🏆 The #Planoraks 2022 🏆 - worst planning reform of the year

The latest convert to the Tory rebel alliance.

I tell you. The speed of it all. It makes your head spin. Get this:

• 25th October 2022: Rishi Sunak stands in front of Number 10 flush with a clean-cut smile and a freshly pressed mandate, promising “to put your needs above politics”. Sounds good, Rishi! What kind of monster would let politics get in the way of meeting peoples’ needs. And let’s be fair. Rishi almost got a full 4 weeks into his new job before…

• 22nd November 2022: 50+ Tory rebels come to the verge of toppling the centrepiece of the Government’s levelling up agenda, the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill. Rishi was so committed to putting our needs above politics that he took a deep breath, stared down those dastardly rebels and… immediately capitulated by kicking next Monday’s planned vote on LURB back into the long grass. And now, so we hear, this delay is to allow the Government to find a “compromise” with the rebels. But Rishi and Michael Gove aren’t exactly negotiating from a position of strength. The Tories’ working majority is only 69. There are now more than 50 rebels. The Guardian tells us that one “MP said the rebels had Sunak “by the balls” and would not be bought off – and said they were expecting significant concessions from the government”. 😬. They seem such a friendly bunch, these Tory rebels. Don’t they.

So here we have it, folks. Yet another Government totally sapped of its power. In only 4 weeks. And what are the great matters of state that have sent the Sunak train careering off the tracks? What weighty issues have pushed this Government to the precipice so soon? Well, you know what it is: planning reform. Every time. Can you believe it? By now, I suspect some of you can.

And who exactly are these heroic rebels? These plucky upstarts so bravely standing up against the interests of a whole generation of people who cannot find or afford a home? Step forward leader of the gang Theresa Villiers MP and her crack team of luminaries which includes Bob Seely (who said yesterday that a NIMBY is a “local patriot”), the quiet man himself Iain Duncan Smith, supporter of the Liz-Kwasi “mini-budget” John Redwood, Esther Mcvey (who said only a couple of weeks ago that “'Tory MPs must unite behind new PM to put country first”), Mark Francois of the failed campaign for Big Ben to Bong for Brexit, the architect of the Rwanda deportation plan Priti Patel, old “Failing” Chris Grayling and many others of the finest minds of our generation. Taken together, there’s no doubt about it… and this is not hyperbole… the rebels’ package of amendments would plunge the planning system into chaos the likes of which none of us have seen.

Well thank goodness, then, that we’re entering awards season. You’ll have noticed it. The nights have drawn in. That crisp winter air filling up your lungs. Christmas music blaring in the shopping centres. Turkey and stuffing sandwiches finally back on the menu at Pret a Manger. It can only mean one thing: ‘tis the season for some long-anticipated #planorak awards. So throw another log on the fire. Rest a spell. The nominations are in, friends. And the judging panel’s job this time… well, they’ve never quite had a year like it. No, not even that Simon Jenkins article. Not even the year that the gong went to the clanging u-turn over the “mutant algorithm”. No sir. This year's been… special.

And in the opening category - worst planning reform proposed in 2022 - it’s a clean sweep. Every single one of the nominations comes from the proposed amendments to LURB, which you can read here. If you’ve a strong enough constitution. Congratulations to Ms Villiers and her brain trust. What a remarkable achievement.

So, without further ado. The top 4 worst planning reform ideas of the year. In reverse order. Drum-roll please…

🏆 4. End of the “presumption in favour of sustainable development” 🏆

What really drew the judges’ attention to this piece of short-sighted nonsense is how little thought’s been given to even its most basic implications.

First of all, whatever you think about the ills of the planning system, can’t we all agree that “sustainable development” [whatever that means, Ed.] is a good thing? A decent idea? Something worth trying to achieve? Are the rebels genuinely against sustainable development? Are they in favour of unsustainable development? What on earth is going on?!?!?!

Second, they want to ditch the national presumption in favour of sustainable development cases where - read it again - there are no relevant or up-to-date local plan policies. Ok. But let’s work this through: if there are no relevant, up-to-date local plan policies, and if there’s also no national presumption in favour of sustainable development… what are we left with? Against which policies are applications supposed to be judged? The irrelevant, non-existent or out-of-date ones?

Don’t bother trying to work out answers to these questions. Theresa Villiers and the A-team don’t have any. And in the end, it’s that lack of basic analysis which guaranteed this amendment a spot in the countdown. But it wasn’t quite mad enough to make the top 3. So without further ado, let’s move into the podium finishers…

🏆 3. The “character” test 🏆

Imagine: you’ve a brilliant site. A cracking scheme. You meet with Council officers and - hooray. They think it’s great too. You comply with the plan. We’re off to the races. But then… disaster strikes. You get to committee and you watch the hope of a planning permission slip away. What happened? Well, there was nothing wrong with the scheme. No. Sorry, friend. What’s wrong is… YOU. Yep. Not just you. It’s your “character”. Members didn’t like it. For whatever reason. You could always come back in with a different scheme. But let’s be honest. Unless you reform that awful character of yours, there’s not much hope of a better outcome.

