News
England planning news, June 2019
03 Jun 2019
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Headline news |
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New town centre permitted development rights in force
The Government has published its response to the ‘Supporting the high street and increasing the delivery of new homes’ consultation and brought into force the permitted development rights (PDRs) already committed to via a Written Ministerial Statement published alongside the Spring Statement 2019.
The amendments to the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 2015 (GPDO) have been made by the Town and Country Planning (Permitted Development Advertisement and Compensation Amendments) (England) Regulations 2019, which came into force on 25 May.
Specifically, the amending Regulations have introduced a new Permitted Development Right (PDR) under Class JA for conversion of retail, takeaway, betting office, pay day loan shop, and laundrette uses to B1(a) office use and subject to other limitations and conditions include a floorspace limitation of 500 sqm. Furthermore, the existing PDR to convert retail and specified sui generis uses to dwellinghouses has been extended to also include hot takeaways uses (A5).
The amendment Regulations remove the deadline for implementing larger extensions to dwellinghouse under Class A thus making that PDR permanent. The time-limited PDR to change from storage use to residential will not be extended and, accordingly, will lapse on 10 June 2019.
There are new provisions in the GPDO in relation to electrical upstands for recharging vehicles, agricultural building to dwellinghouse PDR, temporary flexible uses, installation, alteration or replacement of public call boxes, and other minor clarifications.
Finally, the Government’s consultation response provided further updates on other PDRs which were not brought into force via the 2019 Amendment Regulations. On upward extensions to existing building to create new homes, the response stated that the Government ‘will continue to engage with interested parties on the technical details’, while on the proposed PDR to allow the demolition of commercial buildings for delivering housing, the Government briefly stated that they ‘intend to continue to consider the design of a permitted development right’.
The Government will also ‘amend the shops use class to ensure it captures current and future retail models, which will include clarification on the ability of the A use classes to diversify and incorporate ancillary uses without undermining the amenity of the area’.
For further information, please see the updated version of Lichfields Guide to Use Classes Order in England and the Guide to changing ‘main town centre uses’ via permitted development rights.
In other town centre news, the government has announced £62 million of funding to support high streets and town centres by bringing old and historic buildings back into use.
Lichfields Planning Matters, Town Centres: A Time for Change
DCMS, High streets to benefit from £62 million heritage boost
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Quote of the month |
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Graven Hill has an effervescence to it. To me, it seems like a kind of latter day Portmeirion. I have no doubt that, in time, it will become a conservation area—not least for the sheer variety and enthusiasm of the architecture, with a Cotswold cottage next to a Swiss chalet next to a house that looks like a stealth bomber next to a glass box. The variety of homes chosen by the occupants is extraordinary, as is the strong sense of community and ownership that is immediately apparent among the people there.
Housing Minister Kit Malthouse, during a Parliamentary debate on self-build housing |
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The Community Infrastructure Levy Regulations amended in relation to Crossrail borrowing
The Community Infrastructure Levy (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2019 came into force on 23 May 2019. These amendment Regulations were made in order to facilitate the GLA borrowing to fund the Crossrail Project and do not relate to the draft CIL Amendment Regulations consulted on in December 2018.
The Community Infrastructure Levy (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2019
Lichfields London planning news, June 2019
Planning condition restricting occupancy was enforceable
A High Court judgement has ruled that a Planning Inspector should not have considered a proposed occupancy condition unenforceable and determined a planning application for holiday lodges as though it were a planning application for permanent residential accommodation. The judgement addresses a number of matters regarding the imposition of planning conditions relating to temporary or holiday accommodation and the extent to which the decision-maker should consider proposed conditions or those recommended in guidance.
A golf club in East Hertfordshire proposed ‘leisure lodges’ in order to ensure the future financial viability of the golf club, which had gone into administration. The applicant had proposed an occupancy condition adapted from the (now withdrawn) ‘Good Practice Guide on Planning for Tourism’.
The Inspector had noted that the appellant had suggested a condition and that the Council was concerned it was unenforceable and therefore a legal agreement was required, which had not been forthcoming.
The Inspector had concluded that the proposed condition would require potentially intrusive checks and a level of control that would not be practicable and the control that the appellant would have over the units was not clear. According to the Inspector’s decision the Council had proposed a condition to limit occupiers to a 14 day stay within any three-month period but the appellant considered that this would make the scheme unviable. Therefore, and with reference to a local plan (2007) paragraph stating that planning applications for special residential uses will be considered “as though they were for a normal residential building and the policies relating to residential development will apply”, the Inspector determined the application on the basis that it was a normal residential development.
The judgement found that the Inspector had not been asked to allow the development without the proposed condition; he had to consider whether it was possible to define the grant of planning permission in the terms the Country Club was looking for. However:
“having (erroneously) come to the conclusion that the conditions proposed by the claimants were unenforceable, the Inspector then failed to consider whether there were any other conditions, specifically, the conditions put forward by the Council [that the claimant had considered unviable] or the conditions suggested in the Good Practice Guide, which might have addressed the concerns about enforceability that he had raised”.
It was also held that the local plan paragraph referred to is “not a policy decision that any use that is proposed for a caravan which is non-residential, is to be deemed a proposed residential use” and therefore did not lend any weight to the Inspector’s approach.
