Achieving High Quality Design Local Plan Publication stage

National planning policy places great importance on design as a key aspect of sustainable development and an essential part of good planning.

This is demonstrated through the National Design Guide (NDG), and the National Model Design Code (NMDC), which illustrate how well-designed places that are beautiful, healthy, greener, enduring and successful can be achieved in practice.

The policies listed below are designed to support the high-quality design in Oldham. A summary of them is given under each heading.

• Policy D1 – Achieving High Quality Design:
  • The policy sets out a that all development is required to meet a high standard of design. It lists several criteria that development should achieve through their design. It provides additional criteria in relation to the development of tall buildings, states that proposals for strategic developments should be supported by a design-led masterplan or framework and that any developments that raise significant design issues will be expected, where appropriate, to undergo a local design review.

• Policy D2 – Advertisements, Signage and Shop Fronts:
  • The policy identifies the criteria in which applications for advertisements and signage will be supported. It also sets out what issues will be considered when determining applications that relate to shop fronts.

• Policy D3 – Creating a Better Public Realm in Oldham:
  • The policy sets out criteria that should be included in development proposals that include the creation of new public realm.

• Policy D4 - Extensions and alterations to, and development within the curtilage of, a dwellinghouse:
  • The policy establishes the criteria that will apply to development within the curtilage of an existing dwelling house in terms of extension or alteration to an existing dwelling, or the construction of an ancillary outbuilding, structure, boundary treatment or hardstanding.

To read the policies in full, please download the Oldham Local Plan: Publication Plan which is available to view here on the Council’s website.