http://thewellingtonnews.co.uk/content/mur...ched-shrewsbury

There's a murder investigation in Shrewsbury.

Yes the town of historic buildings and architecture gets in the national news again!

Ironically the town has no officers actually qualified in design in it's planning section. The days of them actually employing an architect for the posts involving the important subject of design have long gone sadly.
None of this gripe has anything to do with the unfortunate events that have recently occured, I hasten to add.

Bad things come in threes! :(

But doesn't the new super-duper County Council handle all that kind of... Oh. I'll get me coat! ;)

I assume you mean Shropshire Council's planning section, rather than the town council?

Why would a planning section have an officer qualified in design? What buildings are they meant to be designing? Local planning authorities grant or refuse planning permission (and listed building consent, etc) to applications for development. The days of councils designing buildings and building them is long over. If a public building needs to be designed and built, private contractors will be employed to do that work.

That's a good point.

I am flabbergasted that you fail to see that a town that prides itself on historic buildings does not consider design of paramount importance to the preservation of the old and the continuing quality of design of the new.

Fair enough many of the town's Victorian heritage was built from designs in books any builder could use but the occasional good quality architect designed houses are the main reason why many of the suburbs have attained conservation status.

The big problem with the planning system is that design is a specialised subject in which planners get very little training.
If the section of Planning Departments that do specialise in design and conservation are only qualified in planning and or conservation then design is not given the precedence that it merits.

Why do you think that we have a country now covered in samey, bland, mediocre new build houses?
People who buy new houses are gradually realising that their quality of life is often compromised by the design of the dwelling. This is in order to be perceived as fitting in and to comply with out-dated concepts of so-called sentimentality/period charm.
In other words a glass reinforced plastic chimney stack serving no practical purpose is given greater importance than rooms that benefit from sufficient daylight or space that is well thought out and enhances actually living in the property.

I suggest that it is you who is failing to understand what a local authority's planning department does and does not do in the 21st century. Designing stuff ticks the "does not do" box. This isn't the 1960s when councils designed and built their own stuff - and thank God. Today private developers, or contractors given work by the council for public works, design stuff then pass on applications for development to the local planning authority. Conservation officers know their stuff when it comes to conservation areas and listed buildings - I have worked with many of them in Shropshire. Planning officers know their stuff when it comes to planning law and regulations. It may be useful for them to have some knowledge of design (which many do) but having a full-blown architect/designer is not necessary for a local planning authority these days, especially the smaller departments such as those found at Shropshire or Telford & Wrekin.

I fully agree about the poor quality of many housing estates and such - often it comes about because planning departments are forced to rush through housing decisions because politicians (local and national) want housing to be built and built at a faster pace. Saying that, in South Shropshire there are some good quality new housing estates being built or built recently, for example at Bishop's Castle. (And in Church Stretton a recently built small housing development just by the A49 even features very nice bow windows!) Unfortunately another reason why modern housing estates look as they do is because of the lack of imagination of the somewhat boring British middle class of the present day!! People don't mind living in boxes, if only because they don't think how much nicer it would be if they didn't! Bizarre, I know.

Wayne Hemmingway, a man for whom I have huge admiration, gave a talk at the NEC a few years ago.
He showed where he had grown up in a rather Corboursier type building in an inner city wich he said had been a wonderful place to grow up . It had windows overlooking the play, area a real sense of community and accomodation that was practical for everyday living.
He did acknowledge however that there were problems with some types of construction, some experimental, some just badly built by cowboy developers and lessons to be learned regarding the growth of car use and ownership and secuirty.

He felt very strongly about the diminutation of design input to the planning process resulting in disasterous new towns such as Redditch and Telford where the holistic approach to planning with regard to highways, landscaping and architecture were just not being joined up.
His Homezone concept was welcomed and taken up by Government and is at last belatedly creeping into the planning system in Shrewsbury.

Three years ago I remember a certain lady councillor who headed the planning committee laughing sarcastically and scathingly about Homezone which has recntly been taken up on the hospital site proposal, I am pleased to see.
I am well aware that planners hands are tied except maybe to a degree with conservation areas on design but good design is so critical to successful schemes and communities.

Wayne Hemmingway BTW trained as a Town Planner before setting up his very successful design company Red or Dead.
I totally disagree that an architect is not necessary in the design and conservation section and we always had one in Shrewsbury until a few years ago.
It 's like asking a Ward Sister to do the job of a Surgeon, architects train for seven years and design is something that affects everything you see whether it be a house, a school, a hospital, a computer, a kettle, a lampost, a car, not just aesthetically but how well it works.