The claim was allowed and the decision quashed because the Inspector’s approach “flew in the face of the Government’s guidance in the Good Practice Guide”, misinterpreted the PPG and failed to consider alternative conditions to the condition that he had wrongly found to be unenforceable.
MHCLG has published updates to the sections on viability and neighbourhood planning within its suite of Planning Practice Guidance (PPG). The amendments, which predominantly provide clarifications and additional information, follow the recent revisions to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF).
Viability
Guidance on viability had already seen a significant overhaul last July, with the introduction of several new measures for both developers and authorities. These included the expectation that viability should be tested at the plan-making stage, that assessments should be based on a standardised set of inputs, and a new procedure for appraising land values. Building on this, the most recent changes to the viability PPG include:
- clarifications to the meaning of ‘policy compliant development’, which is a development which fully complies with up to date plan policies, with decision makers able to give ‘appropriate’ weight to emerging policies;
- details on how the ‘typology approach’ to viability may be undertaken by plan-makers;
- a new paragraph on how viability assessment for education provision should be undertaken;
- stating that landowners and site purchasers must consider policy requirements when agreeing land transactions;
- how to use market evidence and the relationship of this with benchmark land value; and
- amendments and clarifications relating to the definitions of Existing Use Value (now more narrowly defined) (EUV), Alternative Use Value (now more broadly defined), and EUV plus the landowner premium (EUV+)
The guidance now also links to a set of draft templates and tools prepared by MHCLG in relation to data standards for publicly available viability assessment; as well as section 106 agreements.
Related to this, RICS has now published a professional statement entitled ‘Financial viability in planning: conduct and reporting’, which “sets out mandatory requirements that inform the practitioner on what must be included within reports and how the process must be conducted”.
Neighbourhood Planning
The updates to the Neighbourhood Planning PPG largely relate to the addition of guidance on how local authority housing requirement figures should be used to inform neighbourhood plan housing policies.
Where strategic policy making authorities have failed to provide neighbourhood planning bodies with a housing requirement figure, the guidance now outlines the procedure for groups to produce this figure themselves, highlighting the need to take into consideration existing and emerging policies, evidence of local housing and economic land supply, and the local characteristics.
The Neighbourhood Planning PPG now also includes guidance on how neighbourhood plans should be reviewed and updated.
MHCLG, Viability - Planning Practice GuidanceMHCLG, Neighbourhood Planning - Planning Practice Guidance
RICS Financial viability in planning: conduct and reporting
PINS publish action plan responding to Rosewell review of planning appeal inquiries
The Planning Inspectorate (PINS) has now issued an action plan outlining its current progress against and proposed ways of responding to the 22 recommendations set out in the Independent Review of Planning Appeal Inquiries report in February 2019.
The aim of the recommendations is to improve the speed and customer experience of the inquiries procedure, with a target of ensuring that planning appeal inquiry decisions are determined in no more than 24 weeks from receipt, in 90 per cent of cases by June 2020.
The foreword to PINS’ response states:
“We are encouraged by the practical, common sense nature of the recommendations which promise to lead not only to much faster decisions but also to radically improve the experience of customers. Crucial to this is the introduction of an overhauled appeal portal which we anticipate will be ready by the end of 2019".
The response confirms that the new appeals portal is currently being piloted for a small number of inquiries.
It also sets out plans to streamline the process for deciding the mode of appeal to be used, by requiring appellants to notify the Local Planning Authority (LPA) of their intention to appeal a minimum of 10 working days before the appeal is submitted to PINS. Whilst this is currently proposed as guidance, it has been suggested that it may be made mandatory through legislation if six months of monitoring shows that the approach is not being followed. PINS will also be less flexible in terms of dates and deadlines, which are to be imposed.
PINS has provided a comprehensive timetable of milestones relating to the delivery of the Review’s recommendations. However, it considers that a relatively long transition period may be needed that will be largely dependent on the number of inquiries coming forward, as well as the amount of other case work taken on over the period.
MHCLG, Independent review of planning appeal inquiries: report
Planning Inspectorate, Independent Review of Planning Appeal - Action Plan
Government to publish planning guidance on specialist housing need
The Housing Minister has stated that the government will shortly publish new planning guidance which will provide advice to authorities on assessing the types of specialist housing needed for older people. This relates to the NPPF requirement, introduced in 2018, that requires local planning authorities to identify the size, type and tenure of homes needed for different groups.
MHCLG, Written Q&A - Housing: Older People
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The Lichfields perspective |
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Town centres are experiencing a period of unprecedented change and there is unquestionably a need for diversification on the high street. The new permitted development rights for town centre uses will hopefully encourage this and the take up of empty properties. The more complex of the potential PDRs proposed in December 2018 – upward extensions and office to residential redevelopment – remain under consideration. We also await more detail on how the A1 use class will be amended to reflect future retail models including diversification and ancillary uses. |
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Disclaimer: This publication has been written in general terms and cannot be relied on to cover specific situations. We recommend that you obtain professional advice before acting or refraining from acting on any of the contents of this publication. Lichfields accepts no duty of care or liability for any loss occasioned to any person acting or refraining from acting as a result of any material in this publication. Lichfields is the trading name of Nathaniel Lichfield & Partners Limited. Registered in England, no.2778116