This output is part of ResPublica’s ‘Backing Beauty’ Commission, a 12 month campaign in partnership with the National Trust and the Woodland Trust, to restore the democratic discernment and realisation of beauty to the heart of public policy and local planning in the UK.

Key recommendations:

• Require any scheme which receives funding under the Government’s Home Building Fund to conform to principles set out by new local Design Advisory Panels.
• Give communities with made neighbourhood plans first refusal to purchase, or select their preferred developer, for land earmarked for housebuilding in a local or neighbourhood plan.
• Create a counterpart to AONBs in the urban built environment by allowing local planning authorities to nominate sites to be designated as Areas of Outstanding Urban Beauty.