"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There's no point in being a damn fool about it."
W.C.Fields
I couldn't have put it better myself, nor the excellent overview by Rebekah Paczek of the Government's latest Planning Antics. Read On...
"Just a week to go before
the Autumn Statement – and yes, we are very excited about it, especially if it
means we might get some movement on Empty Rates from within the bowels of
George Osborne… However, before that, the headlines today are just too
much fun to miss!
It's a Boles Up!
Former Policy Exchange
wonk turned Planning Minister, Nick Boles, is due to declare that we should
build all over the UK. He was quoted in an interview for Newsnight to be
broadcast tonight saying "concrete it all; Bladerunner-style tower blocks
and no natural light, that's what we're aiming for…" Okay, so he
didn't actually say that, nor, as far as we can make out, did he say that it
was a "moral right" for people to own their own home (as Sky 'never
wrong for long' has it on their website, although they also seem to have got
confused about the difference between 3% and a third). It does seem that
he said it is a moral right for everyone to live in a decent home which I think
is fair enough. Although it may be that Sky don't see the subtly important
difference between 'owning' somewhere and 'living' somewhere – reasserting the
imperative for everyone to own their own home rather than rent would undermine
the drive towards the PRS at the moment. Objectively, it seems that Boles
said that we need to recognise that building on a small percentage of currently
undeveloped land would solve the housing crisis and would also leave us with
huge amounts of undeveloped land to ramble across and enjoy. So far, so
uncontroversial, but then that's not a very exciting story is it… Maybe
we should all watch Newsnight tonight to see what he really said rather than
what he is reported as saying.
Round and Round the
Garden
In this case, Nick Clegg
is the teddy bear, going round and round and finally he hit upon a novel idea –
garden cities, that's it, the key to our recovery. Thank goodness, all
hail Nick Clegg. Nobody had thought of that since, errr, wait – Eco
Towns? So apparently we are back on that little roundabout but without
necessarily any further policy to substantiate it.
This week, the
Government announced a consultation on extending the regime covering nationally
significant infrastructure projects to business and commercial projects –
although definitely not retail projects. Apparently this is largely to
prevent large complex projects being a drain on local authority resources and
nothing to do with pushing through the growth agenda. However, public
consultation is key on such projects, which is a relief all round. The
definition of nationally significant is suitably vague – we could end up in
another game of ping-pong over semantics with this one.
In Case You Missed It…
Yes, there has been a
lot of to-ing and fro-ing on the planning agenda recently, so much so that
we've become rather dizzy trying to keep track of it all but we've stopped
spinning round in circles and thought now would be a good time to review what's
actually happened over the past few weeks.
Planning consultants and
developers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but those chains of
planning constraints apparently… Another week, another planning
announcement. This time it was David Cameron announcing at the CBI
conference that the ability to launch a Judicial Review is to be subject to
reform. It has apparently only recently come to the attention of
government that we tend to take around an additional ten years and X billion
pounds to get our major infrastructure projects off the ground compared
to other countries and that, amazingly, this has an impact on our economy.
A fact that had never occurred to the rest of us. Radio 4 had CPRE
on air commenting that this should only be done if third party rights of appeal
were to be introduced (rather misses the point), this argument was backed up by
suggesting that developers use JR vexatiously and this is the problem, not
community groups – of course, no developer would use third party rights of
appeal vexatiously would they?
So, you've all already
read the Growth & Infrastructure Bill from cover to cover, you have,
haven't you? I got as far as the first clause which started off by
stating that applicants can submit planning applications to PINs thereby
bypassing local authorities and had to stop for a little while to reflect
on the successful implementation of Localism and handing power back to local
communities and local authorities. Once I managed to read on, it all
seemed to make sense, but seems also to be adding many pages to the reduced
planning policy. Following this, we have now had a series of
consultations published, which will presumably become guidance, which will
presumably also tot up the number of pages.
Captain Pickles has been
on the warpath, the target of his ire this time are those pesky
under-performing local authorities – DOWN WITH HACKNEY he declared, before
quickly realising he meant to say DOWN WITH HARINGEY, but he was so blinded
with the warmth he clearly feels for Jules Pipe, Directly Elected Mayor of
Hackney, that it was an inevitable Freudian Slip.
So, in case you missed
anything, here is the top ten in the planning charts:
- The new Growth & Infrastructure Bill is introduced
to Parliament – it suggests, amongst other things, that developers
can bypass failing local authorities and apply for permission directly to
PINs. No definition of 'failing' at this stage. Anyone
who was fooled into thinking that the Localism Bill actually gave
away any real power can be firmly assured that any powers which may have
been ceded are now firmly being taken back. Basically, the Growth
& Infrastructure Bill sets out to make local authorities delver what
the government wants and if they refuse, the Government will take away the
power they have and deliver it anyway.
- Michael Heseltine emerged from under the big rock which
the Tories have seemed to want to keep him under with 'No Stone Unturned',
his plan for 'concrete' growth – it suggest, amongst other things, that
LEPs should have more planning powers, be more structured and have a
greater regional role. Perhaps they should also be renamed RDAs and
then we can do a calculation on how much money the government has spent
abolishing something only to be replaced with the same structure – a bit
like the Italian government back in the good old pre-Berlusconi days…
Heseltine and his report now appear to have been pushed back under
the rock and George Osborne is using his copy of the report as a doorstop.
- Lord Taylor is in charge or reviewing planning guidance
– all 6,000 pages. Most people would have thought that a good time
to publish Guidance Notes for policy would be alongside the policy.
However, the government decided that it would be more interesting to
publish the Guidance Notes around a year later by which point the new
regime will have started to bed down so it can be nicely shaken up again.
- The government is reviewing JR to make it easier to
build big things – for some reason Cameron decided to bring attention to
the JR process of the West Coast mainline decision as an example of when
it is right to do so; why would you feel the need to draw attention to one
of your biggest embarrassments so far?? Perhaps a pre-emptive
strike?
- The Government has started naming and shaming those
naughty councils who just won't toe the line – Haringey is allegedly the
worst, although Pickles made a Freudian Slip when he announced Hackney to
be the worst performer. Apparently K&C are also high on the
list, although it may be less likely that they will be put into special
measures…
- Consultation on extending 'nationally significant
infrastructure projects' to business and commercial projects as above
So that was only six but
really, a top ten was a bit too much to dig up, much like the greenbelt…
In other exciting news,
DCLG appear to have relaunched the website, what we now have is something which
is harder to navigate, makes little logical sense and has seemingly been put
together on the basis that you will probably give up looking for whatever it
was you wanted before you find it. Surely not??
We will be back with our
review of the Autumn Statement next week and most definitely not going out for
a Christmas lunch…"
Rebekah Paczek
