Draft Districtwide Design Guide

Overview

We are now consulting on the draft Design Guide for Somerset West and Taunton, excluding the Exmoor National Park (which produces its own planning documents). This document sets out how the Council wants to improve design quality across the area. The consultation will take place from Wednesday 5 February to Monday 30 March 2020.

The document looks at good design and the ways that good design and placemaking can help to reduce the harmful effects of climate change. It also shows how current principles of highway design and layout can be included in good placemaking.

When adopted, the Design Guide will be a Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) and a material consideration in determining planning proposals and applications. The Design Guide will also inform emerging policies within the new joint Local Plan. Views from local communities, businesses and the development industry are therefore important in helping to shape the document for maintaining and improving the quality of design across Somerset West and Taunton.

Why your views matter

In supplementing adopted policy, the Design SPD will be used by:

• Planning Officers to assess the design quality of development proposals when determining planning applications and offering pre-application advice;
• Council members when assessing development proposals in advance of and at planning committee;
• Applicants and developers when preparing their schemes.

We are, therefore, running an eight-week consultation on the draft Design Guide to seeking formal comments on this important planning guidance document.

Responses to the proposals in this consultation document will inform the final version of the SPD which is planned to be reported to the Council for adoption in May/June 2020.