New UK homes must be walkable to shops and GPs: new guidelines
An updated national design guidance published on Wednesday (21 January) set a new benchmark for well-designed neighbourhoods in the UK, ensuring new developments are well-connected to local shops and services.
Aimed at shaping how the next generation of neighbourhoods are built, the guidance sets out how new homes should reflect modern life – from space to work from home to flexible layouts that adapt as families grow and cater for every stage of life.
Working together, councils and developers will use the guidance to make visible improvements for residents, including calmer streets with less traffic to improved green spaces. New builds will be expected to address and adapt to climate change, creating adequate shade and minimising potential flood risk.
Now in its second iteration, the guidance encourages all parties to support local jobs and amenities by design – ensuring local shops and services like GP surgeries are within walking distance.
As part of its approach to support smaller developers bringing forward much needed homes and to set realistic expectations on larger developments, the government is intending to create model design codes – set to be launched later this year – with clear rules to create successful places.
Local authorities will set the vision for their areas through local plans, ensuring clear design expectations using masterplans, local design codes and guides. Part of the biggest planning rewrite in over a decade, the new design guidance aims to provide clarity early in the process to avoid costly delays to schemes and ramp up housebuilding and help deliver 1.5 million high-quality homes this parliament.
Building on wider planning reforms, the guidance forms part of the new rules-based system where developers meeting clear standards can move quickly from plans on paper to spades in the ground.
The seven features of well-designed places are:
- Liveability: Homes close to amenities, designed for all stages of life, with communal and private space.
- Climate: Buildings that cope with climate change, green spaces to reduce overheating, solar panels, green and brown roofs, and EV charging stations.
- Nature: Hedgehog highways, swift bricks, green spaces and parks, and protection for existing natural features.
- Movement: Safe streets, accessible public transport, and good parking without car dominated design.
- Built Form: Rooms sized to promote health and wellbeing, with good storage, minimising outside noise, privacy and security, sunlight, and good ventilation.
- Public Space: well-located spaces that encourage social interaction, with natural surveillance from windows and balconies.
- Identity: Character shaped by local history, culture, and landscape, reflected in building types, and architectural details.
Case studies provided by the guidance include:
Kings Cross, London
Kings Cross in London shows what’s possible when great design and people are put first. Once a neglected industrial site, now a thriving neighbourhood with new streets, shops, restaurants, schools and a university – all woven around the canal and historic Victorian buildings. This well-connected, characterful place, rooted in local history but designed for modern life, is the kind of neighbourhood the government aims to replicate across the country.
It backs walkable neighbourhoods with green space, homes closer to everyday amenities such as schools, leisure facilities, care homes, shops, cafes, and streets designed around people. This will support local economies and cut travel costs.
Essex
Beechwood in Essex shows what this looks like in practice. Family homes to suit different needs through a mixture of affordable rent and private sales. Green spaces run through the development, connecting residents to nearby parks, encouraging healthy living and building community.
Temple Gardens, North Somerset
Near Bath, this approach is already in action. A vacant Grade II listed pub was restored and reopened alongside new homes, protecting local character, creating jobs, and showing the kind of community-focused development, these reforms will deliver. Bath shows how neighbourhood identity, shaped by local history, culture and landscape is reflected in building types, facades and architectural details. This allows people to connect to their local heritage.
