Breckland Landscape and Settlement Character Assessment, Breckland Council

The National Model Design Code proposed the concept of area-types for characterising and then setting design codes to govern new development. However, only two of its ten example area-types were rural – 'villages' and 'rural settlements' – so many rural communities felt this approach didn’t fully reflect their local issues. For Breckland, we were tasked with coming up with an approach that would consider equally the character of its market towns and its villages.

We tailored our methodology to suit both market towns and villages. For market towns, we outlined the distinctive characteristics of each and identified a series of character area types which are found across all of them – ranging from ‘town centre', through 'radial routes' to 'bungalows' – based on our judgements about potential differences in guidance for future change.

To characterise the villages, our team came up with a methodology based on their settlement pattern, both historically and today, and their relationship to the wider landscape.

Our market town character assessment provides a model structure for rural parishes to identify their distinctive character and to characterise them in future using the same area-types, extended as necessary to reflect local development patterns.