Planning matters

I recently returned from spending three and a half years working as a town planner in Melbourne, Australia. Much of my time was spent working as a Planning Officer in Statutory Planning (Development Control). Working overseas was an invaluable experience both personally and professionally and I learnt many new skills which have been beneficial to my career. From a professional point of view, I had to get up to speed quickly in terms of becoming familiar with a new planning system, whilst also developing a working knowledge of the processes of Statutory Planning. My experience of working within two planning systems allows me to highlight some of the similarities and differences between the planning system in the UK and the state of Victoria in south-eastern Australia.

During my time in Oz, I worked for a local council 12km east of Melbourne in an area which is a ‘balance of city and country’. In my role assessing planning applications, I considered a wide variety of proposals from multi-townhouse style developments in urban areas (on lots of 600-900 sq. m) to applications for new dwellings in low density areas in areas affected by bushfires, to applications to remove areas of native vegetation. In fact, one of the greatest challenges my colleagues and I faced was dealing with the conflict of permitting the local community to remove vegetation on their properties to help protect their homes from bushfires on the one hand, whilst at the same time, trying to protect native vegetation that makes a contribution to Victoria’s biodiversity.

With regard to Strategic Planning (Planning Policy), there is no National Planning Policy Framework or national planning guidance as such. Each municipality has their own Planning Scheme (Local Plan) (http://planningschemes.dpcd.vic.gov.au). Within these planning schemes is a State Planning Policy Framework (Regional Plan), which is consistent Victoria-wide. Also included is a Local Planning Policy Framework which is unique to the municipality. Each property is located within a zone, ranging from residential, to commercial and industrial. Many properties are also affected by one or multiple overlays, which relate to such matters as the environment, bushfires or flooding. There is also a number of particular provisions which set out in detail when planning permission is required for specifics such as advertising signage, car parking and private tennis courts. Within each zone, there are uses which do not require a planning permit (planning permission in the form of a decision notice), uses which do require planning permission and prohibited uses. Each zone and overlay sets out any buildings and works that require planning permission.

Whilst generally similar, I found there to be some key differences between the UK planning system process and the planning process in Victoria. Some of the key differences are as follows:

1. Applicants are required to submit a current copy of the title for the land and any restrictions including covenants or Section 173 Agreements as part of all planning applications and planning officers cannot approve any proposals that conflict with these restrictions;

2. For almost all applications, except those that are very minor, there is a 60 day determination period. However, if any further information is required (i.e. the applications are not yet validated), the ‘clock stops’ until that information is received;

3. Applications are advertised for a minimum of 14 days and applicants can carry out the advertising process themselves, although this can lead to complications;

4. It is not uncommon to come across some of the local wildlife on site visits and I managed to avoid any of the more dangerous animals in Victoria, such as the redback spider or the brown snake (walking through unavoidable long grass in the height of the Victoria summer certainly makes site visits interesting);

5. The planning permit usually contains a completion date in addition to a start date, meaning that applicants are required to have completed their developments within a certain timeframe. This works well in terms of ‘getting things built on the ground’ and applicants can apply to extend the timeframes if required; and

6. Third party appeals are allowed in Victoria – one of the biggest differences between the two systems. Thus, if a third party objects to an application, then planning permission can only be granted after that party has been informed of the LPA’s likely decision and 21 days has been allowed, for the objector to lodge an application for review (appeal). All planning appeals are held at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) and are in the form of a hearing. As you can imagine, allowing third party appeals means that planning officers can spend a large amount of their time at VCAT.

Based on my experience of the Victorian planning system, applicants face similar hurdles when attempting to win approvals for schemes when compared with the planning system in the UK. I must say however, that the local planning authority I worked for in Melbourne approved a large proportion of applications. Planning officers were particularly proactive in terms of suggesting changes to proposals so that they would comply with policy and also to improve the design and functionality of schemes. This meant that some applications took longer to process but the outcome was better for all concerned, including the applicant, local planning authority and the community.

