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Backlogs and Bullets: Building Capacity in Local Planning Authorities
With the NPPF taking centre stage again, we look forward to further announcements and reform as the Conservatives and The Labour Party try to seize the initiative on the housing crisis and planning policy agenda as a General Election approaches.
Meanwhile, users remain bogged down in a system that is chronically under-funded, under-valued and under-resourced. Whatever system we have in the future it will only work if it is properly resourced.
The Planning Delivery Skills Fund (PDSF) and other funding measures provides much needed support to help clear backlogs and for skills development or both. A PDSF of £29m will barely scratch at the surface of the problem and the amount of the awards will hardly be game-changing, as welcome as they might be. Reference to the so-called ‘super squad’ shows how these announcements are seemingly influenced by a focus on social media soundbites, rather than leading on the practicalities of how money can be spent most effectively.
The planning consultancy sector will undoubtedly assist in clearing some of those backlogs and play a greater role in assisting the development management functions of local planning authorities in the future. Of course, providing such assistance isn’t new but there will be many more and different types of opportunities, and these are increasingly reflected in our workloads at Lichfields.
This is the first in a series of blogs looking at how we assist local planning authorities and how things might shape up more generally in the future. This one examines the route map belatedly emerging out of the Government’s Building Capacity and Capability Programme. The Planning Delivery Fund is a stop gap that will help 180 local authorities, but what are the likely long-term outcomes for dealing with this chronic problem?
The problems with poor performance and under-resourcing emanate largely from massive cuts to spending in local government and low morale resulting from that, and the negative rhetoric arising out of Central Government over the years to bolster its arguments for reform; much of which has further complicated the system and made the resourcing and low productivity problems worse.
Irrespective of whether any future Government might be able to genuinely simplify the planning system, there might be a silver bullet on its way in the form of the digitalisation of the planning system and the greater use of artificial intelligence, an area of reform to which the government is giving close attention.
The property and planning worlds have been very slow to convert from analogue to digital thinking and the significant current investment by Government in this sphere will undoubtedly continue, whatever a future Government might look like after the next General Election.
Planning data will be increasingly ‘open source’. Planners will be spending more time on interpretating information, making judgments and liaising with key stakeholders and decision-makers in higher value roles, as massive improvements to the processing and presentation of numeric and spatial data and other information to assist decision taking and plan making, take effect.
If we assume digitalisation will make a fundamental difference in about five years or so, what happens between now and then?
The focus on clearing backlogs is an obvious starting point, as without that local planning authorities cannot move on. If much of this can be achieved in the next 12 months or so while the economy remains flat, resources can then start to be positioned to service the upturn when pent up demand from householders, investors and developers will inevitably lead to more planning applications being made.
A more progressive approach to setting planning application fees, targeted funding elsewhere (including that earmarked for Public Practice), and greater use of delivery-focussed planning performance agreements (PPA) in a rising market would yield far more income to help build capacity, hopefully without Councils’ having to make impossible choices about which front-line services to resource. A commitment to extending the Planning Skills Delivery Fund, or something similar, for longer and with larger amounts (possibly supplemented by private sector constitutions) would ensure that we don’t lose momentum if the backlogs aren’t sorted out, before an upsurge in economic activity works its way through to submission of more planning applications.
Building in capacity with greater certainty, is essential to addressing problems with low morale in the public sector, but it goes much further than that. Government must champion and recognise the key role of planners in providing for many of society’s most basic needs and confronting climate change head on.
The rhetoric is changing but a positive take on the role of planning must be integral to the messaging within a pro-growth policy agenda. The infamous comment in 2011 by Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary at that time, that planning was a drag anchor on growth, and all the negative comments about planning and planners that subsequently followed from others, caused untold damage to the profession and how it has since been perceived. If our national leaders consistently talked in positive terms about the role of planners and property professionals, more and better quality people will want to work in the profession.
The consultancy sector’s ability to mobilise and its desire to assist local planning authority development management functions will vary, because of busyness on other work and the barriers presented by unwieldy and difficult procurement processes, especially for smaller businesses.
Out-sourcing of whole functions and term contracts are often the domain of the large corporates, but many more SMEs have the skills and capabilities to assist local planning authorities in lots of different ways by providing general, specialist or local-area resource.
Alongside our term contracts, for example, we are assisting more local planning authorities than ever, with advice on important major applications and appeals where we can offer experienced and specialist resource that local authorities don’t have access to. If development management officers are under pressure, there is unlikely to be relief at hand from policy colleagues with the onus on them to deliver up to update local plans; the private sector can play a part in plugging these gaps too.
On planning application projects, we work closely with senior officers to provide resources and fill skills gaps, with funding assistance secured by councils through PPAs. Our private sector experience and local or sector knowledge brings a lot more than staff resources to the table and combining that with what our local authority colleagues do well, has created some highly productive working relationships.
In the future, we hope part of this process will be to help build capability internally again, such that more authorities can deal confidently with the more complex schemes themselves or select a narrower range of specialist services to complement their own general development management resources.
Another example is where we provide Environmental Impact Assessment services and Reports including assistance with screening, scoping, review of Environmental Statements and drafting of conditions. We use our wider experience to help scope out (or down) information requirements to only that which is necessary as well as assessing the completeness of Environmental Impact Statements and Reports. A lack of staff resource, experience or confidence can cause some local planning authorities who are faced with a plethora of consultee responses to err on the side of caution, ask for information that might not be necessary, thereby increasing workloads and causing avoidable delay. We can and are plugging that gap. Heritage is another example where we provide services where there may be no conservation officers, or where expert support is needed on the larger more complex planning and listed building applications. A growing area in this regard is expert witness work on behalf of local planning authorities.
We are also seeing interest in our services to clear back logs in the form of job-lots of planning applications, many often small-scale, utilising small teams to process and manage large numbers quickly and effectively, before handing back decision-making to the local planning authority. We will expand upon some of these examples in future blogs to explore further how local planning authorities and the consultancy sector might work together, including one which looks specifically at the situation in Scotland.
The Government’s Building Capacity and Capability Programme is critical in that it starts to join the dots in setting out a longer-term plan to deal with by far and away the biggest issue holding the planning system back. Michael Gove used Tennyson’s words - “to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield” - to describe his approach to the way the nation needs to find space, develop and grow at the launch of the latest revision of the NPPF in December. The same could be said about what is required of Government and the planning and property professions, to put the right people and skills in place – and quickly - or else we will never find that space, develop or grow quickly enough to meet the economic and demographic demands we now face.

