Eyesore, soul-sapping housing that short-changes the people who have to inhabit it is not the exception but the norm, according to a new report.

Only 18 per cent of new homes can be classed as “very good” or “good” and 27 per cent are of such poor quality that they should never have been given planning permission, according to an audit of 300 private housing developments conducted by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (Cabe).

Construction groups persist in providing identikit “houses built for nowhere, but found everywhere”, it says.

The survey by Cabe, found a concentration of eyesores in the West Midlands.

Some of the schemes surveyed were reminiscent of the worst practices of the 1960s, although they were put up between 2003 and last year. This was before changes to the planning system, including a key piece of government guidance - Planning Policy Statement 3 (PPS3) - introduced last December. In theory, this should put design at the top of the housing agenda.

Developments by the Persimmon and Bellway groups are cited as examples of the soulless estate that short-changes its inhabitants. Barratt Homes was said to offer a mixture of the exemplary and the less so.

Cabe takes issue with a lack of a sense of place at many developments. These were said to have no distinct character of their own. Layout was poor - dictated by roads, rather than buildings - and there was no delineation between private and public realms. Architects cannot be held to blame for these shortcomings, because in many cases, according to Cabe, schemes are draw up by the housebuilders’ technical teams, who are not architects.

The deficiencies contravene a standard agreed between Cabe and housebuilders four years ago. Matt Wells, Cabe’s director of campaigns, said that the housebuilders’ failure to comply with the standard could be partly explained by planning-delays. Cabe hopes that better quality schemes could begin to appear from next year.

Mr Wells added that builders were capable of carrying out excellent work, as shown by their ability to win awards for luxury developments. But he deplored their practice of offering a basic “core product” to most buyers.

Stewart Baseley, of the Home Builders Federation, the trade body, said: “Cabe’s findings underline the importance of a coordinated approach. Too often design has been dictated by compromises.”

Big players

Norman Shaw
Established the first garden suburb, Bedford Park, in West London, in the 1870s. He also reacted to the Gothic Revival by pioneering what became the much-loved Queen Anne style, which borrowed features, such as half-timbered walls, from the vernacular of the medieval period. The style became less elaborate as he developed it, but the various incarnations were adoptedinternationally

LeCorbusier
The champion of Modernism, Le Corbusier believed that the house was a machine for living in, and granted it an open plan and rectangular shape. He did much work on the redesign of whole cities and said, at the end of his life in 1965: “Space and light and order. Those are the things that men need just as much as they need bread or a place to sleep. ”

Richard Rogers
Lord Rogers has designed his first new house in 37 years for a George Wimpey development at Milton Keynes, announced in 2005. The brightly coloured homes, with panelled exteriors, will allow for prefabricated extensions and flexible interior layouts, which can be adjusted by the residents.

Pierre d’Avoine
London-based d’Avoine believes that a return the the architectural “pattern books” of the 18th century might revive quality housebuilding. Two years ago he released such a pattern book, Housey Housey, which promotes his style of steel-framed timber homes awash with light and a feeling of space

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