Role of landscaping highlighted in Farrell Review of the built envoronment

The Farrell Review, an unprecedented, industry-wide review of architecture and the built environment, led by Sir Terry Farrell and commissioned by Culture Minister Ed Vaizey, was published today.

After a wide-reaching consultation process including workshops throughout the country, the findings have been compiled into a report with 60 recommendations. Some of the key recommendations are:

There needs to be a revolution in the planning system to make it proactive rather than reactive, anticipating rather than responding to the future needs of our towns and cities. By planning proactively like other countries do, we would anticipate issues like the national housing
shortage or susceptibility to flooding and address them before they reach crisis levels.

There should be PLACE reviews of existing places like high streets, mega-hospitals and housing estates and of infrastructure projects like rail, road and aviation improvements (using the acronym PLACE to describe the key disciplines of Planning, Landscape, Architecture, Conservation and Engineering).

Every town and city should have an urban room where people can go to understand and debate the past, present and future of that place.

The Farrell Review is the result of an extensive consultation process that has taken place over a period of 12 months.

Sir Terry Farrell conducted the process independently with an expert panel of 11 top industry figures and hosted extensive thematic and other workshops, an online call for evidence and conversations with Ministers from different political parties, all-party parliamentary groups, institutions, agencies and individuals.

Sir Terry Farrell said: "The issues covered by this Review are not of academic or specialist interest.

"They are relevant to some of the most pressing and important issues of our time like the shortage and affordability of housing; the urgent need to reduce our carbon emissions and the flooding crisis that recently afflicted so much of the country.

"Through proactive, rather than reactive, planning we can tackle these
problems.

"I hope this Review will be the catalyst for change and the start of a big conversation about our built environment, making it a major public issue like health and food.

"There are few things that are more important to us than the places we live in. I look forward to continuing to work with government and industry to translate this vision into a reality."

Website: The Farrell Review

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