Header image: Better Queensway, Southend. Lichfields assisted Southend-on-Sea City Council in dealing with reserved matters submission for a mixed use development, including up to 1,760 new dwellings. 

Credit: dRMM

 

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Levelling-up funding: what impact is it having on our high streets?
Over recent years, the Government has launched a number of funding streams, aiming to breathe new life into our town and city centres. Lichfields has been at the forefront of the drive to capitalise on this funding, having worked with stakeholders across the country to deliver much-needed change.
Here, we provide an update on recent funding allocations and explore how Lichfields’ Revitalise toolkit is helping to shape our towns and cities.
The four key funding streams currently available to help deliver town centre transformation are:
 
1. Towns Fund
In September 2019, 101 places were invited to put forward proposals for a Town Deal as part of a £3.6 billion fund[1]. This was designed to provide these towns with the tools to design and deliver a growth strategy for their area, contributing to the Government’s objective of rebalancing the national economy[2] - recognising the role that town centres can play in this. In the March 2021 Budget, the Chancellor announced which 45 places had successfully secured funding. 
2. Future High Streets Fund
Originally unveiled as part of the 2018 Budget, the £1 billion Future High Street Fund (‘FHSF’) was designed to support the development of high streets in a way that drives growth, improves customer experience and ensures future sustainability[3]. In December 2020, 72 successful applicants were announced, receiving allocations varying from £1m to £25m.
 
3. High Streets Heritage Action Zones
A portion of the FHSF is reserved to support the regeneration of heritage high streets. The High Streets Heritage Action Zones Fund is open to applications from high streets within conservation zones and is administered by Historic England[4].
 
4. Levelling Up Fund
This £4.8 billion fund falls within the Government’s much-discussed ‘Levelling Up’ agenda. It looks to provide funding to projects that spread opportunity to historically overlooked areas[5]. Whilst not explicitly town centre focused, the fund has supported a number of town centre regeneration projects.
 
In January 2023, the Government announced the results of the second round, awarding £2.1 billion to 111 projects. Combined with the first round results, the Levelling Up Fund has awarded a total of £3.8 billion to 216 projects. The third round is expected to be announced in advance of the 2024 Autumn Statement.

 

Distribution and allocation
Announcements of funding allocations and their distribution have generated lively discussion.
There has been a weighting of Central Government funding towards areas in the north-west of England. In the second round of Levelling Up Funding, the region received 27 awards, constituting 16% of all funding awarded[6].
The northern weighting is also reflected in the allocations of funding for the FHSF and the Towns Fund, the distribution of which is shown below.
 
However, there is current discussion around how and whether the various funding allocations are being spent, and a recent article in The Observer[7] newspaper found that, across the UK, 43% of Levelling Up funding is currently unspent. Furthermore, 95% of the local authorities that received funding in 2022-23 have been so far unable to spend their full allocation, with critics attributing this to a lack of capacity within local authorities and the complexity of the funding process.
Whilst at face value, this may be of concern to those keen to see the levelling up funding start to bear fruit, it is hardly surprising to anyone with experience in the planning and development sector. While Town Investment Plans and other high street strategies used for funding bids will all have been justified through a strong rationale, few are likely to have been subject to detailed design development, and similarly, very few of the schemes for which funding was allocated will have benefitted from planning permission. Furthermore, given the very significant price inflation over the last two years in particular, many schemes are likely to have become undeliverable in their original form due to escalating costs. In this context, we are aware of funded schemes where there has needed to be a re-design, and amendments sought to planning approvals, in order to ensure deliverability. It is therefore surely too early to draw judgement on whether the allocated funds are likely to be spent.
   

