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Read our report summarising the findings of the Home Comforts survey completed by 2,500 households across the UK during the early summer of 2020.
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Join our Supporters mailing list and stay up to date with our latest news and information on Place Alliance current activities.
To get a glimpse of the things we do, have a look at our Newsletter past issues here.
Press Releases
Find out more about Place Alliance campaigns and our work on place quality issues.
For any media enquiry or interview request please email Victoria Howard, Communications Manager at the Bartlett School of Planning.
Place Alliance in the Press
The Planner – People should live ‘never more than 10 minutes’ from basic facilities
When designing neighbourhoods, the aspiration should be for everyone to live within a five-minute walk of ‘significant’ green space or a park and ‘never be more than 10 minutes’ from basic facilities.
This is one of several recommendations set out in a report – Home Comforts – published by the Place Alliance, which is hosted by UCL, with support from Urban Design London, Good Homes Alliance and the Urban Design Group.
The Conversation – New Research: people living in newer homes found lockdown more difficult
Lockdown provided a unique opportunity to stress-test our homes and their immediate environments, and to gauge whether or not they have supported our everyday needs. Exploring this was the purpose of the Home Comforts survey, conducted by the Place Alliance, a not-for-profit initiative at UCL. The survey was completed by 2,500 households across the UK during the early summer of 2020.
A key finding from this research was that the least comfortable dwellings, least supportive neighbourhoods for everyday needs, and weakest sense of community correlated directly with the age of housing.
Housing Today – Newest homes ‘least comfortable’ during lockdown
Small size and lack of outdoor space made residents less happy with new properties, study by UCL finds
Spending lockdown in a new-build home and neighbourhood has been more difficult than in houses built before 1919, according to a study of 2,500 homeowners.
The research for the Place Alliance group, conducted by UCL, found that people rated their home as less comfortable the newer it was, with those built in the past 10 years ranking the lowest.
UN-Habitat’s Global Urban Lecture series Matthew Carmona: Place Value
This video is part of UN-Habitat’s Global Urban Lecture series. Find all seasons and full packages at https://unhabitat.org/knowledge/globa…
The quality of places can be measured by the value they return to communities, in health, social, economic and environmental terms. Research evidence globally tells us that this ‘place value’ is shaped by how places are designed and that well designed places are fundamentally good for us.
The Planner – Call for ‘new Cabe’ to oversee urban development
The government should set up a dedicated Design Quality Unit for England to build on the work of the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission (BBBBC).
This is the conclusion of a consortium of organisations comprising the Academy of Urbanism, Civic Voice, CPRE, Design Council, Place Alliance, Trees & Design Action Group, UCL and Urban Design Group.
Citing the Housing Design Audit for England, which The Planner reported on in January this year, the consortium noted that there has been a systematic failure to deliver good quality urban development across England for “decades”, particularly in new developments.
BD- How to win the peace
“Now is the time to establish a design quality unit for England”, argues David Rudlin, former Chair of The Academy of Urbanism and Director at URBED)
We will be accused of reinventing Cabe and some might think that’s no bad thing. However the organisation we are talking about is much smaller and more sharply focused on the issues we need to address to achieve design quality. It also wouldn’t include design review which is being done effectively at the local level but would instead be based on a hub and spokes model linking diverse organisations already working in this space across the country.