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Posted on

5 Mar 2018

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Accountability, Affordable and Social Housing, Developers/ Development, Housing (local), NPPF, Planning System

May desperately tries to claw back housing votes her government has lost

“Theresa May will hit out at the “perverse incentive” of housing industry bonus structures paying out millions of pounds to chief executives as a result of company profits rather than the number of homes built.

The prime minister will make the comments as she unveils a series of measures, previously outlined in the government’s housing white paper, to rewrite the rules on planning in an attempt to boost the speed of housebuilding and ease prices.

She will call the “national housing crisis” one of the biggest barriers to social mobility and argue that she “cannot bring about the kind of society I want to see” without tackling it.

May, who wants to make housing her number one domestic priority, will say she expects “developers to do their duty to Britain and build the homes our country needs”.

Under the plans:

Local authorities will be able to take into account how quickly a developer builds on a site before issuing future planning permission.
Independent inspectors will be given the power to take over decision-making in local areas if “nimby councils” fail to publish housing plans quickly enough.
Staff working for councils and hospitals will be given priority when public land is sold off.
Homeowners will be able to add two storeys to existing properties.
The prime minister will tell the national planning conference in London that developers must play their part too. “The bonuses paid to the heads of some of our biggest developers are based not on the number of homes they build but on their profits or share price,” she will say.

“In a market where lower supply equals higher prices that creates a perverse incentive, one that does not encourage them to build the homes we need.” [Duh – we told her that in 2010 when developers wrote their own rules]

The comments come after a decision to pay the chief executive of housebuilder Persimmon a £110m bonus was widely criticised, with some describing it as “corporate looting”. Jeff Fairburn collected the first £50m worth of shares on New Year’s Eve, while 140 members of senior staff were also in line for more than £500m, with more than 80 receiving in excess of £1m.

While the government cannot force a change in bonus structures, May will hope to pile pressure on companies. [While taking their donations to the Conservative Party and meeting them privately]

Areas where action can be taken include “allowing councils to take a developer’s previous rate of build-out into account when deciding whether to grant planning permission”, May will say.

May will argue that the aim is to improve affordability so that more people can achieve the dream of home ownership.

“I still vividly remember the first home I shared with my husband, Philip. Not only our pictures on the walls and our books on the shelves, but the security that came from knowing we couldn’t be asked to move on at short notice,” she will say.

But she will admit that in much of the country millions who ought to own cannot do so, and prices are being pushed upwards.

“The result is a vicious circle from which most people can only escape with help from the bank of Mum and Dad. If you’re not lucky enough to have such support, the door to home ownership is all too often locked and barred.”

Polly Neate, the chief executive of the housing charity Shelter, said the planning system was not delivering and welcomed the move, but said the evidence would be in the building figures. “It appears the government is waking up to the scale of our housing emergency and the critical need for action which is urgent and bold,” she said.

Steve Turner from the Home Builders Federation said: “We welcome measures to speed up the planning system and stimulate all parts of the market from starter to retirement homes. The industry has delivered big increases in recent years and is committed to working with government to go further and match supply to need.”

However, the shadow housing secretary argued that May should be embarrassed to be “fronting up these feeble measures first announced a year ago”.

“After eight years of failure on housing it’s clear her government has got no plan to fix the housing crisis,” John Healey said.

One industry expert questioned whether linking planning permissions to former build-out rates was workable. He pointed out that permissions were attached to the location, not a particular developer, and many were held by landowners or promoters who would then sell on the site to a housing company.

May will promise to retain protections for the green belt, saying boundaries can only be changed if every “other reasonable option” for places to build needed homes had been explored. Downing Street pointed out that only 10% of England has been built on and only 13% is covered by green belt. But Mark Littlewood, Director General at the Institute of Economic Affairs said the commitment to the Green belt meant the proposals fell “at the first hurdle”.

“I want to see planning permissions going to people who are actually going to build houses, not just sit on land and watch its value rise. Where councils are allocating sufficient land for the homes people need, our new planning rulebook will stop developers building on large sites that aren’t allocated in the plan – something that’s not fair on residents who agree to a plan only to see it ignored.”

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/mar/04/may-attacks-perverse-incentive-housing-industry-bonuses

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East Devon Watch

Posted on

4 Mar 2018

Posted under

Accountability, Affordable and Social Housing, Developers/ Development, Inequality, Land banking, NPPF, Planning System

Javid says build more expensive houses to solve housing crisis

So, where houses are expensive MORE expensive even more houses must be built because Javid thinks that will bring prices down! Yet developers will still be allowed to make more than 20% profit on EACH development before affordable housing has to be built.

Just watch for the first developer to blame Brexit for house prices that don’t go down, and watch Letwin’s report on land banking get kicked into the long grass!

Remember this is the man who has just given more than £800m earmarked fo4 affordable housing back to the Treasury.

And it will be COUNCILS which are sanctioned when developers keep land with planning consent bare NOT DEVELOPERS.

Well done, Javid, well done. Your developer donors getting bigger profits and councils being forced to bend to developer will – and still youngsters won’t be able to get on the housing ladder.

“Thousands of new homes are to be approved and council Nimbyism curbed, the housing secretary Sajid Javid tells Tim Shipman.

Up to five new garden towns are to be approved for the corridor between Oxford and Cambridge under government plans to launch a “housing revolution” this week.

In an interview with The Sunday Times, Sajid Javid, the housing secretary, said he would give the go-ahead to at least two new towns in the next few weeks and could push for up to three more. The decision comes after ministers agreed to fund a high-speed rail line and an “expressway” for cars between the two leading university towns.

“Along that corridor there’s an opportunity to build at least four or five garden towns and villages with thousands of homes,” Javid said. The first step will be to establish “new town development corporations” for the chosen sites, which will help developers and town planners to “cut through a lot of the bureaucracy”, he said.

Referring to the creation of Milton Keynes in 1967 and the transformation of London’s Docklands in the 1980s, Javid said: “We haven’t been that ambitious for a long time.”

Now that Theresa May’s latest Brexit speech is behind it, the government will return this week to what Javid calls “our No 1 domestic priority”.

He said: “We have a housing crisis in this country. Average house prices in England are eight times average earnings. In London, where we have the most acute shortage, it is 15 times average earnings. That’s not just the worst we have had in England , it’s the worst of any major developed economy.”

Last year 217,000 homes were built, more than double the total in 2010, but well under the 300,000 a year the government is aiming for by 2025.

This week ministers will change the planning rules to try to kick-start house-building “where it is needed” and turn the heat up on “Nimby councils” who have refused to build what is needed.

Tomorrow Javid will unveil a new version of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), to get councils to give more land for development. “You’ve got to release it where people are demanding more homes,” he said.

The NPPF will contain new national rules determining how many homes councils should be building each year — taking account of local house prices and wages and the number of key workers in the area. Javid is clear that will force many councils to set higher targets.