Success stories

In our experience, local authorities have been working hard to deliver projects associated with funding bids. Lichfields has a proven track record of working with local authorities and other stakeholders to deliver town centre regeneration, drawing upon the funding support available from the above sources.
  
Bishop Auckland
Bishop Auckland, County Durham’s second town, has taken a culture and heritage-driven approach to rejuvenating its town centre.
A Heritage Action Zone (HAZ) was approved in 2018, allowing the town to receive funding and expertise from Historic England to tackle heritage at risk and enable re-use of empty buildings[8].
Lichfields worked with Ryder Architecture to prepare the Bishop Auckland Town Centre Masterplan. This identifies various regeneration opportunities, overall looking to help broaden the town centre offer away from retail, to help increase dwell-time, and enhance the environment more generally. This masterplan formed a key part of the evidence base that was used to bid for the FHSF.
Lichfields was appointed by the Council to provide specialist economics input to the bidding processes, helping to secure Bishop Auckland a total of £19.9m from the FHSF and £32.2m from the Towns Fund. This funding will contribute to the provision of the physical infrastructure required to ensure the town can accommodate additional visitors[9].
 
Stockton-on-Tees
Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council is using the FHSF to undertake a transformative approach to the regeneration of Stockton Town Centre. The centre had a unit vacancy rate which was around two times the national average and radical action was needed to address the decline of the retail sector.
In December 2020, the Council received a provisional offer of £16.5m from the FHSF, in addition to £20m from the Tees Valley Combined Authority. Following the acquisition of the two large shopping centres by the Council, a masterplan was developed for the Castlegate Shopping Centre site to help create a new waterfront development.
Lichfields secured outline planning permission in August 2021 for the redevelopment of the Castlegate site, with reserved matters approval being granted for a new urban park and a Community Diagnostics Centre in July 2023 and August 2023 respectively.
In Stockton, the FHSF has proven to be a powerful financial tool in enabling this town centre to think and act boldly, forming its own unique solution to the decline of town centre retail.
 
Derby
In Derby, the FHSF is serving as a catalyst to unlock a key area of the city centre. The Eagle Market is a large market hall in the heart of Derby city centre, which has suffered from sustained high vacancy rates for a number of years.
Derby City Council secured £15m funding from the FHSF, with part of this funding committed to the delivery of the Eastern Gateway, to transform the entrance to the Eagle Market, to create a welcoming arrival from the bus station.
In August 2023, Lichfields secured full planning permission for the Eastern Gateway. The scheme involves the redevelopment of the Eagle Market with a new leisure development and to create a new landscaped area to attract families and children, with curated F&B (Food and Beverage) outlets and associated seating bringing vitality to the site.
In the longer term, the Eastern Gateway investment aims to facilitate the redevelopment of a wider Eagle Quarter, encompassing the remainder of the Eagle Market site and potentially the site of the Derby Theatre (subject to its relocation elsewhere in the City).
 

Summary & conclusion

The government funding streams identified above are now being used to deliver significant change in many town centres throughout England. Concerns have been raised that a significant proportion of the allocated funding is yet to be spent, but it is too early to make a judgement in relation to this.
Lichfields’ experience is that funding can be an important and positive catalyst for change. Here, we provide four key reflections on the opportunities available from these funding streams:
  1. They can serve to unlock difficult town-centre sites, which may otherwise struggle to attract investment, ultimately providing a catalytic effect for regeneration efforts.
     
  2. They offer authorities the opportunity to play a leading role in shaping town centres. This follows the restriction of their control with the introduction of Class E and the expansion of Permitted Development rights.
     
  3. Government funding can provide opportunities to act more boldly and think beyond traditional notions of ‘what a town centre is’.
     
  4. Funding can offer the greatest impact when used to add value to, work in conjunction with, or create the conditions suitable for private sector investment.
 
Our recently launched toolkit – Revitalise – provides local authorities and other stakeholders with a range of services to help transform town centres across the country, similar to those employed in Bishop Auckland, Stockton, Derby and elsewhere. Please do get in touch if you would like to discuss any of your potential town centre projects.
 

[1] https://townsfund.org.uk/[2] Towns Fund prospectus[3] Future high streets fund[4] Regenerating historic high streets[5] Landmark Levelling Up Fund to spark transformational change across the UK - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)[6] Which areas have benefited from the Levelling Up Fund? (parliament.uk)[7] Almost all UK councils have not spent total share of levelling-up fund | Local government | The Guardian[8] Bishop Auckland: A cultural revolution[9] Moving on up: levelling up town centres across northern england

Image credit: Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council

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