The House of Lords has announced that the proposal to appoint a 'Chief Architect' in the UK, one of the major recommendations of this year's report by Terry Farrell, will be discussed by the UK's minister for architecture Ed Vaizey and Housing and Planning minister Brandon Lewis. The proposal was among 60 recommendations made by the Farrell Review at the end of March. Other proposals due to be discussed by ministers are a the idea of establishing a Place Leadership Council and design review panels for infrastructure projects. More after the break...
Baroness Whitaker, who tabled the debate in the House of Lords, said that not to act on Farrell's review would be "missing an extraordinary opportunity," saying that the review came at a time "when we have a crisis which requires a very large number of houses to be built fast; when we have pressure to question the tall towers of London; when our undoubted national talent for architecture is rarely matched by an equal talent in planning; and when our citizens… have the new responsibility of developing their own neighbourhood plans"
However Lord Sawyer cautioned that although the government were beginning to take the review on board, he expected that the majority of the work to implement the review would lie with the architecture profession, saying it will require a "huge commitment from the profession – the big-name architects and others... I do expect the government to take a role but I don’t expect it to take full responsibility. This report won’t happen unless the profession lives its own prescription."
Story via BD Online