“It will no longer allow Nimby councils that don’t really want to build the homes that their local community needs to fudge the numbers,” Javid said. “For the first time it will explicitly take into account the market prices. If you are in an area where the unaffordability ratio is much higher you will have to build even more. It will make clear to councils that this number is a minimum, not a maximum.”

Javid will also launch a crackdown on councils who do not meet targets. He said: “The other thing we’ll introduce is the delivery test. If they say we’re going to plan for 300 a year at the moment there is nothing in the system that checks to see they are actually delivering the 300 and that is going to change.”

Councils who fail to step up will be stripped of their right to decide what gets built in their areas, with decisions made by independent planning inspectors instead. “Developers can only apply for planning permission in the areas the council has identified,” he said. “If the protection of that plan is switched off, a developer can apply for planning permission anywhere in your area.

“This is quite a big sanction for every local authority to not just come up with the right number, but once that number is in place, we are going to be breathing down your neck to make sure you are actually delivering on those numbers.”

Javid says that does not mean building on the green belt, “but it does mean that outside of naturally protected land like woodland and green belt they can pretty much roam everywhere outside that”.

The housing secretary has shown he is prepared to intervene after he threatened 15 councils who had failed to draw up any local plan for development.

“The last time York had a plan was 1954,” he said. “There was the chancellor’s district council, Runnymede. They responded positively. It doesn’t matter who you are or who your MP is, if you haven’t got a plan you will be hearing from me. If a council keeps ignoring its responsibility we can take that planning responsibility away from them and give it to someone else.”

The new planning framework will also seek to make local plans more responsive to their populations’ needs. Javid said: “Our nurses, police officers and fire officers want to live as close as possible to where they serve the British public. We want to make it easier it build and take their needs into account.”

In cities he is keen to see more building upwards. New rules will make it easier for homeowners to add two storeys to their houses — and will clear the way for a large number of mansion blocks to be built.

“The density of London is less than half that of Paris. We don’t want London to end up like Hong Kong,” Javid said, but he wants more “mansion blocks, the kind you might see in Kensington and Chelsea”. He said: “It will be quite surprising how easy we want to make it for people who want to build upwards.”

Further proposals to force developers to build more quickly will be revealed next week when the former cabinet minister Oliver Letwin publishes the interim findings of his report into the problem of land banking by developers.

“We need planning permission to turn into homes,” Javid said. “I don’t think Oliver is going to hold back.”

Javid is aware that failure to deliver could cost the Tories the next election. “We need a housing revolution. We have to show the British public that we are doing everything we reasonably can because if we don’t they will turn to the hard-left ideas of [Jeremy] Corbyn. If that means taking on councils, developers and others that’s what we’re going to do.”

Source: Sunday Times (pay wall)

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East Devon Watch

Posted on

20 Aug 2017

Posted under

Affordable and Social Housing, Developers/ Development, EDDC, Greater Exeter, Land Supply, Local Plan, NPPF

Is EDDC gearing up for even greater development for 5-year Local Plan review?

All Local Plans have to be reviewed every five years. Though it is likely that the next Local Plan won’t be very local as “Greater Exeter” will almost certainly be what is put forward, East Devon being only one part of it.

Now it seems the current Local Plan didn’t go to plan!

“The number of new homes being built in East Devon has dramatically dropped, government data has revealed.

In total, 620 new properties were completed by private developers and housing associations in 2016/17.

But this is more than 250 homes fewer than were built in 2013/14, 2014/15 and 2015/16 – where an average of 836 new properties were finished each year.

In the last decade, a total of 4,690 properties have been built and completed in the district and more than 12,600 new homes were finished across Devon. …”

http://www.sidmouthherald.co.uk/news/number-of-new-homes-being-built-in-east-devon-dramatically-drops-1-5155038

In fact 2013/14 and 2014/15 and 2015/16 were the result of the years during which the developer free-for-all took place when EDDC had no Local Plan and no 5 year land supply so we had a situation where, under government rules, developers could build any amount of houses practically anywhere. So it’s hardly surprising there was a boom.

So, it now appears that, in fact, the number of houses EDDC had expected to see built this year haven’t materialised.

That could mean that more will be front-loaded to a revised (probably Greater Exeter) plan. And/or the whole area might be back to not having a 5-year land supply so it will be a developer free-for-all – again.

What is VERY interesting is that around 37% of all new homes in the whole of Devon have been built in East Devon in the last decade.

Perhaps time for other parts of Greater Exeter to take the strain in the coming decade?

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East Devon Watch

Posted on

7 Aug 2017

Posted under

Accountability, Affordable and Social Housing, Developers/ Development, Land banking, NPPF, Planning System, Sleaze, Transparency

Land barons

Owl attempted to shorten this post but couldn’t find anything that could be cut out.

“In October last year, Tony Gallagher threw his friend David Cameron a 50th birthday party at Sarsden House, his 17th-century mansion near Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire. He served a dinner of roast beef and lamb, cooked on his Aga, to a private gathering of 23 people.

At the same time, Gallagher was also quietly planning to sell the company that he had built up over three decades, accumulating land, gaining planning permission, and auctioning it off at vast profit.

After reportedly holding talks with the Pears family, the Wellcome Trust and Berkeley Homes, Gallagher Estates was sold to housing association L&Q in January. It netted the entrepreneur a £250m payday, propelling him into 152nd place in The Sunday Times Rich List, with an overall fortune estimated at £850m.

Such is the life of the modern-day land baron. A group of private companies, largely unknown to the public, have carved out a lucrative niche locating and snapping up land across the UK.

Operating in the murky world of “strategic land” promotion, these firms prepare sites for development by doing the time-consuming work of gaining planning permission. It is then sold on “shovel-ready” to housebuilders. These companies don’t ever build homes, but work within the labyrinthine planning system, taking advantage of its weaknesses and loopholes.

It’s a modern-day gold rush: the magazine Farmers’ Weekly is filled with adverts for companies offering to prepare agricultural land for building; Gladman Developments, a land promoter, offers its services on a “no win, no fee” basis to lure landowners interested in selling up, claiming a success rate of 90pc. The reason for this is the sheer profit that can be made by obtaining planning permission on a strategic site of land.

According to Simon Hodson, head of residential land at JLL, while an average acre of agricultural land may sell for £5,000 to £10,000, land with planning permission for residential development is normally worth £1m-4m per acre, depending on its location and the amount of infrastructure and preparation needed before building.

These companies will then take a cut of 10-30pc of the sale value, depending on the size of the site. This means that the murky underbelly of the land market is highly profitable: in the year ending March 31 2016, Gladman made a pre-tax profit of £11.6m, while Gallagher’s was £79m in the year to June 30 2016. The company was bought for £505m, which included land to build 42,500 new homes.

The companies keep a low profile, and so do their bosses. Gallagher quietly donated £110,000 to the Conservative party last year, while Gladman has also built his firm up over decades, selling his family home to invest in his first tracts of land.

The way they operate and the nature of the land market means it is difficult to know the scale of this opaque world.

