Category Archives: Development

Seems I could become one of the last planning committee chairman under this government’s plans

Posted on by • Posted in Development, Development, District council stuff, Government, local government, Local Plan, NPPF, public sector, South Holland • Tagged , , , , , , • 4 Comments

Housing bill amendments branded ‘privatisation of planning’
5 JANUARY, 2016 BY DAVID PAINE

Copied from Local Government Chronicle online
Concerns have been raised that the government is privatising the planning service after it tabled a number of major last-minute changes to the Housing and Planning Bill.

Amendments put forward by the government this morning include plans to let developers choose who processes planning applications.

Also planned are changes to let local authorities set their own planning fees, a new section 106 dispute resolution process, and giving ministers the power to force councils to sell off land.

MPs are due to debate the bill, and 100 pages of proposed amendments, in the House of Commons this afternoon.

New clauses proposed by communities secretary Greg Clark will allow planning applications to be processed by an approved “designated person” if an applicant “so chooses”. While local authorities will still be responsible for the final decision on any planning application, regulations will in due course outline the circumstances under which an external recommendation by a “designated person” will be “binding” on a local authority.
Hugh Ellis, head of policy at the Town & Country Planning Association, called the amendments “extremely controversial”.

“It raises the prospect whereby the advice of a private consultant on a planning application could be more or less binding on a planning committee,” Mr Ellis told LGC. “You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to work out that what’s happening here is a fundamental assault on the public interest objectives of planning.”

A part of the amendments will force local planning authorities to share relevant information, such as the planning history of the land to which an application relates, with the designated person as well as the communities secretary.

Mr Ellis called the amendments “very worrying” and added: “People have talked about the privatisation of planning services and I think that’s probably what this is.”

He added: “I do wonder if people, particularly local councillors, who haven’t got their heads stuck in the Housing and Planning Bill will wake up to a particularly nasty shock over what this legislation has resulted in overall.”

Another government-proposed amendment will let councils locally set planning fees. The District Councils Network has repeatedly called for that, and in a briefing document on the latest amendments the Local Government Association voiced its support.

However, the proposed wording of the legislation gives the communities secretary the power to “prevent the charging of fees that he or she considers excessive”.

Plans to amend the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980 and give the communities secretary the power to direct councils, and other public authorities, to dispose of the land they hold were condemned by the LGA.

“Councils are best able to manage locally their assets to meet the needs of communities and are on track to bring forward significant levels of development on their land up to 2020,” it said. “Local authorities should retain the flexibility to manage their own assets.”

Another proposed new clause would give the communities secretary the power to impose “restrictions or conditions on the enforceability” of how many affordable homes, including ‘starter homes’, local authorities want built on a site.

The LGA said that should be for councils to “determine locally”.

The LGA also expressed concern over government plans to introduce a new dispute resolution procedure in relation to section 106 negotiations. The amendments will allow for an appointed individual to oversee disputes.

“Strengthening requirements for the upfront negotiation of S106 agreements would be a more effective means of avoiding delays than offering an alternative route for resolution,” the LGA said.

Timely and welcome support from my fellow ward member

Posted on by • Posted in Development, District council stuff, Everyday life, local government, public sector, South Holland, Spalding, Spalding Wygate ward • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , • Leave a comment

This is the text of a letter submitted by my fellow ward member, councillor Christine Lawton, to our local press.

“I am pleased that something amuses Mr Cronin, although I did not find his unhelpful attitude at the steering group which looked at the possibilities of building a community centre for Wygate at all funny. On the question of delay perhaps he should consider “motes and beams”.   

As to his central question “Why are the residents being restricted to a building?”, the simple answer is that the 106 money from developer was for a community building.  Like my predecessor (before your time Mr Cronin) I too am a simple soul – I believe that a facility which could accommodate such excellent groups as cubs, WI, dancing classes for children, a meeting place for the retired would be in principle a fine idea.  That is why the Wygate community is being surveyed  (by an independent charity) to ascertain the wishes and desires of the local residents.  That sounds pretty democratic to me!

I value team-work and loyalty and wish to associate myself with the efforts of Cllr Gambba-Jones and others in this attempt to discover the appetite for a centre for Wygate residents.  Let the people decide – it works for me.”

I’ve taken the liberty of adding the link to Wikipedia for those, like myself, who are unfamiliar with the parable, or just read the panel below.  I couldn’t have said it better myself – no actually, my education doesn’t stretch that far, so I couldn’t have said it at all; thank heavens for Christine!

South Holland to benefit from working with the big boys?