In summary, I found it a great learning experience working as a town planner overseas and maybe one day, I’ll be part of the NLP Melbourne office!

Around one month ago the number of neighbourhood plans taken to referendum reached the milestone of 100. This is a particularly impressive figure given the rather inauspicious and slow start that neighbourhood planning experienced, and as recently as April 2014, only 13 neighbourhood plans had been endorsed at referendum.

The introduction of neighbourhood planning through the Localism Act 2011, brought into effect in April 2012, was seen by the Government as something that would play a key role in returning power from Whitehall back to local people and facilitating communities shaping development in their area. The neighbourhood plan process has previously come under criticism from some developers, due to the perceived lack of rigour in how such plans consider housing need and requirement, and how they are then scrutinised by examiners. There is a genuine fear that localism – in particular the neighbourhood plan process – is being deliberately used to limit development rather than expediting local solutions to meeting sustainable development needs in the local area. A fitting quote comes from Paul Tucker QC, who proclaimed in January 2015 that “whatever the political shade of the next government, it must prevent localism becoming parochialism”.

During early 2015, examples abounded where appeals were rejected by the then Secretary of State with reasoning given that the development would conflict with the neighbourhood plan or that it would prejudice an emerging neighbourhood plan. Evidence of this approach was identified by NLP^[1] , demonstrating a distinct reluctance of the Secretary of State to issue appeal decisions that went against the neighbourhood plan, despite in a number of cases, having to go against the inspector’s recommendation.

However, a recent appeal decision by Communities Secretary Greg Clark, to allow 39 homes on the edge of Earls Barton, Northamptonshire on a site not allocated for residential development in the then emerging Neighbourhood Plan, could indicate a shift in approach, as the Government’s response to the housing crisis perhaps supersedes those pre-election jitters.

The timing of this decision is notable for a couple of reasons. The first is that the decision appeared in the press just twelve hours after the resounding ‘yes’ vote in the Earls Barton neighbourhood plan referendum, ensuring that the Plan must be made by the local planning authority.. It was therefore a bold political judgement to go against it, although the decision did state that the Plan was an, “important material consideration”. The appeal was allowed on the grounds that the Council could not demonstrate a five year supply of deliverable housing, and it was subsequently argued that despite the neighbourhood plan being at an advanced stage, the “relevant policies for the supply of housing, including the proposed village development boundary, should not be considered up to date” reflecting the NPPF para 49. The decision was issued just before the recently introduced Housing and Planning Bill began to be debated in Parliament, a piece of draft legislation that boosts Secretary of State intervention powers in neighbourhood plans (for the most part for their benefit) yet that has stoked accusations of being the ‘end of localism’ from Labour opposition. Indeed, even backbench Conservative MPs have expressed their concerns over the Bill, imploring Cabinet Ministers to ‘keep faith in localism’.

Notwithstanding the politics, the Earls Barton decision appears also to be a direct consequence of recent blows that emerging neighbourhood plans were dealt in the High Court, in Woodcock Holdings Limited vs Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (May 2015)[2]). The judgment that too much weight had been given to the emerging neighbourhood plan resulted in the reversing of the decision to refuse a 120 home development, in circumstances where the local authority could not demonstrate a deliverable five year housing supply. A second case in October 2015, Villages Action Group vs Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government[3], also considered that the Inspector was correct to ignore a neighbourhood plan as it was currently still in early stages of preparation and had not been made.

These decisions demonstrate that emerging neighbourhood plans, although obviously important parts of the development planning system, will not necessarily trump national policies set out in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). This situation does not remove the benefits that may nevertheless exist for developers in engaging positively in preparations for neighbourhood plans to secure allocations that help meet the local needs of that community. There are increasing examples of positive joint working to that end.

