This content applies to England only.

Building new homes is not just about bricks and mortar.

It is about building places and communities where people want to live.

Shelter’s vision is for homes and neighbourhoods that are well designed, in mixed-tenure, mixed-income communities, and supported by high quality community facilities and infrastructure.

Well designed homes and neighbourhoods

Good design is vital to create places where people want to live. Far too many new developments still fall short of the highest standards of design. Shelter believes that developers, planners, and the Government all need to do more to ensure the homes and neighbourhoods of the future are well designed.

A key principle of good design is that newly built homes must meet the living needs of the households for which they are designed. All new homes should have enough space for the occupants to eat meals sitting at a table together, entertain friends and family, and store their belongings. In addition, it is vital that homes intended for growing families provide enough indoor and outside space for children to play and study, and for all members of the household to feel that they have some opportunity for peace and privacy.

It is also essential that new housing developments encourage ‘neighbourliness’ and provide opportunities for social interaction. Local shops, cafes, playgrounds, leisure and entertainment facilities should all be a short walk from every home, with other community, leisure and entertainment facilities within easy travelling distance.

Creating diverse communities

Shelter believes that new developments should aim to promote the goal of mixed communities, with people from different income levels and different tenure types living side by side. Developments should also cater for a variety of household types, including families and children, single people and the elderly.

When housebuilding starts up again, one important way in which local councils should promote mixed communities is through their use of section 106 agreements, under which developers agree to provide a certain amount of affordable, including social, housing as a pre-condition for planning permission. In the past, when such agreements were implemented the social and affordable housing was often situated away from the rest of the development, and in the least desirable locations.

Shelter believes that local authorities must insist that social and affordable housing is properly intermingled with market housing on such sites, so that people of all different housing tenures and incomes are brought together.

Providing adequate infrastructure

Adequate infrastructure and community services are vital to the success of any new development. This includes the need for: water and sewerage networks, transport links, schools, hospitals and GP surgeries. However, a range of other community facilities and services are also needed to support the development of healthy communities - for example, recreational facilities, youth services and green spaces.

Funding is often a major barrier to the provision of additional infrastructure and services to support housing growth. The Government has introduced a range of programmes to provide local authorities and others with assistance in meeting infrastructure costs. In addition, it is bringing in a new community infrastructure levy, which will require developers to pay a charge to help fund the cost of providing the infrastructure needed for new homes. Shelter supports this approach, provided that the money from the levy is in addition to, and not instead of, developers’ financial contribution to the provision of affordable and social housing through section 106 agreements.