Posted on by • Posted in Development, District council stuff, Environment, Environmental, Government, lincolnshire county council, local government, public sector, South Holland • Tagged , , , , , • Leave a comment

Clearly, the landscape for local government will continue to be very uncertain, no matter what combination of political parties make up the next government.  Much as I would hope to see certainty and a Conservative majority returned, the British public seem so confused by what’s being offered to them and have such a short memory when it comes to the damage done by Labour whilst in power, that anything could happen.

It’s worth remembering that Labour didn’t just drain the national bank account dry and borrow billions of pounds on our behalf,  they also spent their time in office, unravelling much of what we consider to be the British way of life.  As well as liberalising the gambling industry, that now sees us suffer non-stop bingo, casino and betting adverts on the television, it was Labour that liberalised the licensing laws, leading to the town centre, drink sodden no- go areas, our police have to combat every weekend.

Labour also failed to take up the option of limiting access to the UK, from countries joining the EU, claiming that only 20,000 would come, when in fact 1 million did, and then dismantled our boarder controls, because they would now no longer be needed.  There’s a whole swath of badly drafted, back of a fag-packet policy, dreamt up by Tony Blair and his sofa cabinet, that we are still suffering the consequences of, yet some 30%+ of the British public remain willing to forgive and forget.  Come on Labour supporters, even if you can’t bring yourselves to vote Conservative, don’t let Labour and the two Eds back in so that can screw things up all over again, vote LibDem, or the Greens, they’re both pretty harmless in small numbers.

Copied from Local Government Chronicle online.

Proposal for Peterborough based combined authority 22 April, 2015 | By Mark Smulia

 The leader of the Local Government Association’s Conservative group is backing a proposed combined authority that could stretch across four counties and two unitaries.  Gary Porter is also leader of South Holland DC where the local Conservative party election manifesto said the council would work with “new partners from Peterborough, Cambridge, Leicestershire, Norfolk and Lincolnshire to create a combined authority”.
This would seek to improve local transport, increase economic development and drive regeneration, the proposal added.  Cllr Porter told LGC: “It would not cover all the counties mentioned just the economic area with Peterborough at its centre.  “We’ve had talks among leaders and chief executives are working on ideas to go to a roundtable discussion after the elections, but I can’t say now who would be in and out.”
A South Holland council report last month said that councils potentially interested in a combined authority were Fenland DC, Peterborough City Council, Kings Lynn & West Norfolk BC, Rutland CC and South Kesteven DC and that Boston BC formed part of a ‘functioning economic area’.  Peterborough leader Marco Cereste (Con) told LGC the idea was “most definitely something we’re exploring”.
Chief secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander has previously mooted a ‘Greater Cambridgeshire’ combined authority including Peterborough and Cambridgeshire CC. The two authorities are currently piloting a scheme allowing them to retain 100% of business rates growth.  Cllr Cereste said he did not see “any conflict between what Gary and I are doing and our work with Cambridgeshire”.  “If that works it could be extended across any new structure that is created,” he added.  “No matter who wins the election local authorities are going to have to look at new things as times will still be difficult.”
But Boston leader Peter Bedford (Con) said: “Boston hopes to end up in whatever arrangement the [Lincolnshire] county council does.”  Asked about the idea promoted by South Holland, he said: “That is Gary’s thinking, but ours is to be with Lincolnshire. We’re 35 miles from Lincoln and from Peterborough and we are a rural area.”
South Holland’s initiative is a further attempt to solve the vexed question of how to create combined authorities in East Anglia.  The council voted last month to join the Greater Cambridgeshire Greater Peterborough Local Enterprise Partnership in addition to its membership of the Greater Lincolnshire LEP.

Kings Lynn & West Norfolk leader Nick Daubeny (Con) last week said he’d spoken “in general terms” to Norfolk councils, Peterborough and Fenland about the combined authority idea, while South Norfolk Council leader John Fuller (Con) predicted councils would “cluster round Norwich, Ipswich, Peterborough and Cambridge”.

Cambridgeshire CC leader Steve Count said: “There are a lot of different ideas around at the moment and its right everyone puts theirs forward and see where we get to.”  Rutland leader Roger Begy (Con) said: “The council like many others is considering a number of possible options.”

Top Tory leaders admit doubts over right-to-buy extension

Posted on by • Posted in anti-social behaviour, Development, District council stuff, Environmental, Everyday life, Government, local government, planning, public sector, South Holland • Tagged , , , , , , , , • Leave a comment

For all those people who think we dance to the Party’s tune on every issue, below is an article that tells a different story.

I echo Gary’s concerns and fear that the ordinary working class people, that the cities depend on to run it’s services and pander to the needs of the rich and powerful who can afford to buy a home, no matter the price, will soon be banished to locations, not even classed as the suburbs, by this sort of policy.  London will undoubtedly lead the way, with social housing within the M25, often falling foul of the ‘most expensive on the books’ category.

