Our Members

The Panel provides impartial expert advice to applicants and local authorities on design issues in relation to important new development schemes and proposals for important public spaces, including both significant minor applications, major planning applications and pre-application development proposals.

The Design Review Panel is not there to pass judgment; we aim to provide a constructive conversation about your project, the result of which is better design. The overwhelming majority of people who present to our Design Review Panel find it to be a positive and immensely useful experience.

The objective is to provide an independent, impartial evaluation process, where a multi-disciplinary panel of built environment experts assess the design of significant proposals.

Therefore The Design Review Panel :-

• will be conducted by an independent panel of multi-disciplinary experts – practitioners with a different range of current experience and expertise in design and construction. As a prerequisite to joining the panel, these practitioners will have demonstrated a track record of good design in their own projects and the skills to appraise schemes objectively.

• exists to offer applicants and their design teams with clear and constructive comments and guidance on schemes, aiding their improvement, but not to fundamentally redesign them.

• advises and empowers the decision makers on how to improve design quality, so as to meet the needs of their communities and customers.

• will support decision makers in resisting poorly designed schemes.

• will support applicants and decision makers in gaining planning approval for well designed schemes.