When promoting land, these companies will seldom purchase it upfront, but instead either pay the owner an option for exclusive rights, or promise the money once it is sold, with the landowner retaining the land and being actively involved in the sale process.

The options don’t need to be registered anywhere, and they are not obliged to detail their deals in their results. A search through a database created by Freedom of Information requests of land ownership by campaigner Guy Shrubsole reveals that Gladman owns just 304 acres, but it says it produces sites for 10,000 homes per year, a far higher amount. Gallagher owns just 714 acres according to this database. Such is the opaque nature of these land deals that mythology swirls around the industry: one – unproven, and very likely untrue – claim is that 90pc of green belt has long-term speculative options in place, in case the Government of the day changes its policy on building on it.

The true size of the industry is almost impossible to find out. There are around eight big companies, and many more smaller ones, quietly preparing land around the country, though largely outside London.

Figures from Savills suggest that land promoters and investors currently control around 20pc of land due to be put through planning, enough for 153,400 homes. This is compared to housebuilders which own just 7.7pc of land at this stage in development. This disparity is caused partly by the fact that these promoters work on a much longer-term basis, picking up options on land for development in 15 or even 20 years. A site for 10,000 homes that Gallagher developed in Northstowe, Cambridgeshire, was acquired in 1998, and then finally sold to housebuilders last year.

A source in one of the large housebuilders says that it buys one third of its plots from these land promoters, although this figure varies. Some housebuilders have substantial land banks that they take through the planning system itself, such as Taylor Wimpey and Persimmon.

Much of the success comes from navigating the planning system. Land promoters track down underfunded local authorities that have not yet set out a local plan for housing in the next 15 years, or a programme for building in the next five years in its National Planning Policy Framework. Enter a land promotion company, which finds sites in these areas where the council is likely to say yes.

David Gladman, co-founder of the eponymous company, told the High Court last July: “We normally only target local authorities whose planning is in relative disarray and … either have no up-to-date local plan or, temporarily, they do not have a five-year supply of consented building plots.” Just 41pc of local authorities have a five-year plan for housing supply, according to Savills. If a local authority doesn’t have that in place, it means as long as a planning application meets certain criteria it will be approved.

Gladman employs a team of more than 50 town planners to develop these sites. Companies searching for land use aerial photography, maps, data and agents to find the sites, often simply knocking on doors to ask landowners if they want to sell up.

Are these businesses a nefarious force? They are “an instrumental part of delivering housing,” says Hodson, and help accelerate the amount of land ready to be built on. Last year, 293,127 homes were granted planning permission, according to the Home Builders Federation, a record high. By preparing large sites for development, like Gallagher does, it’s easier to create a combination of residential and commercial property, parcelling off areas to experts in that field.

But by charging a premium for a clean site that’s ready to be built on, it forces developers to increase house prices to recoup the high outlay on land, while cutting the viability of building affordable homes. “Land promoters deliberately pump the cost of land higher and higher, then reap the rewards when they sell it,” says Catharine Banks, policy officer at Shelter.

While housebuilders have recently been accused of “land banking” by Government, hoarding land with planning permission that could be built on, the same could be levelled at these businesses. Research by Shelter last month found that almost a third of sites that have been approved to have homes built on have not been completed within the last five years. Gladman, however, claims it doesn’t hang on to land and offers it for sale within a couple of months of gaining planning as, under the option system, it only makes money when it is sold.

“The land market is inefficient and fragmented,” says Tom Aubrey, from the Centre for Progressive Capitalism, who argues that these land promoters are a natural product of its dysfunction and lack of transparency.

He likens the model of these businesses to private equity firms, as an agile, speculative force. “It’s a bit like airlines before the internet was set up: it was difficult to know who had the best price because of the asymmetry of information.”

The Government has signalled it wants to open up the land market, making data on land and who owns it more accessible. According to Shelter’s Banks, this “would be a small but very powerful change, which could help the country build the homes we so desperately need.”

https://digitaledition.telegraph.co.uk/editions/edition_nkuOf_2017-08-06/data/361464/index.html

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East Devon Watch

Posted on

29 Jul 2017

Posted under

Accountability, Affordable and Social Housing, Bovis, Developers/ Development, Linden Homes, NPPF, Planning System

Prince Charles gets his own (beautiful?) way with his new south-west town

Owl says: bet this wouldn’t happen in the Republic of East Devon! And wonders if a “zombie town” of which they speak might be on our own doorstep!

Jerome Starkey
http://www.thetimes.co.uk

“Three of Britain’s biggest housebuilders have lost an attempt to change the plans for a garden town designed by Prince Charles’s architects, amid claims that the builders’ proposals would have created a “zombie town”.

The Sherford Valley, on the outskirts of Plymouth, had been earmarked for 5,500 new homes and was designed by the Prince’s Foundation to create an eco-friendly pedestrian community like Poundbury in Dorset.

Bovis Homes, Linden Homes and Taylor Wimpey, which bought the site in 2014, had applied to Plymouth council to water down the design rules and change Prince Charles’s plan so that they could build cheaper homes more quickly.
Councillors said that the move would have created a “zombie town” with “years of planning thrown out of the window” and rejected their application.
The builders had built fewer than 300 of the homes when they applied to amend the town code and master plan.

“Instead of having the highest standard of new homes, we will instead have a rather large housing estate,” Vivien Pengelly, a councillor, said.
The housebuilders said that they were asking for minor changes that would not have affected the quality of homes. However, Ben Bolgar, a director of the Prince’s Foundation, said that they were trying to strip out commitments to quality.

He said that Sherford was designed to prove that Prince Charles’s model village of Poundbury, near Dorchester, could work on a larger scale but that the builders were determined to “build their normal boxes”.

The design code meant that the builders had to produce a range of houses, built from local materials, which were not more than 500m from the shops. Cars had to be parked in hidden courtyards rather than on the street to encourage people to walk.

Mr Bolgar said that the builders’ plans would have transformed Sherford into a “rubbish housing estate”.

Jonny Morris, a councillor, said that he did not want Sherford to end up like the sort of place you would see “in the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse”.

Housing companies applied to ditch a town code drawn up 13 years ago and replace it with a set of “fundamental principles” which they said allowed them greater flexibility over materials and construction methods.

“This is simply far too premature to take such a radical act, disregarding all those measures that allowed permission to be granted in the first place,” Nick Kelly, the deputy lord mayor, said. “We want development but everybody thinks, ‘This is what we’re going to get’, and at the stroke of a pen years of planning and assurances go out of the window.”

Lord Taylor of Goss Moor, who wrote a report in 2015 calling for dozens of new garden villages, said that Sherford had an excellent town plan and was “overwhelmingly supported by the local community” because of its commitment to quality. “The housebuilders knew what they were signing up to. There should really be no question about what will be delivered,” he said.”

Times (paywall)

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East Devon Watch

Posted on

8 May 2017

Posted under

Accountability, AONB, EDDC, NPPF, Planning System

Councils ‘ignore powers to limit building on green belt’

“Communities face a postcode lottery over how much of their countryside is blighted by new homes because some councils fail to use powers to protect it, research has found.

