I thought this might cause a smile! - An innovative approach to extending your home spotted whilst on site surveying Nuffield, Newcastle - And to cap it all it’s in a conservation area! 

Today sees the launch of the new planning guidance for housing by the Department for Communities and Local Government.

Planning Policy Statement 3: Housing (PPS3) supersedes the ‘much loved’ PPG3, and the Government hopes that it will tackle obstacles in the current planning system which means that not enough suitable sites are available to deliver the homes families and local people need. So, just when we thought we knew everything about housing….

The key policies outlined by the Minister, Yvette Cooper, today are:

• Local authorities will need to identify more appropriate sites for housing. Councils need to plan 15 years ahead in order to prevent much needed new homes being held up by unnecessary delays in the planning process;
• Stronger emphasis on improving the quality of design of housing and neighbourhoods. PPS3 makes it clear that local authorities should turn down poor quality applications;
• Stronger environmental standards. Developers and planning bodies will have to take account of the need to cut carbon emissions as well as wider environmental and sustainability considerations when siting and designing new homes. The forthcoming Planning Policy Statement on climate change and the new Code for Sustainable Homes will set out further details including plans to move towards zero carbon development;
•  A continuing focus on brownfield land, with local authorities setting their own local targets to reflect available sites and support the national target, with safeguards to ensure brownfield land is prioritised. They will also need to take stronger action to bring more brownfield land back into use, supported by the new National Brownfield Strategy led by English Partnerships;
• More flexibility for local authorities to determine how and where new homes should be built in their area, alongside greater responsibility to ensure the homes are built; and
• Stronger policies on affordable housing, especially in rural areas.

We will be working through the new guidance in detail over the next few days, so that we can give both our design teams and our clients a fuller briefing about the new policy guidance.

[Synopsis of RNID speaker Mr Simon Robinsons lecture]

Access to healthcare is a key right for all people. RNID’s concern is that the NHS is not ensuring comprehensive access for all deaf people. The focus was on two main issues:

Why you need to ensure accessible healthcare and the simple but effective ways that NHS organisations meet the needs of deaf and hard of hearing people.

Key points where:

• Lack of comprehensive accessibility to many NHS organisations, even newly built hospitals. 9 million people in the UK are deaf or hard of hearing, that’s 1 in 7 of the population.
• This has serious consequences for you and for the safety of your patients.
• If you are not meeting your obligations under the Disability Discrimination Act (see notes at bottom), you run the risk of litigation (including clinical negligence claims) and bad publicity.
• You need to do something about this now. However, although you should be concerned, you should not be scared. You can make a number of simple adjustments to ensure that deaf and hard of hearing people receive an equal service.

The presentation drew on RNID’s report: A Simple Cure (2004) which estimates that the healthcare services failing to meet the needs of deaf and hard of hearing people, has costs the NHS £20m every year.

This lecture focused on the new Disability Equality Duty. Where as the DDA can only be used after the (discrimination) event. The DED is pre-emptive and intends to tackle institutional discrimintion.

This was mainly focused on the specific needs of Deaf people and asks us as designers to look at the needs of deaf people. less in a simple “put a hearing loop in.” as the DDA asks to look at others needs beyond “put a ramp in!”.

A usefull amount of information can be found at the RNID site, and courses are available at: www.dotheduty.co.uk