Hang on, you may be thinking. Isn’t planning permission supposed to run with the land? So it shouldn’t matter, should it, who an applicant for permission may be? Because - at least generally - whoever they are, if they secure a consent, that consent will still exist e.g. if the land is sold to someone else? Wouldn’t that basic point make this amendment totally ineffective? And wouldn’t introducing “character” as a test for granting planning permission open the door to treating all sorts of nasty prejudices and biases as “legitimate” planning considerations?

It’s enough to make your head hurt. But don’t think about it too much. Our judges certainly didn’t. And nor, it would seem, did Team Villiers.

🏆 2. The end of housing targets 🏆

Here’s the headline-grabber! The one you’ve all been waiting for.

Would making housebuilding targets irrelevant to planning decision-making really be so bad? Yep. It’d be a flat-out disaster. Delivery would plummet. Of course, non-delivery is exactly the point. Read it again - “The NPPF must not impose an obligation on local planning authorities to ensure that sufficient housing development sites are available”. I mean. Perish the thought. Sufficient housing development sites. To meet needs. The rebels’ big point is we do not want “sufficient” sites to be available. Riiggggght. Which means what we want is…. what…. insufficient sites? Are you following it? 🤯.

And more than that, this luddite rubbish flies in the face of what planning is actually for. As I said back in August when Liz and Rishi were trading barbs about “Stalinist” housing targets, there’s a point of principle here. We can always quibble about the detail of how formulas work. But in the end, the local housing need policy is designed to allow us to plan to put more houses where they are needed. Where people will be. Where households are going to be formed. It’s easy to criticise statistics. Numbers can’t fight back. But behind all of those numbers are people. Young, old, and everywhere in between. People at every stage of life - united by one thing. They need a home. And they’re relying on our flailing system to provide one for them.

Faced with all of that responsibility, you might think that the very least the planning system can do is to acknowledge these people. To recognise them. To give their needs some weight. And it may all seem horribly technocratic, but that job… that all-important task… it begins with a number. Now, once you have a number, the hard bit starts. You may then decide to plan to meet the needs. Or not. But even the most basic exercise of town planning should start by understanding what those needs are. If we aren’t doing that, then what are we doing? Whatever it is, it’s not planning.

And I bet you’d thought this most headline-grabbing of the proposals was a shoe-in for the big gong this year. Well, friends. You were wrong.

This year’s #Planorak award for worst planning reform of the year goes to……….

🏆 1. The community right to appeal 🏆

Let’s say that somehow you manage to pass the “character” test above, and you achieve a planning permission. The 6 week judicial review time period (on which more here) comes and goes. But there are no legal errors so nobody’s taking you off to the High Court. The champagne goes on ice. But then… some bad news. Some of the folks who objected to your scheme have decided to lodge an appeal to the Planning Inspectorate. Against the consent you’ve just achieved. So we’re off to, let’s say, a planning inquiry. Not an inquiry you’re seeking. One that’s imposed onto you. Along with the substantial costs of defending your consent, and the delays of going through an appeal process. All against your will. And against the will of the local planning authority which has granted you the consent.

At the moment, the appeal process is moving reasonably smoothly - particularly for planning inquiries. But this amendment would balloon the number of planning appeals well beyond what PINS could cope with. Every major consent would be appealed. Years would go by. The system would collapse.

At a stroke, this amendment would bring the planning system to its knees. Drastic though that is, what was decisive for the judges, and why this amendment scoops the ultimate gong this year, is because of its flagrant intellectual hypocrisy.

Theresa Villiers and co. rail against the “faceless bureaucrats” in the Department and at the Planning Inspectorate imposing their wills onto the hapless people of England. But isn’t it weird. The rebels don’t mind a bit of faceless bureaucracy where it could have the effect of reducing, rather than increasing, the number of homes which are delivered.

🍾 Congratulations 🍾 - not just to our winner, but all the others who took part. Let’s hope for more hopeless idiocy in 2023. Good luck and god speed to Rishi and Michael Gove trying to “compromise” with the Theresa Villiers gang. But perhaps we should temper our hopes. How can you negotiate with people who don’t understand the system over which they’re holding you hostage? It’d be like trying to explain the offside rule to my labrador.

In the meantime, stay well #planoraks. And stay tuned for further 🏆 gongs 🏆 this side of the festive break. Enjoy those turkey sarnies. And through it all, whatever else you do, even though we’re in dark days: #keeponplanning.