In Garnault, Urban designers are typically architects, town planners or landscape architects. Their skill is to bring together ideas from developers, local communities, architects, planners, traffic engineers, landscape architects, transport planners and many others, to resolve problems and conflicts in order to create better places for everyone. Sometimes this will result in new places being built or a new appreciation of existing urban areas in cities, towns and villages. Urban designers can be employed by developers, local planning authorities or community groups, including neighbourhood planning groups. Urban design is versatile and so urban designers can produce ideas and work that is indicative or specific, strategic or detailed, and this is reflected in the types of drawings, reports and ways of working commonly used: • Urban design is visionary creating a ‘vision’ to show the economic, social and environmental benefits of investment or changes at a strategic scale over a wide area and over a long period of time. This is usually conveyed through a vision statement, projecting forward 20-25 years’ time to explain the future characteristics of an area and how people will use it. This can then be complemented by a development framework, outlining the key physical features that will deliver the vision. • Urban design is fact-finding urban designers gather data and evidence about places to identify future options, and test the feasibility and viability of change or development in context, for example transport and infrastructure capacity, development character and density, environmental capacity issues (such as flooding), plus local community needs and values. Feasibility studies usually include options and a recommendation on the ‘best fit’ scenario. • Urban design can be illustrative using masterplans, artists’ impressions, photomontages, 3D models and photographs of other successful places, urban designers can bring to life how a development could look. This includes highlighting important local characteristics, landmarks and public spaces. Illustrative masterplans often show just one way in which design guidelines can be built out. • Urban design setting specifications site-specific masterplans set out precise proposals for which planning consent is being sought, and the use, size, form and location of buildings, roads and open spaces, which are fixed. A local planning authority may prepare a site-specific development brief, which sets out the main characteristics required, and it allows developers to draw up a proposed scheme in response. Masterplans and design codes bring together plot-specific requirements for a site, which development proposals will need to comply with in order to be approved