A Village Design Statement is a guide prepared by villagers, which identifies the characteristics of the village valued by local people and provides guidelines on how these should be respected in any future building work. It focuses on design which is acceptable to the community, so that new development is in keeping with the existing character of the village. It is solely about planning and not about other issues such as speeding or footpaths for example.

A Village Design Statement does not address the principle of whether any development should take place, but rather what it should look like if it does. Once adopted as Planning Guidance it has formal status in the planning system, and so can have a real impact on the design of new buildings and other infrastructure such as fencing and driveways.

Thank you to all those that completed our questionnaire. The full results are now available for your review:

A project plan for the creation of our VDS can be downloaded here.

The VDS design guidance document is here. The purpose of this document is to inform planners, developers, architects and builders of the Design Guidelines that have been published in the full Village Design Statement on the EAG website.