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Pathfinders’ progress against the NMDC – 3. Analysis: Scoping and Baseline
3. Analysis: Scoping and Baseline
This section summarises learnings from the Pathfinders on establishing the geographical area to be covered by the code, determining the policy areas it will address, gathering evidence for analysis to underpin and inform its content, and compiling scoping and baseline assessment reports.
Over half of Pathfinders were still undertaking scoping activities eight months into the programme, and baselining activities were continuing nine months in.
$ Pathfinders found scoping more challenging and time-consuming than they had anticipated, and with more tasks than they had planned for. Over half of Pathfinders were still undertaking scoping activities eight months into the programme, and baselining activities were continuing nine months in.
$ For those developing strategic, authoritywide codes, the task of scoping and baselining across multiple sites or at an authority-wide level was a big challenge, due to the complexities they faced in addressing diverse character areas, land uses and building typologies. A deficient scoping stage, for these Pathfinders in particular, resulted in being over ambitious and losing strategic focus by trying to address too many policy areas, applying too many area types, and taking on a disproportionate amount of work. Overreaching was not experienced solely by those developing authority-wide codes. Some developing area-specific codes, such as for town centres or urban extensions, found that they could not determine the appropriate level of detail when deciding area types, as a result of insufficient clarity on the key issues and what was out of scope.
“From the codes that I’ve seen, people try to do too much. The majority of the time, the things that go wrong are quite simple. It’s best to focus on getting the basics right.”
$ Pathfinders agreed that development management officers were essential to determining the scope, as they could share the main issues that arose repeatedly in processing planning applications, and which could easily be addressed. Finding and identifying these repeated and basic issues could bring huge benefits.
“Ask your development management officer: ‘What are the three things that if every developer did better would raise design quality?’ That’s where your coding is going to have the most impact. Where you’ll get the most benefit for least effort.”
$ One Pathfinder said that they recommended looking at design tools and guidance when scoping, such as Building for a Healthy Life and Streets for a Healthy Life, and reflecting as a team on whether they were being used in their area.
$ Pathfinders found that the baseline assessment was important not only for rigorous scoping and ensuring that the design code was based on reality, but also provided the evidence base justifying the requirements set out in the code.
“It’s strong. Everything stems from the baseline assessment. Everything in our code is based on research and observations.”
$ Pathfinders with a pre-existing evidence base from local plan, neighbourhood plans, and/or masterplans used this material to start their baseline evidence analysis. This included conservation area appraisals, local urban characterisation work outlining how settlements had evolved historically and survey detail on landscape, topography and drainage. This information supported determining area types.
Pathfinders that did not have access to high-quality or up-to-date data for their baseline found it difficult to obtain primary data to support the ongoing analysis, such as tree coverage or utilities’ data. These data gaps hindered progress in analysis and building baseline evidence.
Take-aways for future design coders
Allocate enough time for scoping
$ Ensure the team is definite about the code’s aims and ambitions and criteria for the code.
$ Use evidence and local priorities to narrow down key strategic priorities for the design code, and develop relevant criteria and metrics for these priorities.
If starting scoping is a struggle, try:
$ Thinking about what three things would raise design quality the most.
$ Looking closely at what makes a place special to understand how these can be enhanced through coding.
$ Focusing on particular types of sites across a wider area such as at-risk heritage buildings and areas, infrastructure, streets and active travel routes or green and blue infrastructure.
$ Starting from baseline evidence and community consultation findings.
$ Identifying one or two sites as pilots and extrapolate from there, recognising that codes are iterative, and can be added to later.
