Accessibility
The ability of people to move round an area and to reach places and facilities, including elderly and disabled people, those with young children and those encumbered with luggage or shopping.
Active Frontage
The interface between buildings and streets is characterised by multiple entrances and windows, which allows interaction between the public realm and the premises facing the street.
Adaptability
The ability of a building to respond to changing social, technological, economic and market conditions.
Affordable Housing
Social rented, affordable rent and intermediate housing, provided to eligible households whose needs are not met by the market.
Amenity
A pleasant or useful feature or facility. It can also relate to the quality of life enjoyed by occupants.
AONB
Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, a national designation to protect areas of landscape importance.
Bargeboard
An inclined projecting board placed on the gable of a building to protect its verge.
Biodiversity
The whole variety of life encompassing all genetics, species and ecosystem variations, including plants and animals
Building Line
The line formed by frontages of buildings along a street.
Bulk
The combined effect of the arrangement, volume and shape of a building or group of buildings. Also called massing.
Character
The appearance of any urban or rural location in terms of its landscape or the layout of streets and open space, often giving places their own distinct identity.
Context
The setting of a site or area, including factors such as roads, activities and land uses as well as landscape and built form.
Conservation Area
An area of special architectural and/or historic interest that deserves preservation or enhancement of its character or appearance.
Constraint
A limiting factor that affects development, such as an environmental designation.
Contaminated Land
Land that has been polluted or harmed in some way making it unfit for safe development and use unless cleaned.
Consultation
Both informal and formal engagement with the specific and general consultees.
Coping
The covering course of a wall, parapet or chimney designed to throw off water – also called a capping.
Corbel
A projecting cantilevered layer of brick or stone that protrudes out from the layers or courses below. The purpose of the corbelling is usually decorative although it is also commonly used to form a ledge to support something
Core Strategy
Sets out the long-term spatial vision and spatial objectives for the District and the strategic policies and proposals to deliver that vision.
Development
Development is defined under the 1990 Town and Country Planning Act as "the carrying out of building, engineering, mining or other operation in, on, over or under land, or the making of any material change in the use of any building or other land." Most forms of development require planning permission.
Density
The number of buildings in relation to a given area of land. In this guide built density is expressed in terms of number of dwellings per hectare.
Design and Access Statements
Accompany and support planning applications to outline design principles and concepts applied to a proposal in relation to layout, scale, landscaping and appearance.
Eaves
The lower edge of a sloping roof which overhangs the face of a wall.
Ecological
Relating to, or concerned with, the relation of living organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings
Elevation
The façade of a building, or the drawing of a façade.
Enclosure
The arrangement of buildings, walls, trees to provide different levels of space.
Façade
The external face of a building or group of buildings that face the public realm.
Fenestration
The placement of windows on the exterior of a building.
Form
The layout (structure and urban grain), density, scale (height and massing), appearance (materials and details) and landscape of development.
Gable
The end wall of a building, the top of which conforms to the slope of the roof.
Grain
The general shape and direction of building footprints.
Green Infrastructure
A catch-all term to describe the network of natural and semi-natural features within and between the built environment. These features range in scale, from street trees, green roofs and private gardens through to parks, rivers and woodlands.
Hard Standing
An area of hard paved surface which is usually used for the parking or manoeuvring of vehicles.
Heritage Assets
A range of geographical components of the historic environment which have been positively identified as having a degree of significance meriting consideration in planning decisions. These include listed buildings, conservation areas, old buildings that are not listed but have local historical importance, scheduled monuments, registered parks and gardens, archaeological sites and historic wreck sites.
Hierarchy
A logical sequence of spaces, streets or building forms, increasing or decreasing in size or density throughout a development.
Historic Environment
All aspects of the environment resulting from the interaction between people and places through time, including all surviving physical remains of past human activity, whether visible, buried or submerged and landscaped and planted or managed flora.
Human Scale
The use within development of elements that relate well in size to an individual human being and their assembly in a way that makes people feel comfortable rather than overwhelmed.
Implementation
Carrying out the proposed actions to required standards that are set out in the plan.
Inclusive
Ensuring that buildings and their surrounding spaces can be accessed and used by everyone.
Infrastructure
Basic services necessary for development to take place, for example, roads, electricity, sewerage, water, education and health facilities.
Landmark
A building or structure that stands out from its background by virtue of height, size or some other aspect of design.
Landscape
The character and appearance of land, including its shape, form, ecology, natural features, colours and elements and the way these components combine. Landscape character can be expressed through landscape appraisal and maps or plans.
Landscape Character Assessment
Identifies different landscape areas which have a distinct character based on a recognisable pattern of elements, including combinations of geology, land-form, soils, vegetation, land use and human settlement.
Layout
The way buildings, routes and open spaces are placed in relation to each other.
