As architects, urban designers and community planners, our experience is at the delivery end of the development process rather than at the planning policy end.

  From our experience there is a need to create certainty for the development sector to enable risks to be taken and to provide a level playing field for competition. As a practice actively involved in creating places, neighbourhoods and settlements, we have direct experience of the beneficial effects that recent Government initiatives have had on delivering higher quality in the development sector. We, therefore, support the need for strong guidance and policy.

  In particular, we are supportive of the Urban White Paper and PPG3 which have provided the framework around which sustainable communities can be created, sharing many of the principles of the Urban Villages Forum, of which I was a founder member.

  In our view, the Deputy Prime Minister's proposals, as set out in his statement on housing and planning on 18 July 2002, are important further steps in addressing the acute problems the country now faces in providing new homes and creating sustainable communities.

  Decisions regarding key issues such as the quantity and location of new homes must inevitably rest with the Government. But once these decisions are made, we believe that an overwhelming consensus now exists as to the shape and form these developments should take, whether they be brownfield sites, urban extensions or new settlements, with particular reference to the need to create mixed use, mixed tenure communities with a strong sense of place. A proportion of developers have already grasped these principles, realising correctly that if the overall social value of a development can be enhanced, then profits can rise too.

  A remaining problem to be overcome resides with the regulatory authorities, who all too often only operate within the safety net of a `rule book' mentality (highways, heights, overlooking, etc.) and where final decisions are taken by elected representatives who often have little understanding of the real issues and who, for the most part, are visually untrained.

  Through involving the public, private and community sectors from the outset on all our projects, we can confirm that the general thrust of current Government Policy (in the field of planning, urban design and architecture) reflects the aspirational consensus we find on the majority of our projects. We also believe that, under the surface, there is far greater support for much stronger environmental policies, particularly in relation to traffic and transport. Unless the Government shows true leadership on these issues, little can be achieved at the local level; and once again, so long as a level playing field is created, developers will still develop.

  We welcome, therefore, the new emphasis being placed on the need for effective community involvement within the planning system in the belief that this has the potential to create more balanced and responsible outcomes at every level, so long as single issue interests can be properly positioned within a much wider consensus-building process. If this can be achieved, tangible and beneficial relationships can be created between people and places, both in terms of their planning, their delivery and their long term sustainability.