Without stringent controls on these proposed sales, such as a profit claw-back clause, if the house is sold into the private sector with a certain number of years, or changes to the capital gains taxation rules, the only social housing available, will be on remote sink estates, in the back of beyond and populated by people that have no other choice available to them.  Underlying all of this, is the implausible suggestion that the sales will fund their replacement with modern, cheaper housing.  The numbers don’t add up, especially as the proposal is for the government to manage the redistribution.

Copied from Local Government Chronicle online article of 21 April, 2015 

By David Paine

 Two senior Conservative politicians have expressed doubts about their party’s proposal to extend the right-to-buy, as it emerged housing minister Kris Hopkins had previously warned the policy could mean a huge cost to the public purse.  The Conservative manifesto, published last week, said the party would force councils to sell off their most valuable homes to pay for a new right-to-buy for housing association tenants.
However, the proposal was met with widespread opposition with the National Housing Federation claiming it would make it more difficult for housing associations to borrow to build more homes. These concerns appeared to be shared by Mr Hopkins in a letter he sent to Tessa Munt, Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for Wells, in October 2013.
In it he said if housing associations were “obliged to consistently sell off their stock at less than market value they might find it difficult to borrow” and added that could “impact adversely” on investment in existing properties and “affect the future provision of affordable housing”.  Mr Hopkins’ letter added the government at the time did not “consider that it would be reasonable to require housing associations to sell these properties at a discount” as extending the scheme could result in “a high liability for the public purse”.
In response, Mr Hopkins said his letter showed “we would look at expanding home ownership through extending right-to-buy” and added his party’s “sensible, affordable” proposal would “ensure that housing associations are compensated”.  The maximum discount under right-to-buy on council properties is £77,900 across England, except in London boroughs where it’s £103,900.
Leader of the Local Government Association Conservative group Gary Porter told LGC he had “not fully bought in to the party’s position” while Kent CC’s leader Paul Carter told LGC he had “some empathy” with housing associations that face losing homes.  Cllr Carter said he was “a great believer in home ownership” but thought the way to “encourage more housing to be built” was to invest in infrastructure, especially transport.
Cllr Porter, leader of South Holland DC, said the right-to-buy was a “great idea and long overdue for homes that were built with public money” but added: “If they weren’t built with public money then they shouldn’t be touched, it shouldn’t apply.”  Catherine Ryder, head of policy at the National Housing Federation, which represents housing associations, told LGC legislation would almost certainly have to be amended or introduced as housing associations are currently exempt from right-to-buy due to their charitable status.
Ms Ryder said extending the right-to-buy could impact on housing associations’ ability to borrow “even if the discounts are funded”. She said: “If you’re selling off your assets the certainty of your income is more difficult to predict so it’s going to be more difficult to borrow money to build new affordable homes.”  She also questioned how quickly high-value properties sold off by councils to fund the scheme would be replaced and where they would be built.
A recent survey by the Local Government Association, Chartered Institute of Housing, and the National Federation of ALMOs found only half or fewer of homes sold under the existing right-to-buy for council homes had been replaced.

As well as firing blanks this time, he’s also got his eyes shut!

Posted on by • Posted in Development, District council stuff, local government, planning, South Holland, Spalding, Spalding Wygate ward • Tagged , , , • Leave a comment

 

Independent election candidate, had his eyes closed when he came up with this.

Independent election candidate, had his eyes closed when he came up with this.

Below is the text of a letter I have sent to The Lincs Freepress / Spalding Guardian, in response to an extraordinary letter sent by one of my independent opponents.  You can take a look at what he’s got to say for himself here:  http://www.spaldingtoday.co.uk/news/latest-news/politics-a-community-is-built-by-giving-people-choices-1-6696891

I have to say, I couldn’t buy this sort of publicity, well I could, but the price would be a bit steep and probably break the rules on election expenses!   As mentioned in my previous post about the independents election leaflets, this candidate has a personal axe to grind with me on this issue.

Looking at the impressive list of things he’s inserted himself into within the district, he clearly feels robbed of the opportunity to add management of the Wygate Park community centre to it.  Far be it from me to suggest that he was angling for the job of centre manager, given his current employment status, but there must be more to his anger, than a simple difference of opinion with me.

 

Choice – exactly what’s on the table

In response to the letter about the community survey currently underway in Wygate Park, Spalding.  Clearly, the writer has allowed emotion to cloud his ‘view’ and has failed to read the covering flyer, or even the survey form itself.