However, even where there is a neighbourhood plan in place, it is not the end of the story. Many neighbourhood plans proceeded in advance of local plans being adopted for the wider Council area, and they have not always engaged fully with meeting housing and economic development requirements that have been derived from full, objectively assessed needs. Now that local plans have an ‘early 2017’ deadline for publication, it is distinctly possible that conflicts may emerge between local plans seeking to find sustainable development options for meeting housing requirements, and recently made neighbourhood plans. The national Planning Practice Guidance (PPG) confirms[4] the provisions of section 38(5) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, that decisions on planning applications should favour the policies of the most recent development plan document. In these circumstances, newly adopted local Plans in the future may end up superseding even the most recently made neighbourhood plans. What impact will this have on communities’ confidence in the system?

As we move forward towards the New Year, it will be interesting to see whether Government continues to emphasise housing delivery over neighbourhood planning in situations where there are conflicts, thereby reversing the pre-election, Coalition trend. Whatever happens, neighbourhood plans are clearly here to stay: Housing and Planning Minister Brandon Lewis has claimed that neighbourhood planning is boosting housebuilding by 10%. The Government seems convinced that neighbourhood planning can sit happily alongside an increasingly pro-house building Government. That may be so, but it certainly won’t be an easy ride.
This blog is the first in a two-part series by NLP, commenting on neighbourhood planning and culminating in the release of a research project at the end of November.

[1] http://nlpplanning.com/uploads/ffiles/2015/09/507523.pdf

[2] http://www.balii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2015/1173.html

[3] http://www.balii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/2015/2729.html

[4] ID: 41 009 20140306

It’s since been regularly overtaken by ‘exceptional design quality’ to achieve higher densities in scheme approvals – but if design quality is a basic requisite, this should be happening everywhere in London anyway.

The real outcome is that:

• fewer homes are being built than would otherwise be achievable on sites in inner London, if they are a just few more minutes’ walk from a bus route or tube station; and
• the potential occupiers of these unbuilt extra homes therefore have to live further out in the suburbs (or beyond).

As an indicator, a Zoopla advertisement in October indicated that nearly four fifths of homes are beyond a reasonable walk to/ from a railway station.  So that overall journey times could easily be 30 minutes longer or more each way, day in, day out for Londoners.  Bad news for Londoners and bad news for sustainability, travel costs and congestion.

It is often the effectively binary choice between PTAL1-3 or PTAL 4-6 which can virtually double the acceptable density.  If the London Boroughs as local planning authorities (LPAs) accepted a little more subtlety in interpretation this would not matter but they are all too often placed under pressure by objectors if considering accepting schemes at ‘above the maximum density’.  The London Boroughs are at the front line of this policy judgement and applying it to proposed developments, when it is the Greater London Authority (GLA) that has set the bar wrongly.

Even the 2006 review of the matrix’s operation – only two years after its introduction – showed two-thirds of schemes even at that time as being at densities above the maximum for the PTAL rating.

Then the GLA’s 2012 own review of housing density policy conducted mainly by consultant architects identified some of the weaknesses of the PTAL system as being related to public transport access but not to whether the nearest routes actually go to where people need to travel.  It suggested using parallel assessments about ‘access to opportunities and services’.  However, it also puts the true relevance of density quite eloquently:

“On the one hand it informs everything to do with housing design and management. On the other hand, the actual density calculation of an acceptable development … is a product of all of the relevant design and management factors; if they are all met, the resultant density figure is what it isand is arguably irrelevant.”

So why is the policy still in the Plan?

The vocal pressure for densification across all parts of London should be recognised as:

a) worthwhile for securing the more efficient use of urban land;

b) a means of shortening journeys to work and travel times to services; and

c) avoiding some of the overspill into the wider South East.

Recognition should be given, too, to the fact that the traditional suburbs are not really likely to see massive change as a result of the policy shift.

So the Zoopla advertisement crystallises the failure of the approach, with new developments being unnecessarily constrained and leading to far less attractive long distance commuting.

The density matrix should therefore be abandoned in the next review of the London Plan.  It should be replaced with an approach of ‘optimisation’ as recommended by the 2012 review as, ‘developing land to the fullest amount consistent with all relevant planning objectives’.

Then there would be a planning policy framework in place in the capital within which the development sector could operate and to maximise the use of scarce urban land for homes to house sustainably the rapidly-increasing London population.