The Housing Design Awards, the national programme supported by Government and the industry's key professions and organisations, enters its 64th year with two new Awards partners.

The tradition of sending at least 10 judges drawn from planning, surveying, architecture, housebuilding and government to visit shortlisted schemes anywhere in England will be boosted with a judge from each of the Design Council - CABE and the Greater London Authority. 

The Mayor's housing advisor Richard Blakeway will help select London's winners with an eye on the Mayor's Housing Design Guide, as well as the 500,000 people visiting London for the Olympics. The Awards will publish a special app detailing every scheme entered in London's 33 boroughs, both 'Completed' developments and 'Projects' (those with planning permission not but not yet occupied) to promote the best of the capital's new homes.

As before, views of residents, planing authorities and local communities living in and around Winning Completed schemes will be filmed for a high profile Awards ceremony in June. The films are then widely distributed.

The programme, running since 1948, is a coalition of professions, the RICS  representing surveyors. RIBA architects, and RTPI planners. The trio are allied with the NHBC  as the standards-setting body protecting buyers and the Home Builders Federation representing 80% of the supply of new homes.

This industry-led coalition is fully endorsed by the Department for Communities and Local Government, and the Housing Minister the Right Honourable Grant Shapps, and supported by the Homes and Communities Agency.

The Awards opened for entries 24 January and the closing deadline is 1 March. Full details can be found at, www.hdawards.org