Planning Advice Note 67: housing quality

Planning Advice Note PAN 67 Housing Quality

Looking ahead

Housing development is changing the face of urban and rural Scotland. What we build today will constitute an enduring legacy. Nothing is more valuable than a successful place in creating the setting for social and economic success. Nothing is more wasteful of resources and opportunities than a place that fails.

Local authorities, house builders, central government and local communities all face the challenge of using the planning system to raise standards of housing design. The starting point must be much higher expectations of what is possible. The best examples illustrated in this Planning Advice Note show what can be achieved, often in unpromising circumstances. To the people who live in it, every place is special. Building places that could be anywhere should not be an option.

The housing market understands well what many people look for in a home. We must complement that knowledge by looking around and ahead. The long term success of new housing will be measured long after most of the first residents have moved away. The buildings and their surroundings will have proved to be robust in the face of wear and tear. Householders will have adapted their homes to their own needs and tastes. Patterns of life will have responded to social, economic and technological change. What was once a new development will have become part of a living neighbourhood.

These days success rarely happens by chance. The planning process provides the framework for taking the initiative: for implementing national and local policy, for developing constructive guidance, for exercising a high level of planning and design skills, and for identifying common interests among developers, local government and communities.

Each plan, each development and each site represents an opportunity. Our determination comes from knowing that, if we dare to raise our expectations, we can make a difference.

Raise standards of housing design

Context	Identity	Connection
Dalgety Bay, Fife	Oatlands, Glasgow	West Mill, Edinburgh	Adam Brae Parks, West Lothian