Month: October 2022

Clangers: Does An LPA Owe A Duty Of Care To An Applicant For Planning Permission?

Many a frustrated participant in the planning system has asked from time to time: is there any financial redress for mistreatment allegedly received at the hands of a local planning authority? (To be fair, sometimes a frustrated local planning authority may indeed also wonder what redress it has against mistreatment received at the hands of applicants or objectors).

Beyond the possibility of an award of costs on appeal (inadequate in that it will only cover professional costs in relation to the appeal stage rather than application stage, although still sometimes high, viz the figure of £2.1m reportedly agreed this week by Uttlesford District Council to be payable to Stansted Airport) or the possibility of obtaining a voluntary payment of compensation by way of a ruling by the Local Government Ombudsman, in what circumstances might the authority be sued in negligence?

The negligence route has now, expensively, been tested in Primavera Associates Limited v Hertsmere Borough Council (Leech J, 25 October 2022). Four days in what used to be known as the Chancery Division of the High Court, with various expert witnesses on both sides. It’s a horror story of a situation – what should have been a small and straightforward development project in Radlett, Hertfordshire promoted by Shandler Homes on behalf of Primavera Associates Limited. As is often the case in these situations, in the cold light of day neither party, neither applicant not local planning authority, could be said to have been entirely blameless.

As described from paragraph 36 onwards of the judgment, planning permission was granted on 3 September 2012 for the demolition of a house and the erection of seven self-contained apartments, following an application submitted on 13 January 2012. The planning permission was then challenged by the owner of the neighbouring property who had previously sought to redevelop it together with the Shandler Homes property and the council consented to judgment on the basis that a planning condition referred to a plan showing an incorrectly drawn visibility splay.

The application was then redetermined, with the council resisting submissions from the objector’s solicitors (supported by an opinion by Rupert Warren KC) that the application should now be assessed against the current development plan. Oh dear, another judicial review ensued and again the council consented to judgment.

A fresh application for permission was then submitted on 2 April 2014, for a very similar scheme. Delays ensued whilst financial viability appraisal work was undertaken to check whether the applicant’s proposed commuted sum towards affordable housing was sufficient.

By 14 November 2014 Shandler Homes and Primavera were threatening to bring proceedings in negligence against the council. Delays continued (I’m at paragraph 85 now – it really is a sorry tale) and by 14 October 2015 another letter was sent threatening proceedings in negligence. During this period CIL liability increased and then the council started to insist upon a clawback mechanism to secure 60% of any surplus that arose on a subsequent viability review to be carried out.

The application was resolved to be approved on 21 April 2016 and following fractious negotiations over the section 106 agreement, planning permission was issued on 28 September 2016.

A third application for planning permission was submitted on 30 September 2016, increasing the number of flats proposed from seven to ten, which was approved on 15 March 2017.

Primera sued Hertsmere Council for around £1.7m, which it claimed to be the losses suffered due to what it considered to be negligent conduct on the part of the council.

To turn briefly to the law. As I’m sure you know, in order to succeed in a claim in negligence it is necessary for the following factors to have been established:

  • The defendant owed a duty to the claimant

  • The defendant breached the duty owed to the claimant

  • The defendant’s breach of duty caused the claimant to suffer loss
  • The loss caused by the defendant’s breach of duty is recoverable

Duty of care

From paragraph 179 Leech J sets out the case law in detail as to when a duty of care arises, and does not arise. This includes, at paragraphs 203 to 215, the case law in relation to planning matters.

His findings start at paragraph 221. First of all no duty of care arose as a result of the statutory nature of the functions being undertaken by the council. The council did not give “any assurance to Shandler Homes that it would decide either application in a particular way or within a particular time. In either case, the remedy was to appeal.” The fact that an application fee was paid did not change the analysis, or indeed lead to a contractual relationship between the parties. In any event, any duty of care would not have stretched beyond Shandler Homes to Primavera and other entities related to the promotion of the development. No could any assumption of liability be inferred from the manner in which the council had behaved towards Primavera:

“(1) I have found that the Council’s officers and the Committee’s members did not give any commercial or legal advice to Primavera or to Fusion (on its behalf) upon which Primavera (or Fusion) relied in relation to the First Application either when it was originally submitted or when it was submitted in a revised form.

(2) I have also found that Mr Down took a calculated decision not to appeal against the non-determination of the Second Application in the knowledge that the position was uncertain and changing. I am satisfied that Primavera chose to take the risk of any delay or flaw in the statutory process rather than to appeal.

