¡Viva la revolución! - new beginnings in the English planning system?
What we learned yesterday on the Ministry’s plans for reform. And the (many more) things we don’t know.
It was Sir Ernest Benn CBE - uncle of one Tony Benn (who knew a radical reform when he saw one) - who said that:
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies.”
Well. We’ve just lived through a very… political weekend.
Splashed all over the Sundays was our “blockbuster planning revolution” - the “radical but necessary” new era to make our system “simpler”, “faster” and “people-focussed” (it all makes such a refreshing change from those manifesto commitments from years gone by promising to make our system slower, more complex and less connected to the public).
But so much for press releases. We all know about devils and details. With the Ministry’s consultation paper still a few days away which will reveal all, it would take a real eejit - wouldn’t it? - to start reading the runes of the Times and Telegraph stories in the hunt for a cohesive program for reform.
Well, to be fair, you are reading a blog called #planoraks. So it shouldn’t shock you to learn… I am that eejit.
Here’s 5 things we learned yesterday. And after that I’ll give you another 5 things we still don’t know.
What we learned:
New zones - the Ministry’s proposing 3 kinds of zone: for growth, for renewal and for protection.
In the growth zone, the Minister says “new homes, hospitals, schools, shops and offices will be allowed automatically”. Though NB the Times said in this zone there’s a “presumption that new houses get the go-ahead”. Not the same thing (presumptions can be rebutted!). So we’ll have to wait and see about growth zones.
In the renewal zone, we get “a “permission in principle” approach to balance speed while ensuring appropriate checks are carried out”.
In the protection zone, we get “our Green Belt, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and rich heritage – will be protected as the places, views and landscapes we cherish most and passed on to the next generation”.
Who sets the zones? Local Planning Authorities. How? Through “democratic local agreement”. Agreement? Come, Minister, this is the planning system. Ah hang on, he means through a(nother) new era of local plans (joyous tidings for planning policy officers up and down the country).
But along with all of this growth, there are standards to be met. The Minister is offering us “design codes and pattern books” to make sure “new developments will be beautiful places, not just collections of buildings”. In fact, we’re told that the new system “places a higher regard on quality and design than ever before”.
We’re in for “a new system of developer contributions to infrastructure” through which the Government’s going to “take a greater proportion of “land value uplift”.
And get ready for more tech - no more notices on lamp-posts. We’re being offered “an interactive, and accessible map-based online system”.
Which takes us to the many things we don’t know - I mean, where to start. The things we don’t know could sink a ship. But here are 5 biggies (I say 5… it’s a few more than 5 really…):
New local plans - by the sounds of it, as well as setting zones, we’ll still need good old-fashioned policies to guide the determination of discretionary development management decisions - at least in the Renewal Zone if not the others too? How are we going to resource LPAs properly for this bold new round of plan-making? What will be the national (and regional?) framework within which these plans are produced? Given that there are still authorities which have not adopted a local plan in the modern era, what happens in the transitional period (which could take decades!) before everybody’s zones are fixed? If they’re ever fixed? The traditional TCPA 1990 regime in some towns, the brand new zonal system elsewhere? And what about Neighbourhood Plans - remember them? Can they fix zones too? And if they can’t… well, if they can’t what good will they be?
Design codes - who drafts them (local planning authorities?), who assesses new schemes against them and how, what happens in the (inevitable) event of disagreements over whether a scheme complies - do we head off to appeal? What if - in this world of enhanced “land value uplift” capture - full compliance with every scintilla of the design code would render a scheme unviable? Can that justify departure from the design code?
Growth zones - in reality, how “automatic” is this green light to build build build? As above, who’s to decide whether or not the scheme meets the design codes and what happens if they don’t? What about environmental impact assessment? Will the green light be subject to scale, height, massing or density parameters, and if so who fixes them and how? What about (non-exhaustive list alert…) weighing impacts on the landscape / townscape, conservation areas, the setting of listed buildings, archaeology, transport, highways, maintaining adequate daylight and sunlight in any given case? What about ensuring that the system delivers an adequate mix of commercial, industrial, retail and residential uses - this task’s a bit harder anyway after Class E, as I said here.
Renewal zones - are we talking about building on the permission in principal system we already have, i.e. under the Housing and Planning Act 2016? So despite some of the more extreme suggestions in the last few months, are we still on for a system - in at least some of these zones - where a local planning authority is taking discretionary decisions on whether or not to grant planning permission in accordance with… what… policies in a development plan? Other material considerations? Which would place us still more or less in the “plan-led” world enshrined by what is now section 38(6) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 - see my bit on that here.
Protect zones - we know Green Belts and AONBs are heading into these zones, but what about the plethora of lower-level designations of green spaces, wedges and open countryside? Is the requirement to “protect” absolute? Is it just as strong regardless of whether you’re in an AONB or a locally designated green wedge? What about the important differences in how we should approach e.g. an AONB (which is a landscape designation) and the Green Belt (which isn’t)? What about the (very many) cases where it’s necessary and appropriate to allow development to proceed in the Green Belt or in an AONB? What if there’s no 5 year housing land supply? Are we still living in a world where LPAs can exercise their discretion to allow schemes to proceed in a protection zone? And if so, are they making that decision in accordance with a local plan informed by national policy? And in that case, is this system really so different from what we’re doing already?
Consider all of that a palette cleanser for when the consultation paper arrives later this week. Not long to wait now! For all of our questions to be answered. And for us to be shown why - if it had been properly resourced - the system we already have couldn’t do all of this stuff just as well. But as Ernest Benn understood, “radical” reforms might not always be wise, but they can make for some excellent politics.
Stay well, #planoraks.