Some local authorities choose to protect their green belts but others accept much higher housing targets and allow developers to build on environmentally valuable land.

The different approaches mean some areas are being earmarked to have thousands more homes than necessary, according to research by the Campaign to Protect Rural England.

Councils are planning more than 360,000 homes on England’s 14 green belts, which are rings of protected land designed to prevent urban sprawl.
The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), introduced in 2012, requires all councils to determine their “objectively assessed need” (OAN) for housing, which is the number of new homes required to meet market demand and social need.

Councils do not have to accept the targets produced by the assessment if they have large amounts of green belt or other protected land, such as national parks, areas of outstanding natural beauty and nature sites.
Brighton and Hove council has set a target of 13,200 homes by 2030, less than half the 30,120 determined by its OAN. In its local plan it said it cut the number “to respect the historic, built and natural environment of the city”.

Watford, Hastings and Crawley have also set housing targets of only half their assessed need.

By contrast, the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, which includes the prime minister’s constituency, is planning to meet its full OAN of 14,200 homes by 2033 despite 83 per cent of the borough being green belt.
Simon Dudley, the leader of Windsor and Maidenhead council, is strongly supporting housebuilding in the borough, including 6,000 homes in the green belt. He has been accused of sacking a fellow Conservative councillor who questioned the plans.

Mr Dudley has previously said that his plans would only reduce his borough’s green-belt land by 1.7 per cent.

Christchurch and East Dorset is also planning to meet its full OAN of 8,490 houses over 15 years, despite 84 per cent of the area being green belt, an area of natural beauty or other protected land.

Paul Miner, the CPRE’s planning campaign manager, said that there was a postcode lottery on housing targets.

He said: “Councils have got scope to reduce their housing numbers but some are not doing so. Reasons include pressure from developers and also the political leadership of the council seeing an opportunity to make quick money from the new homes bonus.”

The government has promised to pay councils a new homes bonus, typically worth £9,000, for each home they build.

The planning framework states that there needs to be “exceptional circumstances” to amend green-belt boundaries. Elmbridge borough council, in Surrey, wrote to Sajid Javid, the communities secretary, asking him to define exceptional circumstances.

In his reply, seen by The Times, dated March 20, Mr Javid said that green-belt losses would have to be offset by improvements to remaining green-belt land, but added: “We would be disinclined to go even further into listing what might be considered an exceptional circumstance.”

Source: The Times (paywall)

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East Devon Watch

Posted on

20 Apr 2017

Posted under

Accountability, Developers/ Development, Local Plan, NPPF, Sustainability

Useful case law on sustainability

“A judge has dismissed all seven grounds on which a developer sought to challenge the Community Secretary’s decision to reject a planning inspector’s recommendation.

The case concerned Arun District Council’s refusal to grant permission to developer Keith Langmead to build 100 homes at Yapton, West Sussex.
An inspector recommended that Langmead’s appeal be allowed, but this was overturned by the Secretary of State.

Giving judgment in Keith Langmead Ltd v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government & Anor [2017] EWHC 788, Mrs Justice Lang noted the Secretary of State had concluded the appeal did not accord with either the overall local plan or Yapton’s neighbourhood plan.

Arun lacked the five-year supply of housing sites required by the National Planing Policy Framework (NPPF) and so could be liable to the presumption in favour of sustainable development.

But the Secretary of State concluded that the proposed development did not comply with the social element of sustainability, and the “adverse impacts of this proposal would significantly and demonstrably outweigh the identified benefits”.

Langmead appealed on the grounds that the Secretary of State misunderstood and misinterpreted the NPPF, failed to apply it correctly, failed to take into account the independent examiner’s reservations about the Neighbourhood Plan and made a decision internally inconsistent with regard to the weight given to the local plan.

The company also argued that the decision was irrational and failed to give adequate reasons.

Lang J said the Secretary of State’s decision “did not disclose any misinterpretation or misapplication of the NPPF”, while it was unlikely that any material change came to his notice at the right time.

The inspector’s view had been incorporated and the Secretary of State “disagreed with the inspector’s conclusions, as he was entitled to do”.
Langmead had obtained by disclosure a copy of the internal planning casework division (PCD)’s submission to the Secretary of State to allow the appeal and while the decision letter did not mention this “it seems very unlikely that the Secretary of State failed to consider it, since an internal submission of this kind would usually be a helpful starting point for the minister”, the judge noted.

She said: “Although this appeal was controversial, it was not especially complex, in fact or law. The reasons in the [decision letter] were adequate and intelligible.

“In my view, the claimant knew full well the Secretary of State’s conclusions on the principal important controversial issues. Its real complaint was that the conclusions reached were unreasonable and misguided.”
The judge added: “The Secretary of State was entitled to make up his own mind, and reach a different conclusion to that of the PCD and the inspector.”

http://localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=30835%3Ajudge-dismisses-challenge-after-minister-rejects-recommendation-of-inspector&catid=63&Itemid=31

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East Devon Watch

Posted on

22 Mar 2017

Posted under

Art and Culture, Developers/ Development, NPPF, Planning System

Comments

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Planning permission rescinded in Birmingham before threatened judicial review

“Birmingham City Council is to revoke planning permission for a supermarket after admitting it made an error and facing a threatened judicial review.

The dispute over a proposed Lidl store at Stirchley saw a local group gain pro bono help from the Environmental Law Foundation to pursue the case.

Birmingham’s assistant director for planning and regeneration Ian MacLeod said: “A planning application to redevelop the Fitness First gym and Stirchley Ten Pin Bowling site for a food store was made by Lidl in 2016.

The application was presented to the planning committee in December, when it decided to grant planning permission for the new store, subject to the completion of a legal agreement securing funding for local environmental/public realm improvements. The planning permission was issued last month.

“A legal challenge has been mounted against the council’s decision, based around the application of planning policy with respect to sporting/leisure facilities.

“Regrettably, the council accepts that a mistake was made and so the challenge has strong merit and it will not resist the claim. As such, the planning consent will be revoked shortly and it is anticipated that the council will re-consider the application in due course, including returning to the planning committee for a new decision.”

Local campaigners had objected to the loss of the gym and bowling facilities, saying the nearest alternatives were some four miles away. They also said more than 670 jobs would be lost and traffic problems would result from the store’s presence.”

http://localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=30474%3Acouncil-rescinds-planning-permission-following-procedural-mistake&catid=63&Itemid=31

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East Devon Watch

Posted on

16 Mar 2017

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Accountability, Cranbrook, Developers/ Development, Greater Exeter, NPPF, Paul Diviani, Planning System, Sustainability, Transparency

“New Cranbrook” and creeping unitisation worry Greater Exeter councillors

Owl says: Read with the post below Owl thinks there will be more than one “New Cranbrook” in the Greater Exeter area!

“Consultation events held in Devon this week shed light on the creation of a major strategic blueprint, which could lead to new settlements on the same scale as Cranbrook.