(3) But even if (contrary to my finding of fact) Mr Down did not consider an appeal to be a realistic option because Mr Taylor and he did not know what they would have been appealing against, I have also held this belief was an unreasonable one and not induced by any representation or assurance made by the Council.

(4) I have found that in the period between 13 April 2013 and 27 September 2016 the Council did not assume responsibility for the progress and determination of the Second Application within a specific time frame or within a time which Mr Taylor or Mr Down considered reasonable. I have also found that Fusion and Primavera adopted a confrontational and heavy-handed approach. In my judgment, Mr Taylor’s complaints and the Letters of Claim which Lawrence Stephens sent to the Council negated any reliance by Primavera upon the competence or efficiency of the Council.”

He concludes that the claim fails because the council did not owe any duty of care to Primavera to exercise reasonable care in processing and determining the applications.

However, he goes on in any event to consider the further issues: breach of duty, causation and assessment of damages (if his finding on duty of care were to be overturned on appeal).

Breach of duty:

“If the Council owed a duty of care (contrary to my finding above), then I find that it committed a breach of that duty and failed to exercise reasonable skill and care by determining the revised First Application by reference to the planning policy at the date on which the First Application was submitted and not by reference to the emerging planning policy at the date of the Second Decision. For the avoidance of any doubt, I add that I do not find that the Council failed to exercise reasonable care in relation to any other aspect of the First Application or the First and Second Decisions.”

“If the Council owed a duty of care (contrary to my finding above), then … I also find that the Council was negligent and responsible for a six-month delay in the progress of the Second Application between January and July 2015. I dismiss all of the other allegations of negligence and lack of reasonable care against the Council.”

Causation:

“I also find on a balance of probabilities that if the Council had acted with reasonable care throughout the period between the submission of the Second Application on 2 April 2014 and 27 September 2016 when the Second S106 Agreement took effect, it would have taken six months less to progress and determine the Second Application and the Council would have issued the Third Decision by 21 October 2015. However, I would also have found that the conduct of Shandler Homes broke the chain of causation because (as I have found) Mr Down took a calculated decision not to appeal against the non-determination of the Second Application at any time between 3 June 2014 and 3 December 2014 (or to negotiate an extension of time for an appeal).”

Assessment of damages:

“If I had found that the Council owed such a duty of care, I would also have found that the Council had committed two breaches of duty and that if it had not committed the first of those breaches of duty, it would have granted planning permission for the Second Application on 28 January 2014. I would, however, have dismissed all of the heads of loss claimed by Primavera apart from the claim relating to the Affordable Housing Contribution and the Additional Housing Contribution. Primavera adduced no evidence to prove these losses at trial and even this is wrong I would not have awarded any more than £134,724.80 in damages.”

Concluding thoughts

The case certainly brings with it some salutary lessons – about trying to avoid the sort of breakdown of trust between the parties which led to so many flashpoints and mistakes on both sides. The applicant’s team, seeing life from its perspective, increasingly concerned about the cost, expense and uncertainties arising from what should have been a straightforward planning application process, was no doubt furious at the clangers on the part of the council’s officers and the timescales to which they were working. It’s easy to say perhaps from a distance, but a more consensual approach, providing good objective advice for the benefit of all parties where necessary, might have been more fruitful for the applicant than resorting to what the judge described as a “confrontational and heavy-handed approach”. And litigation, ultimately, was not the answer.

In other news, has Elon Musk found any Clangers on Mars yet? Plenty of surprises left for the rest of 2022 I’m sure.

Simon Ricketts, 29 October 2022

Personal views, et cetera

LURB/Forever Changes

May you live in interesting times.

Resignation of Rishi Sunak as chancellor – 5 July 2022

Resignation of Boris Johnson as prime minister – 7 July 2022

Replacement of Boris Johnson by Liz Truss as prime minister – 6 September 2022

Death of Her Majesty – 8 September 2022

Mini-budget and publication of growth plan – 23 September 2022 

Resignation of Liz Truss as prime minister – 20 October 2022

Replacement of Liz Truss by Rishi Sunak, Boris Johnson or AN Other as prime minister – October 2022

A lot has happened. Or perhaps, in our planning world, nothing has happened. 

