Culture and character checklist

The Chilterns AONB Management Plan is a key document and carries authority (‘weight’) as a planning document. The Development chapter sets out both strategic objectives and local policies. It promotes development ‘of the highest standards of design that respects the natural beauty of the Chilterns, the traditional character of Chilterns vernacular buildings, and reinforces a sense of place and local distinctiveness’ (see Policy DP7 of the AONB Management Plan).      

The Chilterns Buildings Design Guide and Supplementary Technical Notes are both highly authoritative and are deemed supplementary planning documents for planning. These documents are highly respected and offer authoritative guidance. The Design Guide contains several ‘checklists’ that relate to design guidance. The language of design is explained, and you can readily refer to it in your own Neighbourhood Plan, which raises its status in the planning system.   

The Chilterns Conservation Board’s Position Statements will also assist. These are detailed policy-orientated statements on renewable energy, the setting of the AONB and the assessment of cumulative impacts.

A design and place assessment may help you to shape any new design policies. It requires a brief audit of the existing buildings. It also allows you to consider design in areas of acceptable redevelopment. The following may help you with your assessment:

• The government increasingly promotes better quality design in the planning system. The Building Better Building Beautiful Commission published its report, Living with Beauty (2020), on how to promote and increase the use of high-quality design for new build homes and neighbourhoods. 
• The National Planning Policy Framework promotes heritage benefits in its ‘conserving and enhancing the built environment section’.
• The dilemma for a Neighbourhood Plan body is to decide ‘just exactly how can we promote best practice in our area in the light of all of these other documents?’ We recommend that you look at the Design Council’sBuilding for Life publication. Please see the section ‘Simpler, easier and better’, which sets out the topic areas that may be of interest, especially when considering residential development.
• A series of published toolkits will assist you; we recommend the Oxford Character Assessment Toolkit published by the Oxford Preservation Trust and Oxford City Council. This contains both a detailed and a rapid assessment toolkit. It allows you to walk around your community and assess mostly the built environment, with reference to spaces, buildings, views, landscape, ambience, final reaction, and spirit of place – sometimes genius loci (itself summing up the character of the area identifying the most significant positive and negative features of its character and appearance).