Mid Devon, East Devon, Teignbridge and Exeter City Council, in partnership with Devon County Council, are teaming up to create a Greater Exeter Strategic Plan (GESP) which focuses on the creation of jobs and housing until 2040.

Hundreds visited Exeter’s Guildhall today to see early Greater Exeter plans between 2pm and 8pm. Similar consultations were held at Phoenix House, Tiverton yesterday and at Mackarness Hall, Honiton on Wednesday, March 8.

Andrew Robbins, city development manager for Exeter, said: “We need to provide more houses for the population and more jobs. What we’re looking to do is plan for the next 20 years, with Exeter City Council working with its neighbours because we see the influence of Exeter outside its boundaries. We’re looking at the best places for new housing and the best places for new jobs.

“For example, the new settlement at Cranbrook has been developed in recent years. One of the things we’re thinking of is ‘do we need another settlement outside of the city.'”

“What we want to do is get people involved in the process at what we call the issues stage. This is the absolute beginning of the process and its asking people for their ideas for how they see the region developing, before consulting on a draft plan at the beginning of 2018.”

Cllr Jeremy Christophers, Leader of Teignbridge said: “The creation of a strategic plan across a wider geography responds to how people actually live their lives. Combining housing options with job opportunities and providing the proper transport will support our ambition for local people to live the lives they wish for. As councils, we need to work together to deliver better results for the future – clearly, this is the way forward.”

Cllr Paul Diviani, Leader of East Devon said: “It has been clear for some time that there was a significant gap left with the demise of the Devon Structure Plan and without wishing to re-invent the wheel, we should be establishing a strategic plan for our Greater Exeter area which has input from Exeter, Mid Devon, Teignbridge and ourselves, alongside the County Council. We are the epi-centre of the Heart of the South West Local Enterprise Partnership and we need to ensure we have a central, aligned, significant role to play as we take our well-established partnership forward.”

Cllr Pete Edwards, Leader of Exeter City said: “Every weekday 37,000 people commute into Exeter and 11,000 people head out of Exeter. These volumes are second only to Cambridge and it is imperative that we address housing, transport and infrastructure in a joined-up way to respond to this reality.”

Cllr Clive Eginton, Leader of Mid Devon, said: “This is an excellent opportunity to reflect on how our residents and businesses live their lives across council administrative boundaries and to start embedding our shared aspiration for a successful future in plans for the Greater Exeter area.”

Cllr John Hart, Leader of Devon County Council, said: “The emerging relationship between the four local authorities in preparing a single Strategic Plan for the area is a very positive step and will help the planning system to work efficiently to boost the supply of housing and growth required. We are pleased and well-placed to be part of this collaborative way of working, which will improve and streamline our planning system.”

However the plans have raised fears that councils are “sleepwalking” into becoming unitary authorities. Liberal Councillor Jenny Roach who represents Silverton expressed fears that Mid Devon District Council would be ceding powers.

She said: “We’re looking like we could be ceding power to this planning partnership, and I know people will shake their heads and say no, but there are several points which worry me.

“Exeter needs land and you can imagine where I sit in my ward, Exeter City Council could be looking at developing the swathe of land that is between Silverton and Exeter and similarly between Thorverton and Newton St Cyres. If you look at the East Devon side there are huge estates marching across that land, so this worries me.

“It worries me that it’s being done by degree and almost by stealth. When we went to the public to talk about the sort of governance the district wanted, they didn’t like the cabinet, but unfortunately we didn’t get the 3000 signatures we needed in that period of time.

“There are a tremendous amount of people who were not happy with the governance of this authority as it is now, they don’t like the cabinet system, and it is the cabinet system that is sleepwalking us into a unitary authority. I’ve seen this happen before and I would really like to know that the very least we would do is have a state of the district debate on this Greater Strategic Exeter Plan.”

An online consultation form can be found at http://www.gesp.org.uk/issues”

http://www.devonlive.com/greater-exeter-plan-could-lead-to-a-new-cranbrook/story-30209261-detail/story.html

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

6 Mar 2017

Posted under

Affordable and Social Housing, AONB, Clinton Devon Estates, Developers/ Development, EDDC, Newton Poppleford, NPPF

Comments

1 Comment

Very sour grapes at Clinton Devon Estates towards EDDC!

Owl says: CDE not getting their own way with highly ontroversial AONB development blames officers and councillors at EDDC – CDE not happy bunnies!

[To] Housing Delivery Task and Finish Forum – Observations on Issues affecting Housing Delivery

“[From]Leigh Rix, Head of Property for Clinton Devon Estates Iestyn John, Partner at Bell Cornwell LLP

Background

Clinton Devon Estates are rural landowners with substantial land and property interests in East Devon, notably in the southern part of the district between Exmouth and Beer. The Estate therefore operates within a large number of rural communities and in an area which is subject to a range of landscape and other sensitivities, all of which have with the potential to affect housing delivery. The Estate seeks to act as a responsible landowner with the principles of sustainability at the heart of all its activities. The Estate takes a long term intergenerational view which takes precedence over short term political and economic interests. It is within this context that its observations on the issues affecting housing delivery are provided.

In the Estate’s experience, there are two types of issues which are frustrating housing delivery:

cultural factors and technical factors

Cultural Issues

The absence within the Council of a positive, solution focused mindset necessary to properly resolve the undoubted tensions which exist between business, community and local politics, reflecting an agreed vision of how housing delivery will support wider longer term ambitions for the district in the context of an economically, socially and environmentally vibrant community. This absence appears to ‘set the tone’ for the setting of land use policy and decision making and may act as a barrier to investment in the area;

Greater pragmatism is needed, especially with regard to pursuing opportunities for properly considered housing proposals in rural areas. Such opportunities have the potential to act as a source of considerable amounts of additional housing without harming rural character. It is notable that earlier drafts of the Local Plan proposed to allocate 5% extra housing to each village. In individual villages, this would represent very small scale growth but is an approach, which collectively, would have contributed at least 500 more houses to the District’s identified supply than the approved Local Plan. The current approach of relying on neighbourhood plans to deliver local growth, whilst politically expedient, is inherently problematic especially in those areas in which the Estate operates, given the predominance of NIMBY interests which do not typically act in support of traditional local communities or longer term, future generational thinking;

Stronger, more decisive leadership is needed and at all levels. Amongst other things, this will generate certainty for the development industry and confidence that planning applications once supported, will be approved.

There are clear political tensions within the Council which create considerable uncertainties, delays and costs to bringing forward housing supply. The Estates’ experience with their development at King Alfred Way in Newton Poppleford is a clear example. Despite receiving officer support throughout the process, it took five years, four applications and five planning committees to secure a development which is modest in size, provides a high level of affordable housing and a clearly identified community facility in the form of a new doctor’s surgery. It will be understood that such problems do not act as positive signal to those seeking to invest in housing schemes – of any form – in East Devon.