We briefly had a prime minister who talked of abolishing “top-down, Whitehall-inspired Stalinist housing targets” and indeed the Levelling Up Secretary of State Simon Clarke (who incidentally came out publicly today as a backer of Boris Johnson) spoke about those targets as if they had already been abolished. But of course, as we wait for the mythical NPPF changes prospectus (delayed to November even before the Truss resignation which could lead to further delay), formal policy remains as is. The only effect of the loose talk was to give cover to local authorities anxious for an excuse to pause their local plan making. Thanks Liz – it wasn’t just the markets that you spooked. 

No doubt the change is on its way regardless but, honestly, how idiotic it would be to give up on having a methodology that identifies each local planning authority’s local housing needs, for which they should usually plan. The likely consequences of removing the targets are clear:

  • longer plan-making processes, particularly the examination stage
  • fewer homes delivered
  • more planning by appeal
  • plan-making increasingly largely driven by promises of funding to be provided and threats of funding to be removed. We can try to forget about that “pork markets” Truss quote but I suggest you retain at hand a much older phrase: “pork barrel politics”.

Zack Simons of course hit the mark in his 11 August 2022 blog post Notes from the hustings: the end of “Stalinist housing targets”? as did Lichfields’ Matthew Spry in his 12 October 2022 magnum opus Standard Method Mortuus Est). 

And what is wrong with top down targets anyway? Our health and education systems for instance are full of the things. 

Away from housing, the announcements in the growth plan in relation to, for instance, fracking (pro – despite the planning minister Lee Rowley being strongly against) and solar energy (anti) have not get found their way into any formal policy changes. 

There was the reference to a proposed Planning and Infrastructure Bill in the growth plan but no skin on the bones of that and no indication either of its relationship to the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, which on 20 October 2022 finally completed its Public Bill Stage with publication of a new version of the Bill as amended in Public Bill Committee. A 134 page list of committee stage decisions on proposed amendments was published on the same day. 

Now Nicola Gooch definitely deserves some sort of award (a Damehood in one of those resignation honours lists perhaps) for delving into the amended Bill in her 21 October 2022 blog post All that’s left is LURB…. The Levelling Up & Regeneration Bill comes out of Committee  and above all for this comparison version showing the changes made. 

I have scrolled through the amended Bill and aside from the detailed changes to schedule 11 (which relates to the infrastructure levy) mentioned by Nicola, and other minor tweaks, I would only draw attention to the following new provisions:

  • clause 111 – power to shorten the deadline for examination of DCO applications
  • clause 112 – additional powers in relation to non-material changes to DCOs
  • clause 152 – prospects of planning permission for alternative development [in the context of CPO compensation]

Next up will be Report stage and a debate on the Third Reading of the Bill and we shall see if any further amendments are tabled by the Secretary of State, whoever he or she may be at that stage. 

Simon Ricketts, 22 October 2022

Personal views, et cetera

Courtesy Best Classic Bands

CPO No

The political soap opera this weekend, plus another fabulous sunny Autumn morning – versus writing a blog post about compulsory purchase? Time to use that thinking face emoji.

The inspector’s decision dated 4 October 2022 to decline to confirm the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Council (Vicarage Field and surrounding land) Compulsory Purchase Order 2021 certainly brings with it some lessons, or at least reminders, for those promoting compulsory purchase orders in association with public/private sector regeneration projects.

Here are the inspector’s conclusions in full:

“368. The scheme underpinning the CPO is wholly in accordance with the development plan and has the benefit of outline planning permission. There is an extremely compelling case in the public interest for the development, in meeting economic, environmental and social needs. This would considerably outweigh the heritage harm and loss of existing jobs.

369. The shopping centre and town centre overall needs redevelopment, it is the lowest ranking Borough in London for poverty, and this scheme is the catalyst that would spark further regeneration. There are also no realistic alternative proposals that would achieve the purpose for which the AA is proposing to acquire the land.

370. I am completely aware that failure to confirm the CPO would have an adverse consequence of losing the opportunity to comprehensively redevelop the site at this time. The Council has staked its reputation on the delivery of the scheme and its delivery is critical to achieve its ambitions.

371. I fully recognise much of the potential financial viability of the scheme is reliant upon the scheme itself and it is a complete ‘catch 22’ situation. The developer is confident the Scheme will be delivered. The funding intentions are clear, and I have no doubt that the developer has access to funds.

