asked Her Majesty's Government:

What steps they have taken to implement the recommendation in the Barker Review of Land Use Planning that decision-makers should give higher priority to ensuring that new development has high design standards through the facilitation of local design review panels. [HL1061]

The Government's adviser on urban design, the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE), which this department jointly funds with DCMS, is actively promoting the establishment of more review arrangements at local and regional level, and supporting their creation. It is taking steps to ensure that decision-makers learn from the lessons from its own national design review service, how it functions and how it can be replicated at local and regional level.

It has issued a suite of guidance explaining how design review works, including practical advice aimed at bodies setting up their own design review panel. CABE's How to do design review, published in 2006, is aimed at regional development agencies, local authorities and other decision-making bodies and offers tips on setting up a new panel, its day-to-day operation and on how to get the very best from the expertise available to help achieve what we want, which is to improve the quality of the built environment in which we live, work and play. CABE also runs open sessions to raise awareness of the design review process which are particularly targeted at bodies that do not have their own local or regional design review panels.