Both of these documents refer to ‘a community facility’ not a building, although that is indeed an option.  The documents were drafted and approved by Community Lincs and South Holland District Council respectively, not by me.  As a courtesy, I was supplied with a draft copy of these documents, but I had no involvement in their drafting.  I also supplied maps of the area and lists of roads within a 10 minute walk time of the potential site for any facility.  On behalf of the highly professional officers from both organisations, I believe the writer owes them a public apology, for questioning their integrity, impartiality and professionalism.

Despite his previous profession, the writer continues to ignore the legal framework that made both the land and the financial contribution available in the first place.  A legal agreement, a section 106, was signed between South Holland DC and Allison Homes, the original developer.  Allison Homes agreed to build a community centre, on part of the public open space, adjacent to what is now the Wygate Academy School – nothing else. A new legal agreement would be needed to use the actual money for anything else; something that Kier, the new developer, can choose not to do.

The steering group was formed in the hope that the community would, either agree to seeing the proposed building managed by South Holland Community Church, for and on behalf of the community, or decide to form their own community group, to take on the task.

For various reasons, the first option is now off of the table, in part at least, because of the written hostility of the letter writer in emails he circulated.  I also believe that this aggression played a significant role in reducing the group’s membership.

The second option is still available to anybody, including the writer, wishing to take up the challenge.  The results of the community survey will become valuable evidence for any group when bidding for the additional grant funding, essential to making the project a success.

Finally, if you live in Wygate Park and are one of the 1435 households to receive a survey, please take the time to read it carefully and make up your own mind as to whether, or not a building is the only choice available.

Once you’ve seen for yourself that it isn’t – so there’s no need to spoil your ballot paper on the 7th May  – please do complete the survey and leave it outside your front door for collection on 9th May.  There are also details about how to complete the survey online.

Flyer delivered to 1435 properties by Community Lincs.

Flyer delivered to 1435 properties by Community Lincs.

Independent candidates fire blanks

Posted on by • Posted in anti-social behaviour, County highways, Development, Development, District council stuff, Environment, Government, lincolnshire county council, litter and fly tipping, local government, planning, refuse & recycling, South Holland, Spalding, Spalding Wygate ward • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , • 2 Comments

bazookaThe two independents candidates, standing against myself and Christine Lawton on 7th May in the district council elections, have delivered their first election leaflets.

As always, leaflets from the opposition are essential reading, if only to understand where they are coming from campaign wise. In the case of these two, there are few if any surprises. There are however some clear misunderstandings when it comes to what can and cannot be achieved as a district councillor, but given that they are new at this, it’s understandable. I am however, not so understanding as to allow them to pass without comment, this is after all politics and there’s an election to win.

I’ll deal with their suggested policies first, before dealing with the ever present irony that is the ‘Independent Group’, to which they have attached themselves.

These are from the first ‘independent’ candidate’s leaflet.

1. A temporary cut in business rates to encourage small businesses.

Setting the business rates is not a district council function and cannot be done. The best we can do, is offer discretionary relief to a limited range of activities, such as the only pub in a village, a small village shop, or a non-profit making social club venue.

2. Waste and recycling collections to stay weekly

This has been the Conservative group’s position since it took control in 1999 and this has not changed.   Neither can it change in the near future, as we accepted grant funding from central government on the basis of retaining weekly collections for at least 5 years and we’ve no intention of giving back the £1.7m received!

3. A really good garden waste collection to serve gardeners in the town.

You wouldn’t intentionally offer a really bad garden waste collection, would you?

Only in the town, what about everybody else? What about every other town come to that?   This independent candidate is beginning to think and sound like a parish councillor already.

We are already working on a paid for green waste collection. This needs a significant outlay in capital and a more detailed survey, to identify potential users, will be carried out soon.

4. Make our environment as litter free as we can …….not just in run up to election…

Can you call a campaign that has been running for nearly 9 months, an election ploy? I think not. Had central government confirmed the local government finance settlement at the normal time and not the eleventh hour and 59th minute, as they did, we would have been able to start the South Holland Pride campaign some 12 months ago. This was the plan, but we could only find enough funding to appoint a part time enforcement officer at that time.

5. Better community policing

Yet another area over which the district council has no control. Lincolnshire Police raise their own precept via the council tax. This year that was increased by 1.9% to £197.64 SHDC’s council tax take was reduced by 0.5% to £154.84 for a band D property.

6. Better value for money when looking at provision of services….

I’d love to comment on this one, but I haven’t got a clue what its referring to!

