The Civic Trust supports communities having assets and creating a `sense of place' in new housing developments, including effective mechanisms to promote communities knitting together. The Civic Trust is making a contribution to raising the standard of housing design through its joint Building for Life initiative with CABE and the House Builders Federation to promote better design of new houses. The initiative has published a manifesto, entitled `Providing quality homes we need: ten ways for the Government to help' was sent to Lord Rooker on 11 September 2002. The Building for Life initiative find that aspects of the financial and regulatory system sometimes act against the interests of securing excellence in housing and neighbourhood design, and the partners have identified in this manifesto ten ways in which some of the remaining barriers to quality could be removed. For more information visit www.buildingforlife.org. where the manifesto is available as a pdf file in publications.

  A second document is now under way that will set out the priorities that house builders can themselves follow to secure a commitment to quality.

  We are also collecting and publicising the best schemes by major house builders that meet our criteria. The criteria come under the following headings: creating a place with character; building roads, parking and pedestrian layouts that recognise use of streets by other than car users; creating specific designs for the sites that are durable and appealing in quality, outperform the Building Regulations, are capable of being remodelled easily, that make good use of advances in construction technology; and in terms of environment and the community, have easy access to public transport, a range of tenure and accommodation, and have features that would help to knit the community together.