372. Nevertheless, there is fundamental lack of tangible and substantive evidence on viability. Given the gravity of the 2016 appraisal, and the lack of an updated appraisal, I cannot be certain that the scheme is financially viable despite all assurances from the AA. Other methods to present the evidence confidentially could have been explored and, if the scheme was viable, I do not understand why this evidence was not presented. Whilst the AA claims viability evidence from objectors has not been presented, it is for the AA to demonstrate substantive information as to the financially viability of the scheme. It has not done so in a way that convinces me.

373. Consequently, because I cannot conclude that the scheme is financially viable, I cannot be confident that there is a reasonable prospect that the scheme will proceed at this time, or that the necessary resources are likely to be made available within a reasonable time scale. This is because there is an expectation of return, and no developer or investor would pursue a scheme that is not economically viable or feasible. This is even if it has access to funds, sees a long term vision, or pools funds so that one scheme may perform better than another. The legal agreements also provide me with little comfort of delivery, despite the depreciating value of the lease.

374. This makes it difficult to show conclusively that the compulsory acquisition of the land included in the order is justified in the public interest at this time, as detailed by CPO Guidance.

375. Added to this are my concerns that inadequate negotiations have taken place, when considering the CPO Guidance. It could not be said that delays have been keep to a minimum. The lag from Cabinet approving the making of the CPO to making the CPO was 3 years. There has been a significant delay in the submission of reserved matters applications, and the outline permission expires in April 2023.

376. The efforts to acquire the CPO lands by private treaty have also been largely ineffective. Claims are made by objectors that the financial offers have not been market value, and it is the shopping centre that has failed, not the surrounding businesses on Ripple Road and Station Parade. There have also been limited efforts to relocate those affected by the CPO to date. A ‘not before’ date has been absent and this has resulted in those subjected to the CPO unable to fulfil business plans, living in limbo for a long period of time. Full information was also not provided at the outset and there was no clearly specified case manager.

377. Consequently, whilst I acknowledge the pressing need for redevelopment and the extremely compelling case for the CPO, for the above reasons, I cannot confirm that the compulsory acquisition of the land included in this Order is proportionate or justified in the public interest.

378. Thus, the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Council (Vicarage Field and surrounding land Compulsory Purchase Order) 2021 is not confirmed.”

I recommend that you read my partner Raj Gupta’s 10 October 2022 blog post The Vicarage Field CPO and viability and that you subscribe to his forthcoming posts which will cover:

  • the Inspector’s criticisms of the promoter’s engagement with occupiers and the deficiencies of its relocation strategy.
  • other points made by the Inspector including in relation to planning, publicity and timing matters with some bonus musings on whether the CPO reforms proposed by LURB (e.g. conditional confirmation) would have made any difference to the outcome.

The decision is no doubt frustrating to all those who worked so hard, with the best of objectives – whilst no doubt equivalently a huge relief for those organisations, businesses and individuals whose land interests, activities and livelihoods were at stake.

 Michael Walton posted these words on LinkedIn:

“The proposed regeneration of Vicarage Field shopping centre in Barking adds enormous value to the transformative vision for the borough.

As Head of Regeneration Strategy at Be First I advised on initiatives which helped accelerate growth in Barking & Dagenham. Oversight of Vicarage Field was led by another division, and I moved on from Be First prior to the public inquiry into the CPO being held this year.

The decision made recently by the Inspector to not confirm the CPO is disappointing. Prior to it being made, I highlighted similar issues around deliverability. However, the Inspector also placed a high bar on negotiations with affected parties when reaching her decision.

Nonetheless, this should not deter local authorities from seeking CPO powers as part of their regeneration plans – it merely reinforces the need to de-risk projects and put forward a compelling case.”

Agreed. In fact, I suspect that the decision will prove helpful to promoters of future CPOs, in underlining for them what has to be in place, however difficult it may be in current uncertain circumstances, in order for a CPO to be confirmed.

Now to check whether the sun is still shining – and whether we still have a Prime Minister.

Simon Ricketts, 15 October 2022

Personal views , et cetera

IZs: Some Handy Existing Legislation?

I know we all lose bits of legislation down the sofa. 

The Government’s 24 September 2022 guidance on investment zones in England said this:

“The government will look to introduce primary legislation in order to enable the offer on tax and simplified regulations. The final offer will be subject to the passage of that legislation through parliament.”

