Boguslawa Motylska MSc CSyP FSyI, Director at CPTED-UK Ltd highlights governance concerns within the draft Design and Placemaking Planning Practice Guidance.
On 21 January 2026, the UK Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government opened a public consultation on the usability of the draft consolidated Design and Placemaking Planning Practice Guidance (PPG).
The document brings together national guidance on the design of the built environment and articulates seven characteristics of well‑designed places, intended to support consistency in planning decision‑making.
Security considerations appear across several themes within the guidance, particularly those addressing liveability, movement, built form and public space.
The way in which security is framed within the draft guidance raises broader questions for the security profession – questions not only about technical adequacy, but about governance, proportionality, transparency and professional plurality.
A notable feature of the draft guidance is its implicit reliance on Police Designing Out Crime Officers (DOCOs) as the primary decision‑makers in determining what constitutes ‘appropriate and proportionate’ security within planning and design processes.
DOCOs play an established role within the UK planning system, particularly in contextualising crime prevention objectives.
However, under internationally recognised risk governance frameworks, security risk management is not conceived as a single‑actor function.
Standards such as ISO 31000 and ISO 22341 emphasise that proportionate risk treatment depends on the integration of diverse expertise, evidence sources and stakeholder perspectives, alongside transparency in decision‑making and accountability for outcomes.
Within the UK, this wider professional landscape includes Chartered Security Professionals (CSyP) and Registered Security Engineers and Specialists (RSES), both of whom operate within structured frameworks of qualification, ethical oversight and ongoing competence validation.
An approach that implicitly centres decision‑making authority within a single professional role risks narrowing the evidential base upon which proportionality judgments are made.
The consultation itself invites comment primarily on the practical application of the guidance rather than its substantive content.
While this may reflect a desire to refine usability, it also raises questions about how far contributors are able to influence underlying assumptions – particularly those related to security governance.
Transparency in national policy consultations is paramount, not only for procedural legitimacy but for public trust.
This is especially relevant in a contemporary threat landscape characterised by disinformation, polarisation and attempts by hostile state actors to undermine confidence in public institutions.
In such contexts, consultation processes that are perceived as closed or narrowly framed may struggle to command confidence.
Within public participation theory, consultation occupies a relatively modest position on the spectrum of influence – closer to informing than co‑creation.
Whether this level of engagement is sufficient when decisions shape nationwide approach to security in urban planning, design and property development, is an open question.
The draft PPG gives prominent attention to Secured by Design (SBD) as the principal mechanism through which security is integrated into design and placemaking.
SBD remains the most widely referenced security certification scheme within the UK planning ecosystem and is familiar to local authorities and developers.
However, the prominence afforded to a single certification route inevitably narrows the policy conversation.
Professional security encompasses a broad range of tools, methodologies and research‑informed practices, including those emerging from academia, professional bodies and national security agencies.
The absence of explicit reference to guidance produced by the National Protective Security Authority (NPSA) – particularly in relation to public space security and hostile vehicle mitigation – stands out in this respect.
Proportionality is a central principle in security practice.
It balances prevention, management, support and control, recognising that some risks are more effectively addressed through operational management, social support or early intervention than through physical or technological controls alone.
From a governance perspective, proportionality is also a defensible concept: Decisions should be explainable to regulators, planners, property developers, insurers, communities and users.
Where certification processes do not require the rationale for security measures to be articulated and scrutinised, questions arise about transparency and accountability.
Most users of the built environment are unaware of how security advice has shaped the permeability, layout or public realm of developments.
Where awareness does exist, it is often mediated through an assumption that police advice equates to security expertise, conferring a form of implicit authority.
In practice, however, the principal qualification required of most DOCOs – the Level 5 Diploma in Crime Prevention: Designing Out Crime – does not provide formal, structured or explicit coverage of security risk management.
This dynamic has prompted some commentators to identify a democratic deficit: Police influence over the built environment is significant, yet the guidance itself is not subject to statutory regulation, systematic public consultation or any form of external oversight.
Former DOCOs and security practitioners have also highlighted concerns around inconsistency, limited contextualisation and misalignment with evidence-led Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) best practice.
The Chartered Security Professional (CSyP) designation is the only UK‑based chartered professional status specifically created to validate strategic and operational competence in security, including security risk management.
The draft guidance appears to associate Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) primarily with the Secured by Design initiative.
Internationally, CPTED has a much broader intellectual and professional lineage, spanning decades of work by urban planners, criminologists, architects, designers and security practitioners across multiple jurisdictions.
Government‑endorsed guidance that implies ownership of CPTED by a single organisation risks constraining innovation and evolutions of the approach.
In contrast, recognising CPTED as a shared, evolving body of knowledge driven by ongoing R&D and capacity building projects, may better support cross‑sector collaboration and context‑sensitive application.
The draft Design and Placemaking PPG forces an uncomfortable but necessary conversation about power: Who defines security, who judges proportionality and who is accountable for the outcomes.
For the security profession, this consultation is not about refining guidance, but about confronting how security advice is legitimised within democratic systems.
Closed processes breed mistrust; transparent consultation earns legitimacy.
