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Daniel Libeskind’s call for people to be more involved in shaping their cities – not just the programme, but also the actual spaces – is well timed.

The Localism Act of 2011 for the first time in British planning history gives local people a legal say in helping to shape development in the areas in which they live. Citizens are now empowered to help determine not only WHAT is built in their neighbourhood, and WHERE it is built, but also to “have their say on what those new buildings should LOOK like” (I quote from the Department for Communities’ website). In other words, they are being empowered to help determine the actual character and appearance of local spaces and buildings.

Professionals are apt to scoff at people’s abilities in this regard, but I think they’re wrong. It is design professionals, not the public, who are directly responsible for the appalling tide of ugliness that is steadily creeping across our towns and cities – if specific examples be required, visit central Hammersmith, Vauxhall, and the developments now springing up around Stratford and Barking stations.

(And just to pre-empt the standard response: it’s no good blaming greedy developers. Their counterparts were just as greedy and philistinic when the beautiful streets and squares of Westminster, Chelsea and Kensington were built. One of the major changes since then has been the attitudes and abilities of the design professions).

Most ordinary people yearn to live in gracious, beautiful neighbourhoods. If the new planning system truly gives them the means of insisting on this, by reference to the finest architectural precedents – as I hope it will do – they will jump at the opportunity, and we may finally see a gradual reversal of the current uglification of our towns and cities.

Maritz Vandenberg.