Daily Archives: 4 Aug 2015

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

4 Aug 2015

Posted under

Axminster, Dorset, EDDC, National Planning Policy Framework, Neil Parish, Uplyme, West Dorset

Comments

4 Comments

Strange things happening on the Devon-Dorset border

http://www.trinitymatters.co.uk/index.php/planning-applications-east-devon/planning-applications-uplyme/item/1123-updated-4th-aug-application-15-0851-mout-land-west-of-shire-lane-uplyme

It appears that, whatever the decision, the Minister at the Department of Communities and Local Government had already decided to call it in.

Whilst this might be an unpopular development, it is no more or no less unpopular than many other current applications, so what has made it so special? It might, however, be the first of several applications that eventually could link Axminster to Lyme Regis.

The Devon MP is Neil Parish, the Dorset MP is Oliver Letwin, good friend of David Cameron. The site is closer to Dorset’s Lyme Regis than Devon’s Seaton and Axminster.

Following the 2015 election, Letwin remained Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster as Cameron reappointed him as an official ministerial member of the new Conservative government’s Cabinet. He has been given responsibility for overall charge and oversight of the Cabinet Office.

Wonder what they think of this really strange situation?

It also appears to have been decided by “Chairman’s Delegation Committee” – anyone heard of this before?

See Councillor Ian Thomas’s comments on this in Comments section.

Which begs the question: if a developer or one single interested party can persuade the DCLG to consider call-in of a planning application BEFORE a decision is made – what is the point of having the meeting!

Should the DCLG be asked to clarify their behaviour?

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

4 Aug 2015

Posted under

EDDC, Freedom of Information Act, Knowle/Honiton/Exmouth relocation

We are not alone (unfortunately)

Others in other areas have similar experiences of information being hidden from them and end up having their day(s) in court trying to get it:

https://westwayconcern.wordpress.com/freedom-of-information/

though, in their case, it took a lot less time!

AND this is information we have not (yet) seen for Knowle relocation.

Freedom of Information request, anyone?!

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

4 Aug 2015

Posted under

Misc

Yes, Minister – a bittersweet “comedy”

Some “Yes, Minister” quotes:

From the episode currently on BBC 2

Sir Humphrey: If local authorities don’t send us statistics, Government figures will be a nonsense.
Hacker: Why?
Sir Humphrey: They’ll be incomplete.
Hacker: Government figures are a nonsense, anyway.
Bernard: I think Sir Humphrey wants to ensure they’re a complete nonsense.

Others you might find distressingly funny:

Hacker: Are you saying that winking at corruption is government policy?
Sir Humphrey: No, no, Minister! It could never be government policy. That is unthinkable! Only government practice.
Hacker: You’re a cynic, Humphrey!
Sir Humphrey: A cynic is what an idealist calls a realist.

Bernard: If it’s our job to carry out government policies, shouldn’t we believe in them?
Sir Humphrey: Oh, what an extraordinary idea! I have served 11 governments in the past 30 years. If I’d believed in all their policies, I’d have been passionately committed to keeping out of the Common Market, and passionately committed to joining it. I’d have been utterly convinced of the rightness of nationalising steel and of denationalising it and renationalising it. Capital punishment? I’d have been a fervent retentionist and an ardent abolitionist. I’d have been a Keynesian and a Friedmanite, a grammar school preserver and destroyer, a nationalisation freak and a privatisation maniac, but above all, I would have been a stark-staring raving schizophrenic!

[The Home Secretary has been forced to resign after a drink-driving incident]
Hacker: What will happen to him?
Sir Humphrey: Well, I gather he was as drunk as a lord. So, after a discreet interval, they’ll probably make him one.

Sir Humphrey: How are things at the Campaign for the Freedom of Information, by the way?
Sir Arnold: Sorry, I can’t talk about that.

Sir Humphrey: It’s so difficult for me, you see, as I’m wearing two hats.
Hacker: Yes, isn’t that rather awkward for you?
Sir Humphrey: Not if one is in two minds.
Bernard: Or has two faces.

Sir Arnold: If once they accepted the principle that senior Civil Servants could be removed for incompetence, that would be the thin end of the wedge. We could lose dozens of our chaps. Hundreds, perhaps.
Sir Humphrey: Thousands.

Sir Humphrey: Bernard, if the right people don’t have power, do you know what happens? The wrong people get it: politicians, councillors, ordinary voters!
Bernard: But aren’t they supposed to, in a democracy?
Sir Humphrey: This is a British democracy, Bernard!

https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Yes,_Minister

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

4 Aug 2015

Posted under

Affordable and Social Housing, NPPF

NPPF “insane loophole” closed

Further to an earlier post, it seems that London house prices closed this loophole, not common sense. Predictably, the Department of Communities and Local Government is appealing the decision.

http://www.standard.co.uk/business/business-news/governments-insane-affordable-housing-loophole-quashed-by-high-court-10436984.html

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

4 Aug 2015

Posted under

Affordable and Social Housing, Environment (local), Land Supply, Local Plan, National Planning Policy Framework

Planning permission or planning completions: which is most important

Local authorities ( particularly East Devon District Council) are rushing through planning applications and consenting to them at high speed. But what is the point if developers can then drip-feed and cherry-pick which of those houses they build and when? Doing this allows for house prices to be kept artificially high and to ensure that only those houses that make the most profit get built, as this article points out:

Even though there is some evidence that public attitudes to housebuilding are shifting, it is a major achievement to secure approval for a quarter of a million homes through a system that is still largely in the control of local politicians.

As Department for Communities & Local Government minister Brandon Lewis acknowledged earlier this year, the planning system can no longer fairly be accused of stifling necessary development. He told Planning’s national summit at the end of March that “the planning system is delivering and land supply is coming forward”.

Nonetheless, the housebuilding industry is urging the government not to take its foot off the planning system’s accelerator pedal. The Home Builders Federation (HBF) said many of the units identified in the report still had to navigate the remainder of the planning system, a process that “continues to take far too long, delaying work starting on many of the sites”.

Clearly, from the evidence of the Summer Budget and the Productivity Plan, the government is minded to agree. Amongst other measures, it is aiming to introduce automatic permission in principle for housing on brownfield sites identified as suitable, a tougher development management performance regime for councils and new sanctions for councils that fail to produce local plans.

Some of these steps, notably the focus on local plan-making, are welcome. But there is a danger that ministers are focusing too much on permissions, and not enough on completions. The statistics for last year show just over 125,000 completions. While there will clearly be a time lag between an increase in consents and a rise in completions, the statistics suggest that the latter are not growing nearly as fast as the former. Ministers need to take steps to ensure that developers make more use, more quickly, of the good work done by planning authorities.

Richard Garlick, editor, Planning richard.garlick@haymarket.com
http://www.planningresource.co.uk/article/1358321/ministers-focus-completions-permissions-richard-garlick