Introduction
The council has adopted the Taunton Garden Town Public Realm Design Guide which illustrates the council’s aspirations for maintaining and improving the public realm design quality across Taunton Garden Town.
The purpose of the Public Realm Design Guide for Taunton Garden Town is to raise the standard of the public realm and streetworks consistently across the Garden Town. The guidance is aimed at guiding the design of public realm and street works by the highway authority, developers, utility companies and their agents and contractors. It also attempts to show how current principles of highway design and layout can be incorporated into good placemaking.
It demonstrates that meeting the challenges of the climate emergency is integral to high quality design and placemaking. This can be done through measures that are:
- sustainable
- energy efficient
- low carbon
- climate resilient
It shows in doing so, brings major benefits to other key aspects of good design, such as health and wellbeing. It also attempts to show how principles of good practice in street design and layout can be incorporated into good placemaking.
The Public Realm Design Guide for Taunton Garden Town was subject to extensive public consultation throughout 2020 and 2021 and was adopted by Full Council as a Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) on 7 December 2021. Hence it is a material consideration in determining relevant planning proposals and applications and is afforded weight in the decision-making process.