have a “Design Champion” during all this time? In 2014 the “Planning design and heritage champion” was Councillor Alen Dent and we seem to recall that Mrs Helen Parr also once held the job. Did they not notice this?

There also appears to be an “East Devon Design Review Panel”:

Design Review Panel - East Devon

Anyone else ever heard of that before? And where are its agendas and minutes?

Related
Local Plans: with the same figures, Mid-Devon opts for low growth in housing numbers East Devon opts for high growth
Royal Town Planning Institute mentions East Devon in its submission to Parliamentary review of NPPF
Who shapes our future? 

2 thoughts on “That report on Cranbrook again: design – or rather lack of it”

Paul F says:
16 Sep 2015 at 10:26pm

It sounds like the “East Devon Design Review Panel” was a standing meeting, and as per the ICO rules about what should be published by “principal councils” the agendas, reports and minutes of these meetings should have been published on the EDDC web site as a matter of course.

Whilst EDDC has started to publish the minutes of some of the TaFFs and standing Forums (e.g. the Arts & Culture Forum and the Garage Management TaFF (yawn)), we are still awaiting publication of the documents from many other meetings such as the Asset Management Forum and the “East Devon Design Review Panel”.

East Devon Watch says:
17 Sep 2015 at 12:14am

If it ever met!


That report on Cranbrook again: design – or rather lack of it | East Devon Watch
What mainstream media isn’t telling you about that DCC Cranbrook Report! | East Devon Watch
Cranbrook: the result of 40 (yes, forty) years of planning! | East Devon Watch

Much of this lack of design is due to lack of expertise:
Futures Forum: The death of the Public Architects' Department >>> “The danger is things get approved for political reasons if you don’t have a design architect at the top to say, 'That’s rubbish: go back to the drawing board'.”

Cabe is a shadow of its former self:

... and is now part of the Design Council:

The Design Council might well be able influence the current state of affairs at Cranbroook for the better. They have been working with the District and County Councils of late:

At Cranbrook, a large-scale new community in Devon, we have been working with East Devon District Council and the New Community Partners (a consortium of developers) to review the Cranbrook Vision in planning for the next phase of development. We’ve done this through a series of workshops to help set out design priorities and respond to lessons learnt from the completed housing.


A County Council document refers to Design Council (March 2015): "Delivering Cranbrook Workshop Report"  
www.devon.gov.uk/loadtrimdocument?url=&filename=CS/15/19.CMR&rn=15/WD317&dg=Public
Place Scrutiny () - Fri Sep 11 2015

The County Council and the Design Council have worked together before: 
Futures Forum: Design in the Public Sector... in Devon

Although it is difficult to see Cranbrook as a ‘locally-led’ ‘garden city’: 
​Garden Cities: a panacea for the housing crisis? | Design Council
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