7. More thought to planning applications, so that they benefit the town and not just the applicant…..

This is another one that’s got me guessing at to its meaning, let alone its ambition. The planning system isn’t there as a way of getting goodies, from the people who apply for planning permission, unless those ‘goodies’ are essential to making the application acceptable in planning terms.

Moving on to the second ‘independent’.

This one makes some pledges which reflect some double standards and a clear misunderstanding of what the overall role of a district councillor is.

1. I will not have any hidden agendas

My personal experience says otherwise.

2. I will work with any councillor…………..acting in the best interests of Wygate Park and Spalding!

Just because the ward is called Spalding Wygate, doesn’t mean it just covers the Wygate Park area, where this candidate happens to live.

As well as being limited to half the ward, the horizon of this independent only stretches as far as the boundaries of Spalding it seems.

As a district councillor, your role, first and foremost, is to represent the interests of all South Holland residents, not just those who voted for you, or happen to live in the ward you represent. This applies even when a decision might have a negative impact in your ward.

Some of the issues this candidate will support.

3. Pride in South Holland. My answer to this claim is the same as for the other independent and our manifesto actually contains a commitment to continue the campaign.

4. Highways – poor state of some pavements. This is a county council function. You don’t need to be a district councillor to get these fixed. Just report them on line, I do so regularly.

5. Road safety – road markings. Again, a county council function, not the district.

I submitted a defect report on these makings over 12 months ago. The answer from highways was very clear. It is not their policy to maintain any form of road markings within residential estates, when those roads only serve residents and have no other purpose, as this would not be a good use of their limited budgets. The road marking in question were put there by the developer, during initial build and were never a requirement of the detailed plans approval, or of the highways adoption process.

6. Community – Support for events…………Nothing new here, as all Spalding councillors have made financial contributions to such events.

7. Traffic – Stating the blindingly obvious here.  Again, something only the county council can rectify. Spalding Town Forum are already extremely active in pressing for a solution.

8. Planning – local services must keep pace.  Nothing offered here, other than a statement of wishful thinking. The planning system has no powers to require developers to provide funding for local services as a matter of law. Everything we achieve, outside of the planning policy requirements, is done by active negotiation and persuasion.

9. Licensing policy changes – another piece of wishful thinking, without any consideration of the reality. Like planning, the licensing system is controlled by national laws and policies, that offer the district council little leeway when it comes to resisting the granting of new licenses.

Now turning back to the various claims made about being unfettered and un-whipped independents.

The back of both very similar looking leaflets, has the same heading and the same piece of text, ‘A message from Angela Newton……..Independent Councillor and Leader of South Holland the Independent Group.’ ……………….

So, having declared themselves as intending to be, ‘Independent Councillors’ (sic) and not tied to any Political Party (sic) (they do like their capital letters don’t they!), they willingly attach themselves to somebody stating that, they are actually the leader of a group of independents. Using the word group and independent in the same sentence is an oxymoron isn’t it?

Splitting hairs, you could argue that Angela Newton is not leading a recognised political party, but it is very clearly a group involved in politics, making it, at the very least, a political group and therein lies the irony of the claims trotted out be these so called independents.

Just to add insult to injury. This non-group, group of independents, hold group meetings before full council meetings, in exactly the same way as the Conservative group do, but somehow they manage to make them last even longer than ours and there’s only twelve of them compared to 25 of us!

It must be all the effort required to be totally independent of each other, that makes their ‘group’ meetings last so long.

A planning committee doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons

Posted on by • Posted in Development, District council stuff, Government, local government, Local Plan, NPPF, planning, South Holland • Tagged , , , , , • Leave a comment

A salutary tale for all those planning committee councillors, who continue to make ‘political’ decisions on planning applications.
It’s a lengthy article, but the lesson to be learned from it is a very simple one – there’s no place in the development control process for the Localism agenda.
It’s particularly disappointing to read the chairman of this council’s strategic planning committee comments. Assuming that’s this not the title of their committee for determining planning applications, he’s failed to acknowledge the completely different roles of these two committees.
The strategic planning committee is the one that produces the council’s Local Plan and the one charged with challenging job of balancing public opinion and national planning guidance and policies.
If the public wants to influence the planning process, then they need to do so during the plan making stage, which is what, is a slightly obscure fashion, the Localism agenda directs. Waiting until a planning application is submitted, to object to a major housing development, or to a proposal for a large industrial site, is far too late and unlikely to succeed, at least in principle, no matter how loud, or well organised the public outcry is. Yes, the planners will listen to concerns about the details, or even about the layout of the development,Mobutu if the land to be built on is identified in the council’s adopted Local Plan, then the game is almost certainly already lost.
As the article details, failing to apply the council’s planning policies will cost the local tax payer dearly and still not win councillors any votes.
Finally, the appeals process isn’t perfect, but is an essential element in the planning process, especially given the aberrant behaviour of some council planning committees.