There really isn’t much clarity as to the nature and extent of any primary legislation that will in fact be required to deliver the regimes envisaged for each investment zone (potentially bespoke for that investment zone). When you add this to the wider confusion as to the relationship of the proposed Planning and Infrastructure Bill with the current Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill (with much of what was trailed for the former either already within the latter – eg environmental law reform – or shortly to be added by way of amendments.- eg amendments to NSIP processes – or able to be secured by way of secondary legislation), some clarity from Government is urgently needed. 

Turning to the question of what amended planning regimes may be appropriate for some investment zones, people have rightly pointed to the potential use of local development orders, which for example the Government has previously encouraged in relation to enterprise zones and freeports. 

However I’m wondering whether, instead of further primary legislation to set out some unspecified new procedure (which sounds slow and impractical), the Government has considered whether two provisions which are already on the statute book are in fact sufficient: simplified planning zones and planning freedoms schemes. Are ministers even aware of them? I would be interested in people’s experiences with either. 

Simplified Planning Zones were introduced by way of section 82 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 which provides as follows:

“(1) A simplified planning zone is an area in respect of which a simplified planning zone scheme is in force.

(2) The adoption or approval of a simplified planning zone scheme has effect to grant in relation to the zone, or any part of it specified in the scheme, planning permission—

(a) for development specified in the scheme, or

(b) for development of any class so specified.

(3) Planning permission under a simplified planning zone scheme may be unconditional or subject to such conditions, limitations or exceptions as may be specified in the scheme.”

See also the Town and Country Planning (Simplified Planning Zones) Regulations 1992.

This is a good explainer, with examples: How simple are Simplified Planning Zones? (Local Government Lawyer, 4 February 2016) and here is some information about Slough Borough Council’s Slough Trading Estate SPZ.  

Planning freedom schemes were introduced by section 154 of the Housing and Planning Act 2016.

From the explanatory notes to section 154:

“Section 154: Planning freedoms: right for local areas to request alterations to planning system

441 This section enables the Secretary of State, by regulations, to make planning freedom schemes in England. Planning freedom schemes may only be made following a request from the local planning authority for the relevant area and only if the Secretary of State considers the scheme will lead to additional homes being built.

442 Before bringing forward proposals for a scheme the local planning authority must consult in their local area.

443 Such schemes will operate for a specified period (although subsection (7) includes the power to bring schemes to an end early, for example, where the local planning authority asks the Secretary of State to do so).

444 Planning freedom schemes will apply in relation to a specified planning area which will be the area of a local planning authority or an area comprising two or more adjoining areas of local planning authorities. The Secretary of State may restrict the number of planning freedom schemes in force at any one time.”

Is anyone aware of this, extremely open-ended, power ever having been used? 

Planning legislation is full of these false starts and dead ends. I’m sure there’s plenty more that you can point to. Regardless of any substantive changes, a spring clean of the whole legislative framework is well overdue. Although who knows what we’ll find. 

I hope people enjoyed listening to the clubhouse chat with Hashi Mohamed last week. If you missed it you can listen back here.

Simon Ricketts, 8 October 2022

Personal views, et cetera

Courtesy Kelly Sikkema, Unsplash

Ruler

Or REULRR. Or the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill, introduced into Parliament on 22 September 2022. A Bill which I was only vaguely aware of until Nicola Gooch’s excellent blog post What Truss did on my holidays: It’s much more than ‘just’ the mini budget….  (26 September 2022). 

As Nicola explains:

 “If passed, REULRR will effectively sweep away any and all EU laws that the Government hasn’t actively decided to keep.

It does this by:

  1. Repealing EU derived laws by the end of 2023. The government will be able to extend that deadline to 23 June 2026 (the tenth anniversary of the Brexit referendum) but can’t further extend it.
  2. Repealing the principle of supremacy of EU law by the end of 2023. Currently, any EU decision reached before 1 January 2021 is binding on UK courts unless the government departs from it. However, this bill will subjugate all EU law in favour of UK law by default. 
  3. Repealing directly effective EU law rights and obligations in UK law by the end of 2023; and
  4. Establishing a new priority rule requiring retained direct EU legislation to be interpreted and applied consistently with domestic legislation.”

She discussed this further at our clubhouse Planning Law Unplanned session last week on the Growth Plan, which Sam Stafford has now trimmed neatly into a 50 Shades of Planning podcast:

🍎 https://t.co/BaNDFpIlfb

🎧 https://open.spotify.com/episode/0vKryknMBdUBxOdidhTX26

You will remember that the European Union Withdrawal Act 2018 had the effect of retaining, post Brexit, EU-derived domestic legislation such as the regulations in relation to environmental impact assessment, strategic environmental impact and conservation of habitats, leaving it to Parliament in due course to determine the extent to which the legislation should subsequently be repealed or amended. 