Technical Issues

Some officers within the planning teams seek to apply seemingly needless bureaucracy; for example in the scope of the information they ask for to validate or process applications. It is obviously important that properly relevant information be provided, however unnecessary requests generate delay and cost and add little to consideration of the issue. We note the recent application validation list actually seems to make this issue worse. A more pragmatic and proportionate position is needed.

Feedback from statutory consultees is extremely slow. This is partly an issue of under-resourcing of these agencies which is out of the control of the Council. However, such poor responses have the potential to significantly delay decisions on applications. We would suggest that officers need to feel able to come to their own view on issues where specific advice is not forthcoming in a timely manner unless there are fundamental issues such as highways safety under consideration.

Officers need to support schemes which are common sense and where there is unlikely to be any harm to wider objectives. It is notable that there are various schemes in the Cranbrook area – a central part of the Council’s housing delivery strategy – which are not being determined until the Council’s much delayed SPD for the area is approved. In this core location, the Council appear to be getting locked into a planning rather than delivery cycle which prevents certain sizeable schemes e.g. the non-consortium site at Farlands from coming forward with, in that case, an approval for 200 + dwellings.

From the experience of the Estate it would seem that some members of Development Management and other Committees require training in their responsibilities and the planning process as well as more general Committee Management skills. Poor quality, ill informed decisions made by members disregarding legal and planning advice causes increased skills costs for housing projects and local taxpayers as well as a lack of delivery of schemes which meet agreed local plan criteria.”

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

28 Feb 2017

Posted under

Accountability, Affordable and Social Housing, Consultation, Developers/ Development, EDDC, Greater Exeter, Land banking, Land Supply, Local Enterprise Partnership, Local Plan, NPPF, Planning System, Spin

Government response to petition – “Give communities back the right to decide where houses are built.”.

OWL SAYS: if you believe this, you will believe anything. Have we been consulted about where our Local Enterprise Partnership is going to build extra houses? No. What say do we have about extra houses for Greater Exeter? Almost none. Do (favoured) developers get just about anything and everything they ask for in East Devon? Yes, they do.

Truly we live in a parallel universe to the government!

“Local communities are not forced to accept large housing developments. Communities are consulted throughout the Local Plan process and on individual planning applications.

Read the response in full

The National Planning Policy Framework strongly encourages all local planning authorities to get up-to-date Local Plans in place as soon as possible, in consultation with the local community. Up-to-date Local Plans ensure that communities get the right development, in the right place, at the right time, reflecting the principles of sustainable development. Through the White Paper we are ensuring that every part of the country produces, maintains and implements an up-to-date plan, yet with the flexibility for local areas to decide how to plan in a way that best meets their needs.

A wide section of the community should be proactively engaged so that Local Plans, as far as possible, reflect a collective vision and a set of agreed priorities for the sustainable development of the area, including those contained in any neighbourhood plans that have been made.

The Framework recognises the intrinsic character and beauty of the countryside. That is why our proposals are focussed on development in built up areas.
We are also absolutely clear that Green Belt must be protected and that there are other areas that local authorities must pursue first, such as brownfield land and taking steps to increase density on urban sites. The Government is committed to maximising the use of brownfield land and has already embarked on an ambitious programme to bring brownfield land back into use.

We believe that developers should mitigate the impacts of development. This is vital to make it acceptable to the local community and to addresses the cumulative impact of development in an area. Both the Community Infrastructure Levy and Section 106 agreements can be used by local planning authorities to help fund supporting infrastructure and address the cumulative demand that development places on infrastructure. Through the White Paper, the Government announced that it will examine the options for reforming the existing system of developer contributions to see how this can be simplified, with further announcements at Autumn Budget 2017.

The £2.3billion Housing Infrastructure Fund will deliver up to 100,000 new homes by putting in the right infrastructure, in the right place, at the right time. We expect the fund to be able to deliver a variety of types of infrastructure necessary to unlock housing growth in high demand areas.

There is nothing automatic about grants of planning permission where there is not yet an up-to-date Local Plan. It is still up to local decision-makers to interpret and apply national policy to local circumstances, alongside the views of the local community. Applications should not be approved if the adverse impacts would significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits; or if specific policies in the Framework indicate that development should be restricted.

Communities are also able to make representations on individual planning applications and in response to most appeals by the applicant against a local authority decision. Interested parties can raise all the issues that concern them during the planning process, in the knowledge that the decision maker will take their views into account, along with other material considerations, in reaching a decision.

We therefore do not believe a right of appeal against the grant of planning permission for communities is necessary. It is considered that communities already have plenty of opportunity to have their say on local planning issues, and it would be wrong for them to be able to delay a development at the last minute, through a community right of appeal, when any issues they would raise at that point could have been raised and should have been considered during the earlier planning application process.

Department for Communities and Local Government”

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/177333

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

15 Feb 2017

Posted under

Accountability, Affordable and Social Housing, EDDC, Housing (local), Land Supply, Local Enterprise Partnership, NPPF, Paul Diviani

Comments

1 Comment

“Evidence” for housing need in the post-truth era

As the country quietly celebrates annual economic growth of 2%, it is worth reminding ourselves that our housing and employment land allocations were based upon an expectation of a 3% annual economic growth rate over the entire length of the East Devon Local Plan. This is because Plans must be “evidence-based”.

The problem with East Devon’s various plans is that the evidence was hopelessly optimistic and pre-dated the recession, based on consistent “high growth”. When the recession came along, the powers that be just ignored its implications and carried on with their highly optimistic projections.

So today, Britain’s economy has shown only 8% growth since 2007, when the numbers for our Plan were first formulated. But according to our Plan we should be 34.5% ahead of where we were then.

No wonder that Skypark and the Science Park are windswept desolate areas festooned with tumbleweed, and Sidford is looking like complete economic nonsense.

Even if the incredibly unlikely happens, and we see 3% growth until the end of the plan period, we will never fulfil the assumptions that gave us these huge allocations. And when – not if – we fail to reach those optimistic figures, no doubt the government will fine us by telling us our plans must be MORE optimistic next time – and probably will say we have no five-year land supply, so it will be a developer free-for-all again.

So much for evidenced-based Plans: stick your finger in the air, check which way the wind is blowing, make a complete guess (that favours developers) and stick with it, regardless.

Diviani has “withdrawn” his plan to continue as a DCC councillor to “concentrate on being Leader of EDDC” – and a board member of the Local Enterprise Partnership. Owl wonders where the Leader is leading us – by the nose.

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

7 Feb 2017

Posted under

Affordable and Social Housing, Barratt Homes, Developers/ Development, NPPF, Persimmon, Planning System, Taylor Wimpey

The housing white paper: Guardian nails it!

“Not so long ago, the communities secretary, Sajid Javid, sounded like the scourge of the big housebuilders as he complained that current rates of housebuilding were “not good enough”. His white paper on housing upgraded the rhetoric to describe the market as “broken” but it would be hard to conclude the fix-it plan will make life uncomfortable for the likes of Barratt, Persimmon and Taylor Wimpey.

