Imagine being able to shape your own town, have a say in the landscape and the design of the homes around you. KERRY ANN EUSTICE discovers Bexley residents have been given the chance to do just that ...

Bexley residents and developers have been given the opportunity to have a say in the design of their own surroundings through Design for Living, a design guide for residential homes.

Design for Living is a consultation document published byBexley Council's planning team, which invited residents, local groups, developers, planners and architects to voice their opinions on what they think the guidlines of planning permission for developers in Bexley should be.

The document includes ideas and proposals for developers to consider when designing and building new homes in Bexley.

Any feedback on the document will be presented and discussed in a public forum and will become part of the Local Development Framework, which is what the planning department uses to assess whether potential new builds should be given the go-ahead.

The planning team invited design experts to give specialist advice and examined good residential housing around the UK considered successful and beneficial to its location.

Using simple terms, interesting illustrations and aspirational ideas the council hopes the guide will smooth over the planning application process by providing developers with the advice and vision needed to prepare a successful design statement, which has to be submitted by builders to the council's planning team before construction can commence.

The guide highlights the styles and materials used to construct buildings considered as ideals for the area and encourages developers to use these when planning homes.

Creating a sense of community is also considered an imporant factor by the council. This can be acheived by connecting places, linking streets using pedestrian and cycle routes and making sure there is leisure space for residents such as balconies, communal greens and roof terraces.

The document promotes the idea good design and tight planning regulations are the key to making Bexley a desirable, innovative and sustainable place to live.

All future planning applications will be assessed against the criteria agreed on after the public consultation. By restricting permission in this way the council hopes to raise standards of residential property and in return the area as a whole.

This is to become common practice across the UK. The Government states in Planning Policy Statement 1, "design which fails to take the opportunities available for improving the character and quality of an area should not be accepted."

Planning policy officer Clare Loops says the council has already recieved some positive feedback. She hopes Design for Living helped to break down the planning process and will result in creative responses from developers.

She said: "It's been a long-term project in action since planning changed dramatically in 2004.

"We wanted to encourage developers to be sensitive to all neighbourhoods, not just conservation areas."