As explained in the explanatory notes to the REULRR Bill:

”The REUL [retained EU-derived law] framework established by EUWA, however, was not intended to be maintained indefinitely on the UK statute book and now the Government is in the position to ensure REUL can be revoked, replaced, restated, updated and removed or amended to reduce burdens.”

The Bill now places a firm deadline on that process:

“The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill facilitates the amendment, repeal and replacement of REUL by the end of 2023, and assimilates REUL remaining in force after that date by removing the special EU law features attached to it.”

The end of 2023 deadline can only be extended, to 23 June 2026 “should a lack of parliamentary time, or external factors, hinder progress towards reform of retained EU law prior to the 2023 sunset date.”

Is this of concern?

In short, yes of course. It may be said that the Government is committed to a principle of non-regression from current environmental standards, but given the current political pinball and the lack of relevant ministers with any real experience of the sheer complexity and nuances of what they are dealing with, frankly anything is possible. Campaign groups are certainly on edge: Brexit freedoms bill’ could abolish all pesticide protections, campaigners say (Guardian, 29 September 2022).

To an extent, at a high level, the principle of non-regression is built into the trade and co-operation agreement between the UK and EU which was signed on 30 December 2020 and came into force on 1 May 2021. The UK gave various, at least theoretically, binding commitments in the agreement as to non-regression from environmental levels of protection, which I describe in my 27 December 2020 blog post Brexit & Planning: An Update.

There are also generalised commitments within the Environment Act 2021 (which of course Parliament is always of course at liberty to amend or repeal as it chooses). The Government consulted in May 2022 in relation to its draft environmental principles statement. The statement has not yet been finalised and there is not yet any duty upon ministers to take it into account in their policy making. This may not be until summer 2023 at the earliest! The Office for Environmental Protection (a body established pursuant to the 2021 Act) has criticised the statement for “a relatively limited degree of ambition”. The OEP has similarly criticised as unambitious the Government’s draft environmental targets, also consulted upon pursuant to the 2021 Act. 

As against these inchoate commitments to environmental standards, what is going to give in the face of a Government which, according to its Growth Plan, will be “disapplying legacy EU red tape where appropriate” in the investment zones it is proposing, and which proposes a Planning and Infrastructure Bill which will be:

  • “reducing the burden of environmental assessments
  • reducing bureaucracy in the consultation process
  • reforming habitats and species regulations”?

Genuine improvements to the processes are certainly possible. But do we trust the Government to strike an appropriate balance, hurtling towards a self-imposed December 2023 deadline and (at the latest) 2024 general election? In the coming year, most of our environmental legislation, and planning legislation to the extent that it is intertwined, will need to be reviewed, line by line, and, given that most of it is in the form of secondary legislation (and the sheer lack of time – after all the REULRR Bill covers all EU derived legislation!), there will be relatively limited Parliamentary scrutiny of that process. Even with the best of intentions, how is this timescale even going to be possible if we are to avoid a complete bodge-up? We have been treading (often polluted) water for so long and we still have no sense whatsoever of what the long trumpeted “outcomes focused” approach will look like in practice – eg see my 2 April 2022 blog post Is the Nature Recovery Green Paper The Answer? (& If So What Was The Question?)

On a slightly different, although possibly related, note….

At 6 pm on Wednesday 5 October 2022 we will be having a discussion on Clubhouse with barrister Hashi Mohamed, around the themes of his FT article The housing crisis sits at the centre of Britain’s ills (1 October 2022, behind paywall) and his recent book A home of one’s own, a trenchant and personal look at the politics of planning and housing.

Join via this link. If you use the link to RSVP in advance (you don’t have to) you’ll get a reminder when we start – and we can get a feel for likely numbers. 

What is needed to calm the nerves all round – on planning, on housing, on environmental protection – is detail. When are we going to get it? HM Treasury announced on 26 September 2022:

“Cabinet Ministers will announce further supply side growth measures in October and early November, including changes to the planning system, business regulations, childcare, immigration, agricultural productivity, and digital infrastructure.”

Always just another month or so to wait, every time.

Simon Ricketts, 1 October 2022

Personal views, et cetera

Image courtesy of Estay Lim via Unsplash