Cornwall Council’s bill for costs rises as developers win more planning appeals. By West Briton | Posted: December 18, 2014

The number of successful appeals over refusal of planning permission, where costs have been awarded against Cornwall Council, is rising astronomically.

The figure for the amount the council must pay to cover the developers’ costs in fighting appeals against it is on target for an eight-fold increase this year, and the process has already cost the taxpayer hundreds of thousands of pounds.

According to the chairman of the council’s strategic planning committee, Rob Nolan, the local authority is being penalised by the Government for turning down applications because it is going against national policies – the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), which was introduced in March 2012 to help speed up house-building.

“The Government has said it wants to build its way out of the recession, and the NPPF has been described as a developer’s charter,” he says.

“At the same time, the Government bangs on about localism, giving people the impression they have a say in local development.

“Yet when we listen to local views, and refuse planning permission on what we think are sound planning grounds, we find the (Government’s) planning inspector not only turns around our decision on appeal, but grants costs against us.

“Until recently costs were only awarded against the council where we had been cavalier in our decisions.

“But now it seems they’re being used to punish us.”

Between April 2013 and March 2014, costs were awarded against the council in only eight cases. In the past six months alone, costs have been awarded against the local authority after 16 appeals.

“This is a worrying trend,” he says. “We find ourselves between a rock and a hard place.

“We want to listen to local people, we want to do what is right for Cornwall, but we can’t keep paying out awards of costs to developers.”

According to the figures from Cornwall Council, released following a freedom of information request from the West Briton, the amount of costs awarded against it – which it must pay to the developers that appeal – in 2013/2014, was just £47,000.

In the first six months of this financial year alone, the appeal payout bill was £174,000.

The council has even been penalised financially in cases when the appellant was not successful.

Most appeals are dealt with in writing between the appellant, the council’s team and the Planning Inspectorate, a government agency in Bristol.

But some go to public inquiry, with a full hearing, which escalates costs drastically because of the fees of legal teams on both sides, which often includes a QC. These inquiries can be held locally and last up to two weeks.

One such public inquiry against the refusal of plans for 12 industrial units at Pool Fields in Falmouth landed the council with a £27,000 bill after it lost the appeal.

The planning consultant on this application was CSA Architects. Its managing director, Justin Dodge, said it has received £87,000 in costs awarded against the council from three appeals alone within the past year.

He adds that another planning consultancy was awaiting confirmation of a payout in the region of £200,000 from a successful appeal against the refusal of a development of 100 houses at Upper Chapel in Launceston earlier this year.

He says that, since the NPPF, and in the absence of the Cornwall Local Plan, which would set out guidelines for granting or refusing planning permission, consultants like CSA were winning more and more appeals. Costs were increasingly being awarded against the council – a trend which looks set to continue.

“We have not needed to appeal historically,” he says. “It has only been in the last 18 months, since the new cavalier planning committees were appointed, that we have needed to take more of our cases to appeal.

“They have a complete and utter disregard for policy. They are reckless and out of control.”

During the appeal process, the appellant’s argument is usually upheld when the council has acted unreasonably.

According to Mr Dodge, the reason for CSA’s success in recent cases is that the council failed to provide enough evidence to support its reasons for refusal – which is judged at appeal as unreasonable.

“It is particularly frustrating when the professional planning officer from Cornwall Council makes a recommendation which is completely disregarded and overturned by the (councillors on the) planning committee, without any compelling rationale,” he says.

“Sadly, this has become commonplace in the last 18 months, with most committee decisions being against officer recommendations and therefore we expect to pursue more planning appeals than ever before.”

But Mr Dodge adds that most of his clients spend, on average, £15,000 to £20,000 on submitting an application, and some can spend as much as £100,000 on launching an appeal against a refusal decision, spending heavily on legal teams and consultants.

“We know planning policy inside out,” he says. “This is our business. We don’t go into planning applications light-heartedly.

“But the true cost of a planning appeals can never be fully established, including the council’s own time and resources, as well as the time delays to the projects affected by the process.”

Since the NPPF was introduced, Cornwall Council has been developing the Cornwall Local Plan – a blueprint for the amount of development and where it should be located (see panel).

This policy document, which has received input from local town and parish councils, developers and members of the public, is due to be debated at full council next month, before being sent to the Government for approval.

No-one knows how long this process will take.

Until the plan is approved, says Councillor Neil Hatton, Cornwall Council member for Constantine, Budock and Mawnan, near Falmouth, it is “open season” for developers.