The stick that Javid has chosen to beat the big boys looks more like a twig. Developers will be forced to build on land within two years of gaining planning permission. That is a reduction from the current cut-off of three years but, given that most developers tell us they start building almost as soon they receive permission, the switch may be barely noticed.

At a push, one might say government assistance for small housebuilders could inject more competition. But, if the sight of profit margins at 20%-plus across the sector hasn’t brought forth a rush of new rivals, the problem may go deeper than a lack of official encouragement for the smaller brigades.

Javid’s greater focus seems to be funding more “affordable” homes, to be delivered chiefly by housing associations and local authorities. Since the big boys tend to be uninterested in the affordable end, they’ll be happy to let others get on with the job. Share prices across the sector rose gently, and one can understand why. The big boys can continue building at their current steady rate and their special dividends can keep flowing.”

https://www.theguardian.com/business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2017/feb/07/housing-white-paper-builders-sajid-javid

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

19 Jan 2017

Posted under

Accountability, Affordable and Social Housing, Consultation, Democracy, EDDC, Greater Exeter, Local Enterprise Partnership, Local Plan, Neighbourhood Plans, NPPF, Planning System, Sustainability, Transparency

Comments

1 Comment

Greater Exeter: only 5 EDDC councillors get decision-making powers -and its another forum!

“A joint informal advisory reference forum is set up consisting of 5 councillors each from Devon, East Devon, Exeter, Mid Devon and Teignbridge to consider and make comments on draft plan proposals before they are formally considered by each council.”

AND it links seamlessly into Local Enterprise Partnership plans … none of which have been put out for public consultation:

“Role of the joint plan and relationship with other plans

o Setting out the overall scope of the plan and how it can support other related strategies such as the Local Enterprise Partnership’s policies and the results of the devolution discussions. How it relates to the existing and proposed new local plans prepared by each council and with Neighbourhood Plans. Duty to cooperate discussions.”

AND it is all-encompassing:

‘Plan Strategy
o Description of the overall strategy which best meets vision and the challenges facing the area. Covering the big ticket themes of where and how many homes and jobs are needed, how key environmental assets will be protected and enhanced and the need for new and improved infrastructure.

Strategic Settlements and area strategy and functions

o The implications of the vision and strategy for each of the main settlements and the
plan area as a whole. Setting out the key planning functions and role of these.  Strategic Development Proposals
o The strategic development sites allocated in this plan to meet the strategy and other area’s needs. Implications for the remaining district/city level local plans’ allocations.

Strategic Policies

o Homes – setting the strategic targets for the objectively assessed need for housing,
and considering the need for specific types of housing (including affordable, student,
custom build and accessible homes).
o Economy – considering forecast economic performance and how the plan can
guide/improve. This is likely to include consideration of particular economic sectors (and in particular the evolving role of the knowledge economy and innovation), the protection of key economic assets across the whole plan area.
o City and Town Centres – giving the overall approach to the need and best locations for retail, leisure and other “main town centre uses” taking account of the existing “hierarchy” of town and city centres in the area.
o Environment – policies concerning issues including climate change, air quality, flooding, protection of European sites, other strategic landscape and biodiversity matters and heritage protection.
o Community infrastructure – policies and proposals for the provision of community facilities and infrastructure, including information, smart systems and broadband.
o Quality of development – improving the design of new development, including consideration of density and space standards.
 Implementation, delivery and monitoring – proposals to ensure that policies and proposals happen on the ground and how their success will be measured.”

AND ordinary councillors (including Tories) will be frozen out of decision-making:

“It is recognised that it might be difficult for the wider council membership to input into a joint plan through the normal committee/council channels.

It is therefore proposed that member input is provided for in two additional ways.

Firstly, it is proposed that a joint informal advisory reference forum is set up, consisting of 5 councillors from each of the five authorities (total 25 members). There would be an expectation that the councillors from each authority would be politically balanced. This joint forum would consider plan drafts and comment upon them before they are finalised and presented to the meetings of the individual councils. Secondly, officers will run member briefings before each formal committee cycle to allow all councillors to review and comment upon draft plan contents and proposals. This would help to ensure that councillors’ views can be considered before proposals are finalised.

Members should note that there is a separate proposal to set up a Greater Exeter Growth and Development Board as a formal joint committee to consider economic and other related matters across the area. This has been agreed in principle by Exeter and Teignbridge and will be considered by East Devon and Mid Devon (note that Devon County have confirmed their wish not to be involved in such a joint committee at this stage, although this does not undermine their commitment to the GESP). It is envisaged that the member steering group referred to above would have a role reporting on plan progress and strategy to the joint committee. This does not affect the recommendation referred to above to prepare the GESP under Section 28.”

Click to access 170117-combined-strategic-planning-agenda-compressed.pdf

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

19 Dec 2016

Posted under

Affordable and Social Housing, Developers/ Development, NPPF, Planning System

Government ready to increase housing numbers above and over current Local Plans

“Theresa May and senior Cabinet ministers face a backlash from constituents after Government planning experts recommended increasing of up to 25 per cent in housing forecasts in the Home Counties.

The original forecasts were published by a Government panel which wants to cut the amount of time it takes for councils to publish local plans which set out where building can take place.

The news comes ahead of a major push, which could include relaxing building restrictions, by the Government in the new year to encourage more homes to be built.

Campaigners warned that the new year assault on housing will create “battles across England” because of the ambition of the targets.

Analysis of the forecasts by countryside campaigners found that voters in the Maidenhead constituency of Mrs May, the Prime Minister, will have to increase their plans for new housing by 15 per cent.

In the Runnymede area represented by the Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond, local residents will have to prepare to accept a 20 per cent increase on top of existing forecasts.

In Tunbridge Wells, which is represented by the Business secretary Greg Clark, there could have to be another 22 per cent of new homes.

The Campaign to Protect Rural England which carried out the research said: “Considerably higher targets would necessitate the finding of even more sites, incur the loss of even more countryside, and make already-controversial local plans even more controversial.”

The CPRE warned that local residents could fight the plans if they threatened the countryside.

Shaun Spiers, the CPRE’s chief executive, said: “Communities are increasingly willing to support housebuilding, but nothing is more toxic or calculated to cause battles over planning than excessively high housing targets.

“These force councils to release green fields and Green Belt for development and we all know what happens next.

“Developers cherry pick the most profitable rural sites, encourage sprawl and neglect brownfield land.”

Mr Spiers said that the Government should “think again and come up with a sensible, realistic way of calculating housing which everyone can get behind.

“If they choose instead to ratchet up the housing targets still further, there will be battles over housing across England – lots of strife, little delivery. That would be a huge shame.”

Councils are duty bound to publish five year housing plans in local development plans but only two thirds of local authorities in England have done so.

Last year ministers raised the prospect forcing councils which have not set up local plans to accept housing quotas.

The Local Plans Expert Group, which developed the new targets, was commissioned by Government to investigate reforms to local planning.

