Stockport Borough Council Design Code Collaboration

The two documents linked below form the outputs from a collaborative project between Manchester Urban Design LAB (MUD-Lab) at the University of Manchester and Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council - the partnership was established to inform the Council’s borough-wide Design Code.

The project involved 30 students studying on the 2024-25 MSc Urban Design and International Planning (UDIP) course and supervised by the MUD-Lab staff team. 

In 2024, Stockport Council were selected as one of DLUHC’s (now MHCLG) Design Code Pathfinder projects.

The delivery team identified an opportunity to work with students on the MSc UDIP course at the University of Manchester, as part of the wider consultant team, to develop the code providing an opportunity for students to learn about the coding process and to develop and utilise their urban design analysis and design skills on a professional project, with Stockport Council as the client.

Through discussions between the MUD-Lab and the wider project team, including Stockport Council, urban design consultant Tibbalds, and engagement lead Design Yorkshire, two local focus areas were identified – Davenport and Woodley.

Limited spatial information was available for these local centres, and so the student remit was to undertake an urban design analysis to inform a series of contextual design priorities for each area.

These design considerations would be used by the wider consultant team to inform the borough-wide Design Code. This document provides the analysis and design priorities for Davenport.

The project formed an extra-curricular optional opportunity for students, and so was limited to six workshops, alongside their academic studies. 

The six workshops included:

  1. Site Visit – a group site visit to the local centre, guided by Richard Wood, Planning Policy Manager at Stockport Council, followed by student-led exploration of the area.
  2. Initial Analysis Workshop – students undertook analysis of the local centre, following the MUD-Lab’s ‘Applied Urban Design process’(1). Analysis was based around the five themes of neighbourhood attributes and identity; built development; connectivity; public realm and green infrastructure; and character. Analysis techniques were undertaken based on the methods outlined in the MUD-Lab’s Urban Design Toolkit (2).
  3. Analysis and Opportunities and Constraints Workshop – students concluded their analysis of the local area and used this to identify opportunities and constraints to future development in the area. This workshop was attended by Hannah Mitchell, Senior Planning Policy Officer at Stockport Council. Hannah provided feedback to the student groups on the analysis undertaken.
  4. Design Considerations to Inform the Design Code – this workshop was attended by Jamie Wilde and Robbie Ormrod from Design Yorkshire, and Jaimie Ferguson from Lucid Design. Having undertaken public engagement on the Design Code project, these members of the consultant team worked with students to inform a series of design and development objectives and actions for the local area. These objectives and actions will be used to inform the wider Design Code.
  5. Graphics and Document Preparation – in this workshop, students focused on communicating their analysis graphically and communicating their process clearly through the following spreads of this document.
  6. Finalising the Document – students undertook a review of their project outputs, providing commentary on their analysis and finalising the public-facing document, to be presented to Stockport Council.

The entire process was led by the student group, with supervision and administrative coordination from the MUD-Lab staff team.