Inside Property Development

Will the New Design PPG Make Your Deals Easier – or Impossible? With David Birbeck

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In this episode, Paul once again sits down with David Birbeck, one of the most knowledgeable people when it comes to planning and development. Together, they discuss the government´s new draft Planning Practice Guidance (PPG) and how it should work in practice.

David is the CEO of Design for Homes, a Housing Design Awards director, an Honorary Fellow of RIBA, HCA design board member, NHBC councillor and Housing Forum board member. Both he and Paul have decades of experience, so this episode also provides practical advice about how developers can adapt and build high quality schemes that will sell fast.


KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • Liveability, climate, nature, and movement now trump façades and style. Policy is finally shifting from how closely new development mimic what is already in the area to how schemes work for everyday life.
    • The new PPG replaces a tangle of guides with one much clearer, more visual document.
      • It is vital that developers familiarise themselves fully with the PPG. If you don´t, you’ll be at a disadvantage when planners and inspectors start quoting it.
        • Climate, nature, streets, and drainage are meant to be designed together - multi‑functional green and blue infrastructure is now an integral part of policy logic, rather than a nice‑to‑have add‑on.
          • National space standards still exist, but the draft PPG treats them as a tool for design codes, not a blanket rule. That really matters in places where adding a couple of square metres just for the sake of it at £4,000/m² can completely kill the viability, that applies to 100s of marginal sites.


            • BEST MOMENTS

            “It's probably more pro-development than it has been for a long time at the moment.”

            “They have replaced all the stuff about context and history and character and focused instead, first and foremost on livability, and then climate and nature and movement.”

            “You can have as good a plan in as you like …. people still aren't going to build stuff if they can't sell it.”

            “Historically, there has been design guidance or talk about design that has no real understanding or bearing on the realities or viability of development.”


            GUEST AND EPISODE RESOURCES

            https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-birkbeck-399b771a

            https://hdawards.org/

            https://www.buildingwithnature.org.uk

            https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/design-and-placemaking-planning-practice-

            guidance/design-and-placemaking-planning-practice-guidance

            https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-planning-policy-framework--2


            ABOUT THE HOST 

            Paul Higgs is a Chartered Planning and Development Surveyor with 40+ years experience in land, planning and development and a 100% success track record in winning planning consents.

            Paul undertook his first refurb project when he was just 17 and then worked his way up from labouring on building sites to becoming Head of Land for renowned plc housebuilder, Barratt Developments. He managed to escape the corporate world in 2002 to set up what is now a multimillion-pound award-winning property development company, Millbank Group.

            In 2013 Paul founded the Millbank Land Academy, the UK’s first training company dedicated to property development; to teach established and aspiring developers the insider secrets the big housebuilders don’t want you to know! 

            Paul is also a founding investor and former board director of the industry-leading PropTech Co, LandTech, and has lectured on Advanced Development Valuations on the MSc Property Development at London South Bank University.

             

            CONTACT METHOD

            LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-higgs

            Millbank Land Academy: https://www.millbanklandacademy.co.uk

            Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/paulhiggsofficial

            YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@InsidePropertyDevelopment


            This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

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            Inside Property DevelopmentBy Paul Higgs