In March last year the group made a number of recommendations designed to increase the amount of land allocated for housebuilding in Local Plans.

One such recommendation was to increase the level of housing need identified in Objective Assessments of Need by including a ‘market signals’ uplift.

Academics who examined the plans estimated that the method would produce an extra 312,000 new homes a year, 90,000 more than the Government’s projections in 2012.

The Government’s response to the group’s report is expected to be included in the Housing White Paper next month.

The group was criticised when it was first set up in September 2015 because it comprised a number of developers, lawyers and planning experts.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/18/nimby-backlash-fear-cabinet-ministers-ahead-major-new-year-assault/

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

15 Nov 2016

Posted under

AONB, Clinton Devon Estates, Developers/ Development, EDDC, Newton Poppleford, NPPF, Planning System, Rural communities

Comments

3 Comments

Clinton Devon Estates wants to make it easier to build in AONB

A landowner is using its drawn-out application to build 40 homes and a doctors’ surgery in Newton Poppleford as a case study to lobby for changes to planning rules.

Clinton Devon Estates (CDE) was awarded outline permission to develop a field south of King Alfred Way in 2012, but its detailed, reserved-matters, plans have failed to win over decision-makers.

It initially expected that construction would have finished by the end of February 2017, but now it is unlikely before 2019.

CDE is appealing the refusal – but is also calling for it to be made easier to develop in Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs), harsher sanctions for ‘poor’ decisions, and for the potential for legal challenges to be reduced.

East Devon District Council (EDDC) has told CDE that the 16 ‘affordable’ houses should be ‘pepper-potted’ throughout the King Alfred Way development, as this is a policy in its Local Plan.

The landowner, now in a joint venture with developers Cavanna Homes and Pencleave 2, has also faced opposition from residents, who voiced fears about flooding and that the doctors’ surgery would not be delivered.

A CDE spokesperson said the report is an early draft of a case study that was submitted in its final form to the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) in May. It was also copied – for information only – to EDDC and a Cabinet Office representative.

The spokesperson said: “It is interesting to note that since the paper was submitted to RICS six months ago, the planning application is no closer to determination. A series of legal arguments and appeals have stalled the progress and a hearing date has still not been set for the latest appeal.

“It is disappointing that, five years after a housing needs survey in Newton Poppleford identified the pressing need for 18 affordable new homes in the community, that they are no closer to being delivered.

“Even if the appeal is heard early in 2017 and the development is given the go-ahead, it is unlikely that the first homes and the surgery will be available before 2019.”

http://www.sidmouthherald.co.uk/news/devon_landowner_lobbies_for_planning_rule_changes_1_4770875

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

29 Sep 2016

Posted under

AONB, National Planning Policy Framework, NPPF, Planning System

New case law on density in AONBs

“RCJ portrait 146x219The Court of Appeal has handed down a significant decision on the standard of reasons required when granting planning permission. Caroline Daly explains the ruling.

The case of R (CPRE Kent) v. Dover District Council [2016] EWCA Civ 936 concerned the grant of planning permission for what Laws LJ described as development of an “unprecedented” scale (521 residential units, 90 apartment retirement village and hotel) in the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty at Farthingloe, close to Dover.

The Officer’s Report had recommended refusal of the scheme, making “trenchant criticisms” of the density, layout and design of the scheme. However, the Council’s Planning Team, having taken advice from a consultancy to the effect that a lower density scheme of some 375 dwellings would have a lesser effect on the AONB and continue to be viable, suggested in the Report that a revised proposal be put forward for consideration. The developer argued before the Planning Committee that a reduced density scheme would not be viable.

The Planning Committee approved the application. The reasons given for departing from the recommendation were summarized in brief terms in the Committee Minutes, which referred to the benefits of the scheme, a view that an alternative lower density scheme could jeopardise its viability, and the belief that effective screening could minimize the harm caused to the AONB. The Committee concluded that the advantages did outweigh the harm that would be caused to the AONB.

Laws and Simon LJJ allowed the appeal against Mitting J’s decision ([2015] EWHC 3808 (Admin)) on the basis that the Council’s Planning Committee had failed to give legally adequate reasons for granting permission.

The Court of Appeal summarised the applicable law in relation to the standard of reasons, setting out Lord Brown’s “mainstream” approach in South Bucks v Porter (No 2) [2004] 1 WLR 1953, given in the context of an Inspector’s decision on appeal.

The “mainstream” approach is that the reasons for a decision must enable the reader to understand why the matter was decided as it was and what conclusions were reached on the principal important controversial issues, that reasons need refer only to the main issues in the dispute and not to every material consideration, and that the reasons can be briefly stated, with the “degree of particularity required depending entirely on the nature of the issues falling for decision”.

Laws LJ referred to Lang J’s recent judgment in R (Hawksworth Securities PLC) v Peterborough City Council [2016] EWHC 1870 (Admin), in which she made a distinction between Inspectors’ decisions on appeal and the administrative decisions of local planning authorities. Lang J was of the view that where a local planning authority was granting planning permission, it would be unduly onerous to impose a duty to give detailed reasons “given the volume of applications to be processed”.

The Court considered that Lang J’s approach needed to be “treated with some care” and that “interested parties (and the public) are just as entitled to know why the decision is as it is when it is made by the authority as when it is made by the Secretary of State”. Laws LJ considered that three factors pointed away from Lang J’s approach in this case, namely:

The pressing nature of the AONB policy expressed in NPPF paragraphs 115 and 116;

The fact that the Committee was departing from the Officer’s recommendation, which meant that the Officer’s reasoning ought (if but briefly) to be engaged with; and

The fact that there was a statutory duty to give reasons by virtue of Regulation 24(1)(c)(ii) and (iii) of the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2011, which had not been fulfilled by any document.

On the facts, the Court found that the reasons given were inadequate, particularly in relation to the treatment of the Officer’s assessment of the harm that would be inflicted on the AONB by the proposed development.

Laws LJ found that “a statutory statement of reasons made under the EIA Regulations would have been required to grapple with the issue of harm much more closely than what the minutes disclose; and the strictures of NPPF paragraph 116 demand no less.”

The Court of Appeal made it clear that this judgment is not to be seen as anything other than an application of Lord Brown’s statement to the effect that the degree of particularity required of reasons will depend on the circumstances of the case.

Laws LJ emphasised that this was an “unusual” case and said that the judgment should “not be read as imposing in general an onerous duty on local planning authorities to give reasons for the grant of permissions”.

The judgment does not throw open the doors to a stream of challenges based on reasons grounds. However, the Court of Appeal has sounded a cautionary note. From this decision, it is apparent that an extremely cautious approach will be required by a planning committee that chooses to depart from its officers’ recommendations.

In such circumstances, the reasons given for the grant of permission must be carefully drafted and must engage with the recommendations of the officer and explain the reasons for departure from those recommendations.”

http://localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=28416%3Aa-cautionary-note-on-reasons&catid=63&Itemid=31

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