Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner says word is too ‘subjective’
A new report from Policy Exchange, a centre-right think tank, has called on Labour to embrace ‘beauty’ as a key plank of its growth and housebuilding programme.
It follows the recent announcement that references to the beauty agenda – a key priority of the previous Conservative government – would be removed from the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), to be replaced by a commitment instead to “high-quality design”.
The Tories’ commitment to beauty in the built environment, spearheaded by former Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Michael Gove, had grown out of the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission.
The commission, co-chaired by Roger Scruton and Nicholas Boys Smith, had argued that embracing beauty could help break down resistance to new housing.
The Policy Exchange report argues that Labour should be wary of repeating what it describes as the mistakes of the 1960s and 1970s, when it claims both main political parties prioritised a “dash for units” over a commitment to creating enduringly beautiful housing and places.
According to the new Secretary of State for Housing, Communities, and Local Government, Angela Rayner, Labour’s decision to ditch ‘beauty’ from the NPPF was because it was “too subjective” a term.
The decision by Labour to ditch the previous government’s beauty agenda was welcomed recently by RIBA president Muyiwa Oki, who said: “It can cause confusion because something that’s beautiful to one person can be not beautiful to another. That’s why we want to focus on the language of high quality and embed that into the NPPF.”
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