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Planning matters

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Article originally featured in Thames Tap (UK Property Forums)
Living near Jeremy Clarkson’s Diddly Squat farm, Dan Lampard, senior director and head of Thames Valley for Lichfields, found the complex planning issues around it a compelling subject for family discussion. Here, he explains in detail the merits of one of the most well-publicised planning wrangles.
Vociferous debates around television viewing in the Lampard household usually revolve around which channel to watch – or when anyone taunts me by supporting a football team other than Arsenal.
Over the Spring, for the first time, the whole family debated the merits of town planning as we all watched Jeremy Clarkson’s highly entertaining efforts to run Diddly Squat farm.  We live near the farm, know some of the suppliers benefitting from the incredible success of the farm shop, and one of my children’s teachers made a cameo appearance as a member of the planning committee  – so we were all entrenched in our positions.
The majority view was that during hard times, for farmers in particular, the council should be celebrating the success that Clarkson’s regeneration of the farm was bringing about.  Conversely, being something of a Clarkson-sceptic and having been stuck in traffic jams caused by visitors to his farm shop I felt some professional sympathy with my town planning brethren in resisting this.
Many of the issues our family argued about were expanded upon in a recent appeal hearing in West Oxfordshire and the decision – something of a score draw – was released last week.  Having read in the Witney Gazette that extra security measures were in place at the appeal, given the controversy – including death threats – that had arisen, I’m glad that our family disagreements were more controlled
The appeal decision, one of the most prominent in recent years, warrants analysis as to how such an extraordinary level of interest was generated and how planning can work through such divergent views. 

In the beginning . . .

Clarkson owned the farm for a number of years before his collaboration with Amazon but generated little controversy.  The whole farm is within the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) – forming a significant constraint in planning policy terms.
The current story begins when West Oxfordshire District Council (WODC) granted permission in 2019 for ‘a lambing shed and farm shop, including car parking and associated access’.
The application (submitted anonymously – ‘c/o agent’) raised few concerns (and none around the 10-space car park) with WODC officers concluding these works ‘would not have a significant harmful impact [on the AONB]’.
Their economic team concluded the proposals offered ‘important investments to allow the farm business to diversify as its reliance on subsidies inevitably reduces’.
Perhaps the only clue to future controversies was that the planning permission also encompassed ‘potential for occasional film-making’.
Fast forward a few months and the farm shop opened.  The series records Clarkson eschewing traditional advertising and instead, tweeting his followers – with traffic Armageddon following.  One of our friends made her TV debut in the inaugural traffic jam – telling Clarkson she was visiting the farm shop with her sick husband having just collected him from hospital – as you do.
The following couple of years, despite much of it being in Covid lockdown, led to further attempts by Clarkson to expand the economic base of his farm (sometimes without planning permission – as the subsequent enforcement action attests) with further traffic chaos resulting   Clarkson himself, observing the traffic chaos and fast dissolving highway verges despaired to the camera: “I just didn’t think this through.”

The decider

These ongoing tensions culminated (for now) in a two day appeal hearing in Witney in March – with the appeal decision being released recently.
Unlike the rest of the series, the appeal hearing may not make compulsive viewing outside the town planning and transport planning fraternity, since there are likely to be too many references to planning units, primary uses and functional and physical relationships to boost the ratings.
In his decision, the inspector grappled with four main considerations.  All of these arose from his observation that many of the issues stemmed from ‘the popularity of the appellant, Mr Clarkson, who is a well-known journalist and presenter’ and that, as a result, ‘Diddly Squat has become a destination for visitors from all over the world’. 
Specifically, he considered:
  • Appropriate uses other than agriculture : The inspector commented on the farm’s incredible popularity with visitors, including the trend for them to take ‘selfies’ – surely the first reference to these in an appeal decision. The uses present go far beyond the permitted agriculture, farm shop and lambing shed.  The latter, he commented, is not generally a place where ‘one would normally sit to eat food, selected from a more than basic bar menu . . . or drink beer pulled in the same way as your local pub’.  – not surprisingly he concluded it had ‘changed from the use for which it was given planning permission’.

  • Transport harm : The inspector concluded that ‘this is not an ordinary farm shop, given the occupation and high profile of the appellant’.  The 10-space car park was never going to be sufficient and unsurprisingly ‘parking has spilled onto the adjacent land’.  Somewhat mildly he referred to the car park as being ‘oversubscribed’ with knock-on effects including parking on (and damage to) verges resulting in a ‘huge inconvenience for those who live nearby’.

  • Harm to AONB : Planning policy is clear that the scale and extent of development within an AONB should be limited.  In his analysis, the inspector noted the volume of cars, signage, outdoor seating, catering vans and restaurant, which he concluded ‘has had a deleterious effect upon the character and appearance of the AONB and the tranquillity that planning policy seeks to protect’.

  • Economic benefits : Conversely, he went on to recognise that the ‘farm shop has been very successful’ and had ‘undergone a radical transformation in less than three years from a farm shop to a tourist destination’.Whilst some harm had arisen from these uses in a sensitive location he was in ‘no doubt that that the farm shop and other activities have contributed to the local economy’ and these ‘benefits are set against the background of any previous agricultural subsidies coming to an end’.

The result is in . . .

