Avoiding planning delays
Nottingham City Council applies a thorough design review process to secure design quality and sustainability. The level of information Nottingham requires at planning stage is often misunderstood and underestimated by applicants. However, engaging in early conversations and having an attitude of collaboration and trust, can save applicants significant amount of time.
A. Engage in pre-app
Applicants are strongly advised to engage in a Pre-application process (pre-app).
For large schemes, Nottingham City research showed that, from point of first contact to permission being granted:
Schemes that engaged in pre-app were an average of 10 weeks faster than those that did not engage.
Schemes that engaged in pre-app had an average of 11 fewer planning conditions than those that did not engage.
B. Provide the requested information
The lack of appropriate information is a typical cause of delays and inefficient use of local authority resources.
Applicants often submit pre-app and planning packages without a good site analysis. This is the most common cause of delays and unsuitable responses to site conditions. Nottingham expects to see a site analysis with identified constraints and opportunities and an description of how designers arrived to their proposals prior to a concept design being established.
It is common to see proposals drawn in isolation (e.g. site plans and elevations), this will inevitably slow the process down, as officers need to evaluate the impact of the scheme in its setting, which is impossible to do without the contextual information. Always show elevations and adjacent/street façades (e.g. using aerial images, photos and/or streetscapes to show what’s adjacent to the scheme.
Detailed sections and plans, as well as material specifications (e.g. durability, installation system, colour specification in RAL) are often requested at pre-app. Having a good understanding of how the scheme will materialise is crucial to the speed of the planning process and the number of planning conditions applied.
C. Be prepared to collaborate
At Nottingham (a unitary authority), we review schemes from a range of perspectives as a team (highways, drainage, urban design, planning, heritage, etc.), we have been able to evidence that this collaborative process is crucial to speed up planning processes and so we have preference to work in collaboration (often co-design) with applicants in order to save time and resources.
It is often the case with some applicants (a minority), that they show a reluctance to work in collaboration across sectors, which tends to cause huge delays.
Applicants might be invited to multidisciplinary design reviews and/or design workshops to discuss solutions that work for all and to take proposals to an acceptable standard.
At times, applicants will receive comments from officers but afterwards, they would re-submit the scheme without amendments, not having addressed the issues highlighted. It is crucial that, if designers cannot find a solution to an issue, they contact the urban design team seeking for help as soon as possible to avoid further delays.
D. Get the design right
Typical causes of planning delays for LARGE SCHEMES are:
Street hierarchy: a clear street hierarchy is fundamental. Schemes that do not demonstrate clearly how criteria 2.2.1 of the New Streets Design Guide is achieved will suffer delays at planning stage.
Innovation: designers are welcomed to suggest alternative innovative solutions as long as these comply with Manual for Streets but should be aware that the planning process might take longer, as different departments need to be consulted to ensure proposals are practical and viable in the long term.
Incorporating trees: Nottingham City expects to see tree-lined avenues and a substantial amount of new trees in medium and large residential schemes. However, good, significant specimens that reach their full growing potential, located in strategic point to aid placemaking, are always a better option than many insignificant, small tees scattered randomly across the site (also see 3 below).
Parking balance: parking distribution is a crucial consideration and the City Council will expect a good, balanced distribution of parking modalities as per criteria 2.5.1 of the New Streets Design Guide.
Car dominance: curtilage parking with more than six cars in a row is non-compliant with criteria 2.6.1 of the Housing Design Guide. Non compliance is very likely to result in delays at planning stage.
Gaps: wide spaces between properties to accommodate more than one parking space on-plot is non compliant with criteria 2.1.2 of the Housing Design Guide and will not be considered acceptable.
Boundary treatment: proposals are expected to eliminate all undefined strips of land, for example around dwellings/adjacent to footpaths. Land should be either fully allocated to private ownership or under adoption by an authority (Highways or Parks and Open Spaces). Land falling onto management company must be clearly demarcated and in single large zones forming recreation or green assets, rather than in small strips.
Design Criteria
These pages contain the specific design criteria officers will use to appraise schemes. It is expected that proposals will comply with all the clauses (or as many as feasible possible) as minimum threshold of design quality.
We are currently working towards transferring these criteria into a Nottingham Area Wide Design Code (NAWC), which will be adopted with the next revision of our Local Plan.
Carbon Neutrality
Community Engagement Guide
Façades
Housing
Extensions and Outbuildings
New Streets
Residential Layouts
Shopfront
Wellbeing
Best Practice
These pages contain definitions, ways to deliver the criteria and tips to design applying best practice.
These are helpful for designers and those engaging in design processes, as they establish a platform of common ground with regards to how Nottingham interprets different aspects of design.