Is an anti-beauty coalition building in the heart of government? Back in August, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) controversially deleted “beauty” as a strategic priority in a National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) update, effectively removing it as a specific, statutory requirement for new houses.
Labour’s Achilles’ heel has often been a default to centralised utilitarianism
Next, Housing Secretary Angela Rayner dismissed the word “beautiful” as “subjective” and broadly meaningless. Now, we learn that the Office for Place – the government body created to ensure design quality in new housing – has been scrapped.
In a move that will likely alarm anyone wary of civil servants appointing themselves architectural arbiters, Labour’s Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook argues that by “drawing expertise and responsibility back into MHCLG, I want the pursuit of good design and placemaking to be a fully integrated consideration in the government reforms.”
So what exactly is going on? In its rush to build 1.5
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