It fell to the inspector to adjudicate in a context where the sheer popularity of an enterprise had left the planning system struggling to assess and then control it.
As with all planning decisions the inspector weighed all policy and other matters in the round – specifically the clear harms which he had identified against the ‘benefits to the local economy, employment, farm diversification and agriculture’.
Clarkson fell short of getting all he was seeking although the inspector suggested some sympathy at his ability to reduce the attractiveness of the farm to visitors noting he ‘could not stop the volume of customers arriving lawfully at the site save for closing the enterprise altogether’.  He also sensed that, in future years the farm’s popularity may wane, noting there was ‘a lack of clarity over how long the successes of the farm shop will continue’.
Overall, and in the spirt of balance, he concluded that ‘a new car park would reduce the adverse effects of the current parking situation on the AONB and upon highways safety’ but would not see a complete end to parking off site and that a temporary solution would be appropriate to ‘limit the use to a period of three years and requiring restoration of the site following that period’.
In the same spirit of short-termism, he also permitted the use of the lambing barn as a café for three years but refused the other elements – most notably the restaurant.
The Lampards are looking forward to Series Three already.

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What next in Chiltern & South Bucks Local Plan chaos?
Article originally featured in Thames Tap (UK Property Forums)
After more than five years’ work, three rounds of consultation and thousands of representations, the emerging Chiltern and South Bucks and Local Plan looks set to be sent back to the drawing board.
Two Local Plan inspectors raised concerns that Chiltern & South Bucks district councils (now part of the new Buckinghamshire unitary authority) had not ‘engaged actively, constructively and on an ongoing basis’ with Slough Borough Council in assessing whether any of Slough’s unmet housing need could be accommodated in South Bucks/Chiltern districts. 
This is the latest in a series of Local Plans across the south east that have also hit the same problem of being judged as failing to comply with the Duty to Co-operate (DtC).
The inspectors’ letter raises many issues but the main question being raised across the Thames Valley is: what next?  There is much uncertainty but the implications of the inspectors’ letter may ripple out across Buckinghamshire, Slough and even into the Royal Borough.   These are our answers to the main questions being raised:
  • Is the inspectors’ decision final? Probably.  The letter leaves open the opportunity for the councils to seek to change the inspectors’ mind by inviting them to respond to these findings.  The ball is, therefore, in the new council’s court and the authority has stated its hopes that ‘when we present our arguments to the inspectors that they are persuaded to change their minds’. The inspectors’ interim conclusion is that there is a ‘strong likelihood that the only option will be for the council to withdraw the plan’ and it will be interesting to see what new matters are raised now.

  • Will South Bucks need to accommodate additional housing to meet Slough’s unmet need? Not necessarily.  The inspectors didn’t conclude that Slough’s need could be met in South Bucks but instead concluded that there was ‘no detailed analysis’ of whether the adverse impacts of meeting this need there outweighed the benefits.  The councils may now undertake this exercise and conclude that they can’t meet all or any of Slough’s need. 

  • If so, would the plan progress speedily? Unfortunately not. As the inspectors make clear the Local Plan process cannot be paused while this is addressed as the legislation requires non adoption of the plan if it fails the DtC.  A failure to meet the duty cannot be remedied during the examination because it applies to the preparation of the plan which ended upon submission in September 2019

  • Will a new plan relate to Chiltern and South Bucks only? We would expect so.  Matters are complicated however by the fact that neither authority exists any more as they have been subsumed (along with Wycombe and Aylesbury) within the new Buckinghamshire Council. Buckinghamshire will have the decision as to whether it wishes to continue the same approach or undertake a wider district wide Local Plan.  A Buckinghamshire-wide plan would need to revisit housing growth and other matters within Wycombe and Aylesbury – both of which have only recently been settled through their own Local Plan processes.

  • What are the timeframes going forward? This is the million dollar question.  If a subsequent plan is progressed for the Chiltern and South Bucks area only it will need to address the Slough conundrum and also maintain an up-to-date Local Plan evidence base (which tends to date speedily).  The plan will need to go back through the relevant stages, culminating in submission and the next Local Plan inquiry.   There is likely to be a much longer timeframe for a Buckinghamshire-wide Local Plan with a need for a Buckinghamshire-wide evidence base and an assessment of the “bedding down” of these Local Plan strategies (potentially complicated by wider matters such as the implications arising from anticipated growth along the Oxford to Cambridge corridor).

  • What does this mean for Slough? Slough has won the argument – for now.  Buckinghamshire will now need to go through the exercise of understanding Slough’s unmet need, assessing whether in its view, it can be accommodated in southern Buckinghamshire and then fulfil the DtC considerations with its neighbour.  Assessing need may not be straightforward – earlier assessments identify widely varying unmet need of between 5,000 to 10,000 homes.  The inspectors consider that this will be addressed in the awaited Part Two of the Wider Area Growth Study (being undertaken jointly by Slough, South Bucks, Chiltern and Windsor & Maidenhead).  This may not necessarily result in a ‘clean’ answer and Slough is likely to come under pressure to demonstrate that it is optimising residential development in the borough.   Slough may also come under pressure to speed up its stalled Local Plan process – as, ultimately, this is likely to be a key factor in determining the extent of its unmet need.

  • Could the courts or the Secretary of State intervene? Possibly.  The councils may follow Sevenoaks in seeking to challenge the inspectors decision on the failure to meet the DtC in the courts through a judicial review but this route lacks speed and certainty. Sevenoaks waited for the inspector’s final report before raising a legal challenge, which was published five months after the inspector initially raised a concern with the DtC and suggested the plan was withdrawn. Unusually the Secretary of State has intervened in the South Oxfordshire Local Plan but was able to push through an ‘off the peg’ Local Plan – an option not available here.

  • So how will planning applications be determined? For now, with little change.  The emerging Local Plan had been afforded relatively little weight so far in advance of the Local Plan inquiry process.  South Oxfordshire however has recently experienced the housing policies in its 2012 development plan being found out of date in the Wheatley Secretary of State decision – the current development plans in Chiltern and South Bucks are even longer in tooth.

 

Image credit: Steve Daniels, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14191076

 

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