Tag Archives: localism

The unacceptable face of localism?

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The story from Spain about a British couple dying in a flash flood has a nasty sting in its tail when you look at why it happened. Apparently, the local council ignored instructions from central government to improve the drainage in the area, that would of prevented this event. They were also ‘ordered’ not to allow any further public events in the area until the work was carried out.

Spain has a much greater level of local autonomy it would seem, with central government making lots of noise, but local government ignoring them when they choose. Is this what we can expect as localism takes hold in England?

Why can’t central trust local on NPPF goals?

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Is it possible that government will ever trust local government, or are we to be condemned to a constant tirade of abuse from Eric Pickles, combined with the sham politics that is called Localism?

The NPPF is a major worry to many organisations concerned about caring for the green areas of this country (and not just the Green Belt I hope). Yet, despite all the detailed concerned being put forward by the experts, I think there are a few reasonable changes that could be made to overcome the vast majority of the public’s concerns at least.

The first of these would be to delete the statement that, where a local plan is silent, indeterminate or out of date, planning permission should be given. This requirement puts too much pressure on councils and will either see local plans being rushed through, or great resent being generated in the communities the government claims to want to empower, when development is imposed on them.

The second thing government should do, is delay the implementation of the NPPF, in order to give councils a sensible time period to deliver their local plans.

Third, government should make it a requirement for councils to produce an evidence based assessment of their local housing need. This in itself would not be any easy exercise, as a significant amount of local information and forecasting would be needed to achieve the required evidence base. However, once done, as well as placing a requirement on a council to deliver that housing, it would put that council in control and not the developers.

Of course such changes would suggest that government was willing to trust local government to deliver and with people like Eric Pickles in the government it’s difficult to see that happening.

Planning ‘guarantee’ regime mooted by Clark

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Ministers have announced proposals for a planning ‘guarantee’ designed to ensure no application for planning permission in England takes longer than 12 months to be determined, including any appeal. Another nail in the coffin of genuine Localism, when it comes to planning matters?

I can see a form of the ‘black economy’ in reverse emerging in some planning departments. Why? The current system dictates that, in order to cash the cheque that comes with any planning app, it has to be validated and put in to the system, so that the determination clock starts ticking.

Therefore, in order to avoid stating that clock, the planners just need to avoid validating the application, but continue to work on it off of the books, so that they can be one step ahead when the application does eventually come back – that’s the ‘black economy’ bit. The downside of this strategy is of course the lack of a fee to support the work now being carried ‘for free’, hence the ‘in reverse’ bit.

I doubt that many councils will want to adopt this sort of subterfuge, if only because of the up-front cost. However, in those areas where developers have a reputation for exploiting the system to make a fast buck, the local planning authority may have no choice, given the latest piece of planning system vandalism being proposed by DCLG.

Eric Pickles does Localism

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I see Eric Pickles is once again demonstrating that his version of Localism – the directed one – is the only one that he actually believes in with his latest comments about town centre car parking charges.

Having shafted local government big time, by slashing its grant setlement by 28% in one year with even more to come, he now has the nerve to tell the public that town centre car parking charges will drop. Given his financial betrayal of local government, it’s not at all clear how he comes to this conclusion, but that’s about par for the course with this big mouthed minister.

The problem with car parking charges is that they are always viewed in isolation from all other areas of council business. They are either viewed as a burden on the taxpayer that must at best be kept cost neutral because they are so politically sensitive or, at the other end of the spectrum, they are seen as a source of revenue, that can legitimately be used to bolster the council’s income, despite the legislation saying that it should be run for profit. As always, where there’s a will there’s a way and many councils seems to do very nicley out of it, thank you very much.

My view is that, where approporiate, the cost of running a town centre car park should be seen as part of the council’s investment in the economic development of that town centre. If the evidence is there to show that car parking charges, or even the lack of them, is having an impact of the vitality or viabilty of a town centre, then why not include the cost of running the car park in the economic development strategy for that town?

This would then allow the council to justify to taxpayers the provision of free parking, where a town centre is found to be struggling and its shops closing down in increasing numbers, without being accused of subsidising motorists.

Same old game with a different name

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I see from today’s Sunday Telegraph that parish and town councils are going to be encouraged to take on more local services as a way of forcing sorry, encouraging, the cause of Localism and the ‘Big Society’.

No problem with that as a concept, given that the cost of running many of the basic services that people value, is often inflated by the management structure of the organisation that runs the service, but without adding any real value to it.

