Engaging with design review through 'The Design Review Panel' There are four ways that you can engage with design review through The Design Review Panel (www.designreviewpanel.co.uk) : Through ad-hoc engagement It can be very helpful to bring a one-off scheme to The Design Review Panel. The Panel can often provide a mediation role, helping to resolve an impasse between the applicant and local planning authority. Applicants will often take the advice of an independent expert body when they have seemed unwilling to listen to the local authority. Although these ad-hoc design reviews will be valuable in themselves it may not be the best way to engage with design review because it can also make it more difficult to insist that developers come to design review as they can feel they are being singled out for review when others do not have to do it. For this reason we suggest use of one of the approaches set out below. Through a policy commitment and preferred supplier A key factor in ensuring applicants will come to design review is to make a formal commitment to using it. This may involve specifying a threshold (for example a certain number of housing units or so many square metr e s of commercial space) over which schemes must be presented to The Design Review Panel . Below that threshold schemes can still be referred if they are particularly sensitive. This formal commitment might be confirmed by a cabinet decision or its inclusion in a local plan or local design policy . Whatever route is chosen , it should be communicated to applicants through the council website and on any relevant written material. The policy can specify The Design Review Panel as a preferred supplier of design review and pre-set session dates can be established annually in advance . This arrangement means that The Design Review Panel deals with all the logistics and invoicing for the design review panel sessions and we use our existing very experienced Panel.
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