SPECIALIST speakers are to discuss what makes great housing in Northumberland and the public is invited to attend.

The online event, ‘Great New Housing In Rural Northumberland: What are the ingredients?’, is being hosted by the Northumberland branch of CPRE, the countryside charity, and takes place on Monday, November 1 from 1-3.30pm.

Speakers include the organisation’s national CEO Crispin Truman, Rob Murfin, director of planning at Northumberland County Council, the founding director of Create Streets, Nicholas Boys Smith, and architect Nigel Jenkins.

Housing has become a contentious topic in recent years not just in terms of where houses are built but the quality of the housing schemes being put forward.

Webinar organiser Annie Lloyd said: “Many people are really concerned about the current quantity and quality of volume house-building in our region but it’s very easy to say what we don’t like, much harder to define what we do.

“How do we differentiate great housing from mediocre tick-box schemes?”

CPRE Northumberland has launched a new campaign to highlight the subject and the November discussion is the centrepiece of the awareness-raising effort.

Annie added: “We want to make a positive case for well-designed housing that provides a range of affordable homes for local people, and is kind to the environment.

“We want to set out what we feel are the ingredients of really great housing design - if people knew a little more about them, they could demand better from housebuilders – as buyers, renters, councillors, voters or just individuals feeling powerless about developments on their doorstep.

“More housing may be needed but it must prioritise need, location, people and the planet, over pure profit - housing must meet an identified need, not developer demand.

“We could be using tax to incentivise brownfield re-use and to discourage greenbelt proposals, empty homes, second homes and holiday rentals.

“We could rename affordable housing as appropriate housing to dissolve away stigma. We could be preventing land-banking by specifying a finite completion date for developments and so much more.

“We want to keep our green open spaces as just that – the stunning countryside that we all value for its natural peace and beauty.

“But where new housing does need to be provided, it is perfectly possible to build sensitive, well-designed, vibrant places with built-in qualities like sustainability, biodiversity, active transport, connectivity, green and blue infrastructure.”

Anyone who wants to attend the webinar and get involved can book a place or find out more by emailing Annie Lloyd at Annie.CPRE@gmail.com.