Unfortunately, what is likely to happen is that, as these grassroots organisations gain more and more power, they are going to turn in to the ‘bureacratic monsters’ they were supposed to be replacing. Those little parish councils currently run by a part time clerk, who probably works for one or even two other parish councils, will suddenly find there’s a need for both a full time clerk, a book keeper or accountant, somebody who has some legal training, an HR expert just in case they get problems with employment law, an elf and safety expert, etc, etc.

Parish and town councils at present are not answerable to anybody, other than their voters, for excessive increases in their precept (their version of the council tax) unlike district councils, that can be capped and forced to re-bill by central government. So the next stage in this charade will be the need to introduce legislation requiring parish and town councils to submit balanced budgets and within government limits – how long before the first parish or town council kicks out their parish clerk and appoints a high paid chief executive? Before you know it you’ll be back where we are today, just using different names for it!

An expert’s view of the wind farm issue

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New laws could boost onshore wind farm approvals, say experts

Borrowed from http://www.planningresource.co.uk article by Susanna Gillman Monday, 09 May 2011 (hope they don’t mind!)

New planning legislation could be used to boost the approval of onshore wind farms under a recommendation from the Government’s climate change committee.

The committee has told the Government that further approvals will be required to deliver the onshore wind ambition in its renewable energy strategy.

The Government has set a target of 15 per cent of energy from renewables by 2020.

But approval rates for onshore wind projects have historically been low, with less than 50 per cent of schemes getting the go ahead and the planning period taking around two years.

In its renewable energy review, the Committee on Climate Change said even with a push for more community-led wind farm projects, there is a “significant risk that onshore wind and transmission investments will not gain local public support, given high levels of resistance from some groups”.

It concludes that achieving higher rates of approval will need central government decisions, “possibly under new planning legislation that explicitly sets this out”.

The committee, which was requested to advise on the scope to increase ambition for green energy, said renewables should make a 30-45 per cent contribution by 2030. More than 6GW could come from onshore wind through the 2020s, it suggests.

Onshore wind is also likely to be one of the cheapest low-carbon options, according to the committee. Offshore wind schemes are still expensive and should not be increased unless there is clear evidence of cost reduction, it warned.

Nuclear power is currently the most cost-effective of the low carbon technologies, and should form part of the mix assuming safety concerns can be addressed, it added.

Nick Medic, spokesman for Renewable UK, trade body for the wind and marine renewables industries, said rather than creating more legislation a better approach would be to make a case for the economic benefits of onshore wind to local communities.

A DECC spokesman said energy secretary Charles Hendry has stressed the need for greater local ownership so communities can see the benefits of wind farms as part of the future energy mix.

Telegraph writer gets Localism Bill wrong

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Saturday’s Telegraph readers of the Property section will need to take a large pinch of salt when reading an article written by the Telegraph’s supposed awarding writer, Ian Cowie.

Mr Cowie suggests that last week’s Budget is on the whole beneficial to home owners.  This may well be true, but what isn’t true ,is what he has to say about the new powers the Localism Bill will give to those home owners.

He claims that, ‘……..the Localism Bill should give residents greater power to decide whether or not more fields and woods are bricked over to build new housing,……’  . 

Now I’m not sure what this chap got his award for, but it wasn’t for demonstrating any expert knowledge of what the government’s ambitions are when it comes to the planning system in this country – ambitions that don’t involve preventing house building!

Ian Cowie appears to have missed the bit in the Budget about the planning system being changed to encourage economic growth.  That encouragement will take the form of, as various government minister have taken pleasure in saying over the last 12 months, simplifying the system so as to make it far easier to build things.

So, whilst localism will give local people a say on the types of development that take place in their area, it will definately not give them any powers to prevent development if it has already been included in the council’s development plan for the area.  Nor will communites be able to stop development, and this is the worrying bit, because it has yet to be defined in any useable way, if it is considered sustainable.

Don’t just take my word for it, read the Royal Town Planning Institute’s (RTPI) response to the budget.  http://www.rtpi.org.uk/item/4477/23/5/3

All of the people all of the time?

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Will it ever be possible for the planning system to please all of the people all of the time?  Of course not, change always brings resistance and when that changes involves, knocking down, build-up or increasing the presence of something, whether it be houses, people, cars or even cows, as in the case of a recent application for a super dairy near Lincoln, you will always get somebody who doesn’t like it. 

However, you would like to think that you could at least improve the system to the point where it met some of the aspirations of both the public and the profession, for better outcomes based on a more straightforward process.  Not so it would appear, if the repsonse of the RTPI to the recent Budget is anything to go by.

