We are pleased that South Staffordshire Council has formally adopted their District Design Guide as a Supplementary Planning Document.

LUC prepared the District Design Guide for South Staffordshire Council, working with Tate Harmer Architects.

The Council wished to maintain and enhance the character and identity of South Staffordshire’s settlements in light of increased pressure for housing. The document is aimed at anyone involved in planning and designing new developments in the district, including members of the public, planners, developers and designers. It provides clear guidelines to promote high-quality design and also explains the Council’s planning policies in a user-friendly format.  We highlighted examples which comply with the Council’s policies on Promoting High Quality Design, and included a Design Appraisal Framework to help applicants improve the design quality of their schemes, and show how they comply with planning policies.

South Staffordshire has a unique landscape character – it has no towns, rather a collection of villages, set in Green Belt countryside. As the rural landscape is therefore integral to the district’s character, the guide is informed by the landscape character assessment of the county.  We undertook additional character assessments of villages, to ensure the guide reflects the diversity of these villages as well as the wider, more rural areas – a key objective was to show what local character looks like, and how it changes across the district. We also promoted a green infrastructure approach, such as using adjacent canals and woodlands to influence orientation and layout of development and creating connections to the wider landscape.

As an adopted Supplementary Planning Document (SPD), the Guide will now be a material consideration in determining planning applications. This will help to improve the quality of planning applications (particularly Design & Access Statements), assist with development management and support the Council’s position at appeal.

Read the design guide

More information on our Development Planning service