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feature
hot topic
facilitating quality and speed in housing delivery
The government intends to update the National Design Guide and the National Model Design Code. Glen Richardson, Associate Partner at Carter Jonas (Cambridge), asks what changes are required and how can they facilitate both quality and speed in housing delivery?
Back in December 2024, the government confirmed that both the National Design Guide (NDG) and National Model Design Code (NMDC) would be updated in 2025. While the changes are predicted to be modest, this presents an appropriate opportunity to consider how these documents might evolve, and how even small refinements could help accelerate housing delivery without compromising quality. The importance of the NDG and NMDC Essentially a broad checklist for making spaces well-designed and in tune with community needs, the current NDG considers building design, green spaces and road layouts, and aims to create areas that are attractive, healthy and easy to navigate. The NMDC provides a roadmap to local authorities to prepare design codes and builds on the NDG by detailing particulars such as materials,
building heights, car-parking and street widths. Embedded in policy, these national-level guidelines are
frequently quoted in planning decisions, appeals and inquiries and offer a useful foundation and point of reference to assess the quality of design. NPPF sets the standard While last year’s NPPF modifications marked a significant shift in national planning policy, the tweaks to the NDG and NMDC are anticipated to be relatively minor – more a case of refinement than reinvention. Crucially, they’re not expected to include anything which would delay the process of expediting planning consents. The NPPF gives the NDG and the NMDC considerable weight.
Paragraph 133 of the revised NPPF outlines that to provide maximum clarity about design expectations at an early stage,
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