Budget: Britain’s planners fear a ‘tin shed’ England within 10 years

23-Mar-11

Changes to planning system announced today will have dramatic effect on character of the country

Richard Summers, President of the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI), which represents almost 23,000 of Britain’s planning professionals, has attacked proposals in the budget announced today to allow developers to bypass important planning rules. Richard Summers said:

“If sweeping changes announced to the planning system result in the default position being ‘yes’ to development then there is real danger that within a decade we will end up with an England of tin sheds, Lego land housing and US style shopping malls”.

“Where will the incentive be in the future for developers to address issues such as climate change, environmental protection, design quality and affordable housing, if they know that the government has tied the hands of local councillors who will be required to nod through most development proposals. This could mean developers building what they like, where they like, and when they like. It’s a policy that finally buries genuine localism”. (my emphasis).

S106 agreements are not the problem Mr Clark

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I’m still struggling to understand how localism is supposed to work, if central government is going to keep trotting out dictate after dictate about how local government should do things at the local level.  The latest ‘suggestion’ is that we should revisit something called s106 contributions because these are holding up development.

For those not familiar with planning speak, a s106 is a legal agreement between the local authority (council) and the developer of the land.  It can cover a multitude of things, from cash payments to support an existing service, through to the building of affordable housing.  S106 payments have a bit of a bad name with some people, as they can be seen as a form of legalised bribery – give me a planning permission and I’ll give you this in exchange.

However, the overwhelming majority of s106 contributions are made in order to provide something the community would otherwise not have, thereby making what would otherwise be unacceptable in planning terms, acceptable.  A good example of this would be a community centre where one currently does not exist, or even more important to some, a doctor’s surgery, or even a school.

Greg Clark has now called for these agreements to be reviewed, in order to get the development industry building again.  So, what he seems to be telling us is, ignore the local people and their concerns about the lack of the doctor’s surgery, or the currently over subscribed local school.  Ignore the local people who tell that there is a desperate need for a local meeting place in the village, especially if you are going to encourage even more people to come and live here, none of things matter anymore, just as long as things get built.

This seems to be completely against the whole ethos of localism and leaves me bewildered to say the least.  Especially as I don’t believe for one minute that the removal of a s106 agreement from a particular planning permission would see the brickies and chippies back on that abandoned building site tomorrow morning.

The reason that nothing is getting built is because there’s nobody to buy what is built and the reason there’s nobody buying anything is because the bankers are sitting on all the money and won’t lend it to anybody at a sensible rate of interest.

Even if there were an element of truth in what Greg Clark is saying and tearing up the s106 did remove a barrier to development, the loss of the facilities provided by a s106 agreement, such as affordable housing, just seems to greater price to pay in the longer term.  The needs of the community won’t go away, but the ability to meet them will.

Planning after Localism event

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I attended a Westminster Briefing event in London  today, in an attempt to get a better handle on how to make the new system work at the district council level.

There was a very clear feeling amongst those attending, that the new system of neighbourhood planning, if it was to become a success, would need a significant amount of resource putting in.  There was also a feeling that the minister was being extremely optimistic in his belief that neighbourhood planning would bring about any real increase in the number of houses delivered.

Most people also questioned how the New Homes Bonus (NHB), having been created by taking money away from councils in the first place, could be seen as an incentive to councils and communities to build more houses based on increased benefits to the community, as it was likely that most councils would simply use it to plug the funding gap that was now being imposed by government – the lord giveth and the lord taketh away as they say, except in the case of NHB, it’s the other way around – the gov takes it and then gives it back, if you do their bidding!

I asked Bob Neill the minister, who spoke at today’s event, how councils would be able to identify how much extra cash they had been given in the grant settlement, to help communities produce their plans, when councils didn’t know how many communities might want to produce a plan in the first place?  I think he said they were working on it and that I should ask the question as part of the consultation currently going on!

All a bit disappointing really, as I think neighbourhood and community plans could be a very good thing for people to get involved in producing.  Not only would it give them a much greater stake in the way their local area is to be developed, it would also help to get people involved in the planning process in a much more positive and long-term way than they do currently.

Unfortunately, unless the local planning authority has the right level of expertise and resource, it is likely that they are either going to avoid encouraging communities to produce plans, or worse still, actually frustrate the ambitions of those that want to produce a plan, by offering only the very minimum of assistance.

This is a great opportunity for us to show some real leadership and encouragement to our communities, but only if we have the right level of resources to do it well.