“The NPPF is there to support sustainable development,” he says.

“It has certainly encouraged a lot more people to put in applications and challenge the system through the appeals inspectorate – people are testing it out.

“A lot more appeals have been based on the sustainable argument because of the lack of the local plan – it is more difficult to refuse these.

“Cornwall’s weakness is the local plan [or lack of it].

“It has not been put to the Government for approval and, while it carries a little weight, it doesn’t carry a huge amount at the moment.

“It is open season for developers at the moment without the policies in place under the local plan.”

On Tuesday of last week Mr Hatton attended an appeal against Cornwall Council’s refusal of planning permission for 153 houses on Bickland Water Road. CSA was the planning consultant on the project. After a hearing in Truro and a site visit, the planning inspector’s decision is likely to be made next month.

Planning consultant Stephen Payne says the NPPF was designed to encourage “more positive decision-making” regarding rural and urban growth – to grant more planning applications – particularly with regard to housing.

“We didn’t find that quite to the extent that we expected,” he says.

“There was a change of attitude initially. But gradually they have fallen back into their old ways.

“We are seeing worse and worse decisions as we are going along.

“And it was disappointing that when we got to appeal they didn’t follow the Government’s lead.

“We would expect the planning inspectorate to toe the Government line.

“There are a lot of developments that should have been built that have not been.”

For Councillor Nolan, the whole system is flawed.

“I’m not sure that the appeal system does work well,” he says.

“Cornwall has a unique character and a delicate infrastructure – we cannot keep up with unlimited development, and an inspector who might be based in Swindon may apply judgements that work for Swindon, but not for St Ives.

“Essentially, inspectors are too remote, and not accountable for their decisions.”

Last month the council approved budget cuts of £196 million over the next four years. This, he says, only adds to the problem.

“Budget cutbacks are already causing problems,” he adds.

“Officers have a heavy caseload, and ironically it’s the developers that are complaining that it’s taking too long to process applications.”

He says that Mr Dodge’s comments would “ring hollow” with residents of Launceston, Gwinear, Goonhavern, Truro, Probus and many other communities who have fought, or are fighting what he calls “inappropriate developments driven by developers’ needs, rather than sensible planned growth”.

Neither Phil Mason, the council’s head of service for planning, housing and regeneration, nor Councillor Edwina Hannaford, Cabinet member for environment, heritage and planning, were available for comment.

Read more: http://www.westbriton.co.uk/Cornwall-Council-s-costs-rises-developers-win/story-25738782-detail/story.html#ixzz3NZgKfiD2
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A lesson in planning from the Germans?

Posted on by • Posted in Development, District council stuff, Government, local government, Local Plan, NPPF, planning, public sector, South Holland • Tagged , , , , , , , • Leave a comment

We will probably never experience a totally pain free development process in this country; nimbyism has become too ingrained in our culture. However, we could go a long way towards reducing the almost universal resistance we currently experience, to new housing, by actually delivering the high quality development, instead of just talking about it.

The question is, how do you ‘force’ developers to build homes that have suitable room sizes, enough inside storage, outside storage for wheelie bins and bicycles, sufficient off street parking – and of course, look good?

In defence of developers, they often start on the back foot, by paying too much for the land they want to build on.  It’s easy to suggest that this is the developers’ fault and that they should just refuse to pay the inflated prices demanded by the landowners.  However, developers have businesses to run and would soon be on the breadline if they held out for a more sensible price, as there will always be another developer willing to pay.

So what’s the answer? Whilst there are many who distrust much about Europe – mainly because of the EU – we do admire much of what the Germans do and the way they do it. As well as their black and white traffic laws, highly efficient manufacturing base and litter free streets, the Germans also seem to have a planning system, that delivers high quality housing.

They do this is two ways. Firstly, they use zones of development, within which building can take place without the need to go through the sort of planning processes we use in this country. Of course, underpinning these zones, there are a raft of design and development guides, that have to be applied to the build.

The second thing they do and the one that must surely allow them to deliver high quality development, along with the required infrastructure and facilities, is exercise a degree of control on the price of land.  They do this by ensuring that there is enough of it available to satisfy demand, thereby avoiding the sort of price inflation that always happens when something is in short supply and high demand.

I suspect the present government has attempted to mimic the German system to some extent, by requiring all local authorities to have a Local Plan identifying a five year supply of housing land.   In addition to this five year land supply, councils must also have an ‘objectively assessed need’ of what housing is required for their area.   In practical terms, this means that the council can’t just produce a Local Plan and stick it on a shelf the next 20 years, as seems to be the passed practice.

