caliwag

That'll be this article then (paywall for full text): http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/02/avoid-creating-new-generation-nimbys-banning-ugly-sixties-style/

 

Interesting question. I share your concerns that asking a whole community for their permission/blessing is fraught with difficulty. IMHO it's a recipe for conservative and unimaginative design, or, more likely, no new building at all.

Our National Park issues a design guide - which when you read it/follow it basically says you can only build a Northumbrian stone farmhouse. As there is a planning committee, then I suppose in some ways its a community decision (though not all on the committee live in the National Park) However, I've no great disagreement with this as since you can still of course use modern materials (like SIPs in our case), double glazing etc (though many older homes here are insanely not allowed to retrofit double glazing, even if its in wooden sash windows which look identical to the rotten ones they replace - but you can bet the folks who made this rule live in warm economical-to-run homes themselves though) and the interior can of course be whatever you wish, and few if any Grand Designs type outer I've ever seen would just not work in this particular landscape. Unfortunately though it does also stop even little quirks like a salvaged small church window I wanted to use on one side.

 

As you can see, they er, stuck rigidly to their own design rules when they built a new visitor centre.....    

Edited October 18, 2017 by curlewhouse