Placemaking in Welsh planning policy and its outcomes

This article is about Wales, and the Welsh system is not the English one with different place names. Placemaking in Wales planning policy is the organising idea of Planning Policy Wales, which treats it as the outcome the whole system exists to deliver rather than as a design aspiration bolted onto the end. If you prepare applications in England and are now working on a Welsh site, the practical consequence is that your design and planning narrative has to be written against the national sustainable placemaking outcomes, by name, from the first draft.

Where placemaking sits in Welsh policy

Planning Policy Wales is the national policy document for Wales, in its twelfth edition. Its early chapters set out placemaking as the approach that applies to every decision, then group the policy into themes with a set of national sustainable placemaking outcomes attached.

Above it sits Future Wales: The National Plan 2040, which is part of the development plan. That is the structural difference from England. In Wales the development plan for a site is Future Wales, plus any strategic development plan, plus the local development plan, and decisions are taken in accordance with that plan unless material considerations indicate otherwise.

Underneath, Technical Advice Notes carry the detailed guidance on flooding, noise, nature conservation and the rest. A Welsh officer will expect the TAN to be cited by number, not the English Planning Practice Guidance chapter.

The outcomes you are expected to deliver against

The sustainable placemaking outcomes are grouped under the planning principles in Planning Policy Wales, covering the growth of the economy in a sustainable way, the use of resources, accessible and healthy environments, the creation and sustaining of communities, and environmental protection. Each heading carries a list of outcomes written as conditions a good place meets, for instance that it is accessible by sustainable transport, that it supports health and well-being, and that it makes efficient use of land.

Those outcomes connect upwards to the seven well-being goals in the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 and the five ways of working that Act sets out. The link is not decorative. Welsh public bodies have a statutory duty under that Act, and officers draft committee reports that refer to it.

For an applicant the practical test is simple. Can you point, outcome by outcome, to a feature of the scheme that delivers it? If an outcome cannot be delivered on the site, say why rather than ignoring it.

How the national plan fits above local plans

Future Wales sets national and regional policies, including the growth areas and the regional approach to renewable energy. Where a local development plan conflicts with it, the later plan in the hierarchy prevails on the point of conflict, and the local authority is expected to review its plan.

Two consequences follow for applications. First, a site that falls inside a national or regional growth area carries policy support that the local plan may not yet reflect. Second, in a renewable energy pre-assessed area the national plan has already accepted the principle, so the argument narrows to the local effects.

Check all three layers before you write a word of the statement. Checking only the local development plan is the single most common mistake made by agents crossing the border.

Evidencing placemaking in the design and access statement

In Wales a design and access statement is required for many categories of application by the Welsh development management procedure order, and it is treated as a substantive document rather than a formality. Write it to show how the design responds to the site and how the placemaking outcomes are met.

A structure that works is to open with the site and its context, set out the design evolution including the options rejected, then take the placemaking outcomes in turn with the design response to each. Add movement and access, then the response to consultation. A Design and Access Statement prepared for an English authority will usually need rewriting on this structure rather than relabelling.

Design review by the Design Commission for Wales applies to certain schemes and is advised for others. If a review has taken place, record the comments and the changes made in response. A statement that lists the review and then shows no design change invites the obvious question.

Weight at appeal and in committee

Inspectors in Wales test schemes against the development plan first, and then against Planning Policy Wales as a material consideration. A placemaking argument that is specific carries weight. One that asserts the outcomes have been met, without evidence, is treated as an assertion.

The pattern in decisions is that placemaking is most useful to applicants when the local development plan is out of date or silent, because it gives a national policy basis for the proposal. It cuts the other way on car-dependent sites, where the accessibility and active travel outcomes are hard to answer. The Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013 duties sit behind that point, and a site with no safe walking route to a shop or a school starts a long way behind.

Differences from the English design approach

England runs design through the National Design Guide, the National Model Design Code and local design codes, with a strong emphasis on coding and on beauty as a policy term. Wales does not use that vocabulary. It runs design through placemaking, the outcomes, and design review, and it folds accessibility and well-being into the same test rather than treating them as separate policy strands.

The second difference is procedural. Welsh pre-application consultation is a statutory requirement for major development, carried out by the applicant before the application is made, with a report of the consultation submitted alongside it. England has no general equivalent for majors.

A third difference catches people out on larger sites. Wales expects the sustainable transport hierarchy to be applied and evidenced, and parking provision justified against it, which can reduce the parking a scheme was designed around.

What a Welsh officer is looking for

Officers want the narrative tied to the development plan policies by number, the relevant Technical Advice Notes applied, the placemaking outcomes addressed one by one, and the well-being duty acknowledged. They also want the Welsh language considered where the local plan contains a policy on it, which is a requirement without an English equivalent.

Give them the evidence in the order they write their report. A Planning Statement that follows the authority's own report structure gets read properly, and it shortens the officer's drafting time, which is worth more than any amount of persuasive prose.

Where PlanScope is used for a Welsh site, its drafting is grounded in English national policy and English local plans, so a Welsh application needs the national framework checked and the citations replaced by the reviewer. Our notes on the two-tier system in Northern Ireland and on local place plans in Scotland cover the equivalent traps in the other devolved systems.

This is general guidance on the Welsh planning system, not legal advice. Check the position with the local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it.

If you are preparing a Welsh application, browse the report types to see which documents the scheme is likely to need, then have the policy citations checked against Welsh policy before you submit.

PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.