Design influences public support for new build homes

By a margin of more than four to one the British public say that in principle they support the building of local new homes in the future on brownfield land, but levels of support vary sharply according to the potential design of those homes.

The findings come from new research, undertaken by Ipsos for Create Streets, involved showing respondents five photos illustrating different types of housing and, for each, asking them if they would support or oppose the building of 10 similar style homes in their local area.

While some types commanded strong support – particularly the most conventional in form, style and building materials – others fared less well. Around three-quarters said they would support homes similar to those presented as type C (Poundbury) and type A (Derwenthorpe) – 75% and 73% respectively – while support was far lower for traditional-looking developments – 23% (type B) and 34% (type E).

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Technical note

Ipsos interviewed 1,000 adults aged 15+ across Britain, face-to-face, in-home between 15-31 May 2015. Data is weighted to the known population profile.

Brownfield land was defined as “land that has been built on previously”, local area as “around 15-20 minutes’ walk from where you live”.

Respondents were shown “five different types of new housing” and asked to spend a minute looking at them as a group.

They were then asked by Ipsos interviewers to “imagine that each one contains 10 new units, or homes, for people to live in. Based on the designs that you can see, I am going to ask you whether, in principle, you would support or oppose the building of 10 such new homes in your local area on brownfield land – that is land that has been built on previously.”

The order of the images shown individually was randomised. Respondents were presented the types of housing as images – these were not labelled, nor described in any way.

Images were sourced by Create Streets with the intention of minimising variation in weather conditions, street furniture, trees and landscape, parked cars and building elevations/aspects (although we cannot rule out these factors having had some impact on responses).