Draw on authoritative guidance and good practice

Using national, regional and local guidance and learning from relevant third-party sources will help make efficiencies in resourcing. Guidance will always have to be tailored to your unique needs and circumstances, but even so, using it will speed up your project and help you to avoid problems.

The National Model Design Code (NMDC) is an important point of reference with Part 1 setting out the process of preparing a code, while Part 2 contains detailed guidance notes on the generic contents of a code.

The Medway Council Pathfinder team drew directly on the NMDC. Using its structure helped them to be clear about the process and content of their code and therefore to manage resources efficiently. In particular, they understood that the success of the code required strong graphic communication, including diagrams, illustrations and a clear document structure, which can be very labour-intensive to produce. Their team was able to circumvent some of that difficulty by re-using imagery from the NMDC, which is permissible within the NMDC copyright status, and used the same drawing style for bespoke Chatham illustrations to blend the two.

This piece was written in collaboration with Peter Neal, an independent consultant and expert in planning, design, funding and management of green infrastructure frameworks, urban parks and the public realm.