Naomi Luhde-Thompson, Planning Campaigner for Friends of the Earth details how further reform of the planning system heralded by the Housing and Planning Bill will spell more confusion and delay
Since 2010, planning reform has been relentless in England. Planning guidance were reduced to a mere 50 pages, and then across the national infrastructure, town and country planning and permitted development systems, changes have come thick and fast. A recent report by the Planning Inspectorate showed ever increasing levels of appeals and challenges last year – a possibility raised by many as a consequence of the National Planning Policy Framework changes, which has now come to pass.
The Housing and Planning Bill is the most deregulatory of these reforms. It proposes introducing an American type ‘zonal system’ where permission is given in principle to allocated sites. In England, permission is currently given most often through planning consent for a planning application, where discretion is available for the decision-maker to choose whether or not to say ‘yes’ to the development. This choice will now no longer be possible, where the sites allocated in a local plan, or on the new ‘brownfield register’ have already effectively got the green light.
What does this mean for people and the council? For the council, they will have one shot at getting the decision right – through the local plan site allocation and the brownfield register. The number of dwellings or site capacity, the red line site boundary, and the use will be decided through this local plan allocation. Not many people get involved in local plans – they’re increasing in size and take a long time to put together – and they’re not easy to get to grips with if you’re not familiar with planning. So people will probably find a site allocated for development near them without much warning, and will then find out the council cannot even say no to it, despite many assessments and information not being available at the time of making the decision to give consent.
Once permission in principle is allocated within the plan or on the register, the developer will then apply for a technical details consent. This is sort of ‘what colour do you want the gates’ in terms of the ability of the council to negotiate the development. Debate is ongoing as to how all the issues that are normally dealt with in terms of the planning application e.g. air quality, subsidence, flooding, wildlife value, whether there is local infrastructure to cope with the development, transport access (which could have formed reasons for refusal), are now dealt with, given the council cannot then refuse the development.
The government has also suggested that there should be no public consultation on the technical details consent in March this year. This is a devastating proposal, which truly undermines the value of planning in a democratic society. It is vital that people have an opportunity to have their say so that they can accept the process – whatever the outcome. Undermining public trust in the planning system will do no one any favours.
A further change introduced just before Christmas into the Bill (after the Public Bill Committee) is the privatisation of planning providers. This is where the proposal is to allow private companies to take on the service that a planning officer provides either for a delegated officer decision or for members to take a decision. This is, in my view, unworkable. The impact assessment on these late provisions suggested that the report by the private provider may in fact be binding on the officer or member. A whole host of questions arise: Who pays for the planning officer’s time after the report is submitted? How does all the information for decision-making make it onto the planning authority’s register? How will the private company bring a public service ethos to bear on the decision-making process? How will the public be consulted? What will happen in the event of an appeal or challenge? How will the authority recoup its costs where a private provider is involved? How will it look to the public if this is Arup processing Tesco’s planning application?
Why is this happening? The government says that there is ‘uncertainty’ for developers in ‘not knowing’ whether they will get permission on a site through the application process. On the government’s own statistics consents are rising. What is also rising is the profitability of the private sector housing market 1 while it seems that the provision of affordable housing is the main loser 2.
There was also no consultation on the Housing and Planning Bill proposals before the draft was introduced to the House of Commons in autumn last year – no public debate or discussion was invited. Before it is too late, the government needs to consider the broader impacts of such radical deregulatory reform, or risk losing public trust in the longer term. â–
1 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/02/22/record-profits-forbovis-homes-as-housing-demand-continues-to-cl/
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Naomi Luhde-Thompson
Planning Campaigner
Friends of the Earth
Tel: 020 7490 1555