Of course, this housing needs assessment and five year housing land supply requirement has not gone down well with the majority of councils, especially those in areas where house prices are high, such as the south east and rural areas adjacent to large cities.

The politicians in these councils are screaming blue murder about concreting over the countryside, the loss of the green belt and urban sprawl, all this whilst ignoring the increasing demand for housing and the ever increasing difficult for young people trying to get on the housing ladder.

Frustratingly, the government has failed to explain the thinking behind the changes introduced by the National Planning Policy Framework, fuelling the suspicion that these changes are more about the bank accounts of the developers, than providing homes that people can afford. This suspicion is further reinforced, by the trump card government handed to developers, in the form of a viability test.

The viability argument allows developers to wriggle out of providing affordable housing, community facilities and just about anything else they believe will, according to them, make the development financially unviable. Which of course rolls us all the way back to the price paid for the land in the first place. If you provide enough of anything to satisfy the demand, then the cost of the commodity on offer, in this case land, not only remains stable , but often reduces in real terms. Clearly, we’re not ‘making’ any more land, so it has its own dynamic when it comes to value. As such, it wouldn’t be helpful to compare it to something that was in the past expensive to produce and therefore expensive to buy, but now has become affordable to all, such as the simple cup of tea, but it does help to set the scene. Provide enough of anything and then make it readily available to those who want it and the price of it finds an affordable level. That seems to be the very simple rule the Germans have used.

Mr Brown uses old grievance to miss the point

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At first, Mr Brown’s letter, in the recent edition of the Spalding Guardian, appeared to be in support of Chris Brewis and his ‘Crowland playhouse’ comments and my rebuttal letter regarding his totally artificial outrage.

However, upon further reading, Mr Brown is actually using his letter to revisit his dis-satisfaction with a complaint he made in May. At that time and in another letter, he complained about the response he received from a council officer, when he complained about a neighbour operating a hairdressing salon from home. Allegedly, the officer told him, ‘we don’t have the resources to investigate’. He also finished his complaint by referring to civil servants, an error he claims was him being flippant. I’m afraid I missed his flippancy in a Twitter response and assumed it to be his lack of understand that local government staff were not civil servants.

On the matter of the home based hairdressing salon, I’m pretty certain that what he claims to have been told, would not have been the whole story – our planning compliance officers are far more professional than that.

What the officer would have said was, that in principle, small businesses, operating from residential addresses, but not causing any issues for other residents, are viewed as acceptable. He would also have been told that it would require a certain level of evidence of actual disturbance to neighbours, before any investigation was carried out and that we did not have the resources to spend time collecting that evidence.

Finally, his letter in the Guardian was entitled, ‘This is why so many people are disillusioned’. I think it would have been far more accurate to say, ‘This is why Mr Brown is so disillusioned’, as his letter is clearly about him not getting his way, rather than anything to do with democratic representation.

Something every planning committee already knows

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Copied from Local Government Chronicle online

Homeowners prevent housebuilding, report finds
24 October, 2014 | By David Paine

House-building rates are lower in local authority areas with higher proportions of homeowners, according to analysis by the Institute for Government (IfG).

The report,‘Housing that Works for All – The Political Economy of Housing in England’, covered the period from 2001 to 2011.

It follows the publication of the Lyons housing review, which outlined how up to 200,000 new homes a year could be built by the year 2020.

The IfG said there was a risk of planning decisions being biased in favour of current homeowners.

This was in part because of a lack of city or region-wide planning co-ordination, which meant planning policy operated “exclusively at the local level and is responding to the interests of local residents”.

It said new developments often created new infrastructure costs for councils, and extra demand for public services, yet the increase in revenues from developments was “limited”.

The report also warned that the requirement for planning permission to be granted for any change of land use made decisions “slower and more uncertain”. Homeowners were among the most likely groups to oppose new homes, it said.

Miguel Coelho, IfG fellow and co-author of the paper, said: “A common accusation is that planning decisions tend to cater for the interests of current homeowners, rather than allow for a wider, more balanced set of interests. New empirical presented in this paper lend support to this hypothesis.

“Our analysis shows in particular that in the decade to 2011, housing stock grew significantly less in local authorities where there were higher proportions of owner-occupiers amongst local households.

“Credible proposals to reform the planning system should address this problem and ensure that planning decisions allow for the full breadth of interests affected by development.”

However, the paper acknowledged reforming the planning system would be difficult.

It claimed there had, so far, been a lack of public support to do so, and that the wealth of households and health of the UK financial sector had “become inextricably intertwined with the macro-economy, thus undermining the case for fast, radical reform”.

It also claimed that “successive governments have struggled to find a sensible balance between regional/national planning co-ordination and local democratic legitimacy”.

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