Legal Agreement
A legally binding contract, between a developer and the local planning authority that constitutes a planning obligation.
Listed Building
A building mentioned in statutory lists as being of special architectural or historic interest. There are different grades of listing to indicate relative interest.
Listed Building Consent
An approval required before any alteration or whole or partial demolition of a listed building is undertaken.
Local Distinctiveness
The particular positive features of a locality that contribute to its special character and sense of place and distinguishes one local area from another.
Local Planning Authority
The local authority or council that is empowered by law to exercise planning functions. The Broads Authority is also considered to be a local planning authority. County Councils are the authority for waste and minerals matters.
Massing
The volume of a building or group of buildings.
Mixed Use
A mix of, usually complementary, uses within a building, on a site or within a neighbourhood.
Movement
The passage of people, cycles and vehicles through buildings, places and spaces.
National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF)
Sets out the Government’s planning policies for England and provides a framework within which local people and their accountable councils can produce their own distinctive local and neighbourhood plans, which reflect the needs and priorities of their communities (see accompanying NPPG).
NPPG
National Planning Practice Guidance.
Natural Surveillance
The discouragement of wrongdoing by the presence of passers-by or the ability to be seen out of surrounding windows. Also known as passive surveillance, (or supervision).
Objective
A statement that specifies the direction and amount of desired change in trends or in conditions.
Open Space
All open space of public value, including not just land but also areas of water (rivers, canals, lakes and reservoirs) which offer important opportunities for sport and recreation and can act as a visual amenity.
Parapet
A low protective wall or upstand that extends above the edge of a roof or a balcony.
Permeability
The degree to which a residential development can be penetrated by foot, cycle and vehicle and the connectivity of the development to adjacent developments.
Permitted Development
Development that is deemed to be permitted without the requirement to submit a formal planning application. Development is usually small scale.
Plot
The area contained within the boundary of one dwelling or a group of linked dwellings, such as a block of flats or a sheltered housing complex.
Private Amenity Space
Small spaces of enclosed land for the use of residential dwelling residents.
Public Art
Permanent or temporary physical works of art visible to the general public, whether part of a building or free-standing. For example, sculpture, lighting effects, street furniture, paving, railings and signs.
Public Realm
The spaces between buildings accessible to the public, including the highway, green areas, squares etc.
Quoins
The external angle or corner of a wall distinguished decoratively by either dressed stone or brick
Residential amenity
Living conditions in and around a dwelling.
Robust
Functions well in a wide range of, often unanticipated, future scenarios by being able to accommodate modification and adaptation.
Roof Pitch
The angle of the roof by degree.
Rhythm
Repetition or alternation of elements or architectural features like columns, chimneys, windows and doors with defined intervals between them. It can create a sense of movement and establish a pattern and texture.
Scale
The impression of a building when seen in relation to its surroundings, or the size of parts of a building or its details, particularly as experienced in relation to the size of a person. Sometimes it is the total dimensions of a building that give it its sense of scale, at other times it is the size of the elements and the way they are combined. The concept is a difficult and ambiguous one, often the word is used simply as a synonym for 'size'.
Sense of Place
The essential character and spirit of an area derived through its local distinctiveness.
Set-back
The distance of a building alignment from the front property boundary or street frontage.
Soffit
The lower exposed surface of any part of a building. Most commonly used to refer to the underside of building eaves.
SPD - Supplementary Planning Documents
Add further detail to the policies in the Local Development Plan. They can be used to provide further guidance for development on specific sites, or on particular issues such as design. Supplementary planning documents are capable of being a material consideration in planning decisions.
Storey
The part of a building between the surface of any floor and the surface of the floor or ceiling above it.
SUDS
Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems. Measures to increase permeable surfaces in an area therefore allowing a slow release of water rather than fast run-off.
Supplementary Planning Documents (SPDs)
These cover a wide range of issues on which the plan making authority wishes to provide policies or guidance to supplement the policies and proposals in development plan documents. They do not form part of the development plan and they are not subject to independent examination.
Sustainability Appraisal (SA)
A tool for appraising policies to ensure they reflect sustainable development objectives (i.e. social, environmental and economic factors). Required to be undertaken for all LDDs, and to include SEA.
Sustainable Development
Meets the economic, environmental and community needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
Tenure Blind
The delivery of housing whereby both market housing and affordable housing are designed to be as visually similar as possible, as a way of reducing inequalities or the feeling of inequality that may exist between residents
Topography
The physical features of a geographic area, both natural and man-made, that characterize a particular landscape; e.g. the relief and contours of that land.
Urban Design
The process of creating places in consideration of sustainable development, including the infrastructure requirements and the design and detailing of buildings and spaces.
Verge
The edge where a pitched roof joins the gable or end wall of a building.
Vernacular
The way in which ordinary buildings were built in a particular place making use of local styles, techniques and materials and responding to local economic and social conditions.