Virtual planning inquiries - 5 things I really like & something I love

I have seen the future, friends. And it’s virtual. Or at least a bit virtual.

In last week’s flood of legal news (as ever, go to Simon Ricketts for a top-drawer summary), don’t miss the suggested binning of the traditional 3-way split between public inquiries vs. informal hearings vs. written representations for planning appeals.

Under section 20 of the new Business & Planning Bill, the Secretary of State and the Planning Inspectorate will be able to pick some or all of those different procedures to use within the same case (gasp!). Close readers of this blog were forewarned of this idea in my interview with Graham Stallwood at PINS. In effect, it would put the kind of flexibility urged by Bridget Rosewell - another veteran of this blog - onto a statutory footing.

In the meantime, PINS is starting to ramp up its various “virtual events” - planning inquiries, plan examinations, DCO examinations. The longer-term goal - once it’s possible to resume physical meetings - seems to be “a blend of face to face and virtual events”.

So in a nutshell, the smart money for the future is on a pick’n’mix - a blend of inquiry/hearing/writting reps mixed together with a further blend of in-person/virtual meetings.

But, you might be thinking, isn’t that a recipe for disaster? Because we all know, don’t we, that there’s no chance that a virtual planning inquiry could ever be [insert one or more of…] effective/fair/open/accessible/transparent/rigorous etc. If you’ve so far found yourself in that camp, I’m here to tell you: you’re wrong.

I’ve just finished week 1 of my first virtual planning inquiry into a housing scheme in East Suffolk, on the edge of the glorious Suffolk Coast AONB. But I didn’t leave my desk on Fleet Street (other than the occasional cycle home for dinner and a snooze). Through the wonders of MS Teams (other video-conferencing software is available), without ever being the same room we got through opening statements, lots of members of the public making their statements for and against the scheme, several hours of examination-in-chief + cross-examination, and a couple of detailed round-table sessions.

How did it go? Swimmingly. Not only does this tech work well for inquiries - it really does - there are lots of ways in which - I think - it’s better than the in-person norm. So here’s 5 things I really like about virtual inquiries (and after those, I’ll give you something I love):

1. Truly paper-free

I’ve done planning appeals and examination hearings mostly using my laptop for many years (once you take the plunge, the pros far outweigh the cons). But this was my first truly 100% paper-free inquiry: proofs of evidence, core documents, plans, policies, statements of case, all of it… digital.

That was only possible because of the virtual inquiry set-up. My desk looked a bit like the Starship Enterprise - a series of monitors with lots of things open at once. That multi-monitored set-up would be (literally) impossible in a physical inquiry.

2. Cheaper

On top of shouldering fees for people like me appearing at planning appeals or examination hearings, clients may have to pick up a lot of incidental expenses along the way. I say incidental - they can be major. Weeks on end in a hotel - sometimes for large professional teams. Travel to and from wherever you’re working. Keeping the team fed and watered. Hiring meeting rooms near the venue. Sometimes the costs of the inquiry room itself. This stuff adds up, particularly when you add not just the appellant’s team but the Council’s team too, and then of course the Inspector. Lots of (often public) money being spent keeping Premier Inns busy up and down the land.

For this inquiry, the sum total of my travel / hotel expenses were […just checking receipts, yes, here we are…] £0.

3. More efficient

If I ran things (heaven help you), my first law would be a new criminal offence to stop documents being produced without page or paragraph numbers. No page / para numbers can make life at a public inquiry/hearing setting (where you need everyone to follow along) really very difficult.

Ditto the use of plans with very long reference numbers. It can be a real practical challenge to make sure everyone is looking at the right thing at the right time.

Bring on “screen-sharing”, which (literally) solves this problem at a stroke. I think the potential of this tool to speed up document management during these kinds of events is really exciting, and it certainly sped up my cross-examination.

Plus, no more wandering around the Council offices trying to find a spare meeting room, or a quiet corner to whisper things through with your team. If you can’t be in the same building as your team, a killer combo of Whatsapp + Zoom works really well for easy team communication both during the inquiry sessions (are hastily scrawled post-its being thrown in my direction a thing of the past?) and for proper team meetings in the breaks.

4. More accessible

I was incredibly impressed by how well members of the public engaged with the inquiry (indeed, they did a better job than some of the professionals!). People of all ages successfully dialled into the event (over the phone, computer, tablet etc.) and any of them who wished made their representations in the normal way. And nobody was forced to e.g. take the whole day (or days) off work, arrange child-care, sit for hours waiting for their slot etc. I think being able to dial into inquiries, hearings or plan examinations in this way has massive and exciting potential to expand the pool of those members of the public (particularly those who work or have child-care needs) who are able to participate in the process. Which is what I would call a win-win.

5. More flexible

Have you ever arrived at an inquiry an hour or two before kick-off and watched hapless barristers and council officers try to heave around trestle tables to create a vaguely servicable space?

Only the truest of #planoraks will be familiar with the PINS guidance on how to set up inquiry rooms. In a nutshell, they’re supposed to look like this picture.

Finding a room that lends itself to that layout isn’t always easy. Once you’ve found one, laying it out in that way isn’t always easy either.

And here’s what’s makes it even more fiddly - anyone who’s done what we used to call a “Rosewell inquiry” - a mixture of traditional evidence with informal round-table sessions - will know that the layout in the picture does not work at all for informal hearing-style sessions.

So. Finding a space that works both for the traditional inquiry set-up, and which can then easily slip into an informal hearing where members of the public can follow what’s happening can be… challenging.

No longer! MS teams moves seamlessly between the two formats. Without a hitch. Without an adjournment to shove tables and chairs around into different shapes. Which makes virtual events incredibly well-suited to the pick’n’mix approach to appeals heralded in the new Business & Planning Bill (see above).

Now these things didn’t happen overnight. Enormous hats off to the team at the Planning Inspectorate including - and in particular - Leanne Palmer who is the case officer in our appeal and has run the whole thing incredibly smoothly, and with good humour.

So that’s 5 things I really like. But here’s something I ❤️love ❤️.

As I said on the first episode of UnPlanned (which is great fun if you haven’t yet heard it), I love this job, but the hardest bits (by far) are the long stretches of being away from my wife and young son for appeals and examinations. Finishing an inquiry by 5-ish, then a team meeting, then… home for bath-time (my son’s bath-time, not mine!). And then having breakfast with him before I set off for another inquiry day. That really is a profound game-changer for many of us who do this job with young families.

Bring on the brave new world! And stay well, #planoraks.