Everything changes and everything stays the same.
Those of us long enough in the tooth to remember the town planning system prior to 1989 will recall that the developer had the benefit of the doubt in terms of gaining planning permission, unless the local authority could justify reasons for refusal.
So the Chancellor's comments today concerning a presumption in favour of sustainable development (whatever that is - and trailed mercilessly by Eric Pickles for the last ten days) seems no more than an echo of Conservative planning policy from 20 plus years ago.
The speech contained the following statement on planning:
"And we are going to tackle what every government has identified as a chronic obstacle to economic growth in Britain, and no government has done anything about: the planning system.
Councils are spending 13 per cent more in real terms on planning permissions than they did five years ago, despite the fact that applications have fallen by a third.
Yes, local communities should have a greater say in planning, but from today:
We will expect all bodies involved in planning to prioritise growth and jobs;
We will introduce a new presumption in favour of sustainable development, so that the default answer to development is ‘yes’;
We will retain existing controls on greenbelt – but we will remove the nationally imposed targets on the use of previously developed land;
And we will allow certain use class changes, introduce time limits on applications and pilot for the first time ever auctions of planning permission on land"
"no government has done anything about: the planning system" - Interesting. Every Government has tried to do something about the planning system - usually badly. The last mob actually believed that their 'baby and bath water' approach was destined to improve things. Nope. That never happened.
"local communities should have a greater say in planning, but from today:" What an interesting 'but' that is. Yes, you can have localism and devolution of decision-making to the Parish Pump level, but if that means no to economic development you can forget it.
Now, as a hard bitten planner I could be hanging out the flags and welcoming my bank manager round for a glass of bubbly to look at the pile of fees from all that 'open season' development - somehow I don't think that will be the eventual outcome, but a presumption in favour of economically beneficial development may help overcome some of the more disingenuous objections from the NIMBY lobby.
Removal of the targets on the use of previously developed land appears to infer release of greenfield land. However, saying that Council's don't now have to meet targets for the redevelopment of brownfield sites does not imply such an automatic right. The Chancellor said nothing about the continuing prioritisation of sites by way of sequential testing.
"certain use class changes" such as? We have no real guidance as yet but the more extreme 'office blocks to residential use' did not (sadly) make the speech as expected earlier last week. I would have loved to see the reaction to that!
"Time limits on planning permissions" - reduced by the last Government from five to three years to speed up implementation of consents, one wonders how much further this Government might go. Will they also alter the right to renew, which was reinstated because planning permissions (that had cost a fortune to secure) were running out before the economy had recovered to a point where a commercially successful development could be carried out.
"auctions of planning permission for land" - WHAT?
And as for Enterprise Zones - well, the sense of deja vu is complete. We've been here before.
Everything changes and everything remains the same.
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