Category: Waste

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leaving it to Parliament in due course to determine the extent to which the legislation should subsequently be repealed or amended.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

More On That Natural England Advice

This is a follow-on from my snappily titled blog post last week New NE Nutrient Neutrality & Recreational Impact Restrictions (+ DEFRA Nature Recovery Green Paper).

Implications of NE’s updated generic Nutrient Neutrality Methodology and updated catchment calculators referred to on page 4 of its 16 March 2022 letter

The updated methodology and calculators are appended to the letter, which advises that individual authorities consider how to transition to “the new tools and guidance”.

My blog post focused on the implications for areas not previously caught by nutrient neutrality issues but of course the guidance also creates an element of uncertainty for areas already caught, where good progress has been made towards solutions, if calculations need to be amended and given that there can be no certainty as to what transitional period (if any) each authority will allow for.

Examples of progress

A huge amount has gone into developing strategic mitigation solutions, but it is inevitably complicated – involving multiple land interests, commercial arrangements, local authority joint working, robust survey work and ecological analysis. The Solent nutrient market pilot is a great example – see this LinkedIn post by Simon Kennedy last month, strategic environmental planning officer for the Partnership for South Hampshire.

As another example, in Kent, Ashford Borough Council is progressing with a strategic mitigation solution in relation to potential effects on Stodmarsh Lakes, taking a report to cabinet on 31 March 2022.

Let’s hope that the new advice does not slow down progress in relation to these initiatives. Let’s also hope that these pioneers pave the way for a much faster roll out of solutions for the additional areas now caught.

Another dark cloud?

The Natural England advice letter also referenced last year’s High Court ruling, R (Wyatt) v Fareham Borough Council (Jay J, 28 May 2021), which is currently subject to an appeal – which the Court of Appeal will hear in the first week of April 2022. The advice should be regarded as provisional until the outcome of that case. The concern is that the case concerned a challenge to Natural England’s 2020 advice on achieving nutrient neutrality in the Solent region on the basis that the advice, in effect, was not stringent enough – see our Town Library summary of the first instance ruling prepared last year by my colleague Safiyah Islam. The court rejected the challenge but if the Court of Appeal takes a different stance then Natural England may need again to reconsider its methodology.

Reserved matters and pre-commencement conditions

One particularly unfair aspect of the way in which many local planning authorities are applying Natural England’s advice is to assert that if the necessary Conservation of Habitats Regulations assessment work was not done at planning permission stage (which will often not have been the case if the nutrient neutrality issue had not been identified by Natural England at that point) it must now be done at reserved matters stage, in the case of an outline planning permission, or at the stage of discharge of any pre-commencement condition, in the case of a full planning permission.

This of course cuts across the traditional planning law tenet that the planning permission stage is the point at which the principle of the development is determined to be acceptable, with subsequent approvals serving to define the detailed scale and disposition of development within the tramlines of what has been authorised by way of the permission. The authorities’ stance means that planning permission no longer gives any certainty as far as purchasers and funders are concerned and is a real impediment to market certainty and confidence. Who knows what equivalent restrictions lie ahead, after all? Even if your area is not affected at present, this should be of concern.

Local planning authorities appear to base their position on a decision of the High Court (i.e. a first instance ruling, not the Court of Appeal or Supreme Court) in R (Wingfield) v. Canterbury City Council (Lang J, 24 July 2019), but surely the case is capable of being distinguished in at least the following ways:

• The basic facts were different – a claimant was seeking to quash the outline planning permission because the LPA had failed to carry out appropriate assessment in a lawful manner. The developer and LPA had accepted there was a breach but had sought to rectify it by carrying out appropriate assessment at reserved matters stage – which the court agreed remedied the breach. This was not a case where the developer was challenging the ability of the LPA to undertake appropriate assessment at reserved matters stage or indeed to require appropriate assessment at that stage.

• Lang J relied in her reasoning on the Habitats Directive and interpretation of the Directive in rulings of the Court of Justice of the European Union. That was permissible at that time but since 1 January 2021 is no longer how the UK courts are able to approach these issues. The Habitats Regulations are now to be interpreted on their own terms without reference to the Directive. This potentially gives the UK courts the opportunity to ensure that the approach to assessment in relation to the stages of decision making allowed for in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 are consistent with the legislative framework of the 1990 Act – i.e. issues of principle are for outline permission stage, with the outline permission setting the parameters for subsequent more detailed decision making at reserved matters stage and discharge of other conditions – but without the principle of the basic acceptability of the development being able to be re-visited at those later stages.

It should also be noted that regulation 70 of the 2017 Regulations is headed “grant of planning permission” and provides that the “assessment provisions” apply to specified categories of decision. None of these is a decision to grant reserved matters approval, or a decision to discharge a pre-commencement condition.

Is anyone aware of this issue having been tested, on appeal or in litigation post 1 January 2021? Or is everyone being terribly British and waiting patiently for strategic solutions to be found to all of these neutrality issues before their reserved matters and pre-commencement conditions can be signed off? I suspect that some permissions will expire in the meantime. In my view this is not acceptable, or warranted, but am I a voice in the wilderness here?

And lastly

Just to note that there was also a Welsh case on nitrates last week, R (National Farmers Union of England and Wales) v Welsh Ministers (Sir Wyn Williams, 23 March 2022). Welsh farmers are unhappy about the Welsh Government ending, post-Brexit, certain dispensations as to the amount of livestock manure that can be deposited on grassland. The claim, based on an asserted breach of legitimate expectation, as well as lack of rationality, failed.

This coming Tuesday 29 March at 6pm we will be focusing on all of these Natural England neutrality issues: “More Natural England Development Bans – What To Do?” – there is so much to cover with our panellists, who will include Charles Banner QC, Mary Cook, Tim Goodwin (Ecology Solutions) and Peter Home (Paris Smith). Link here.

Simon Ricketts, 26 March 2022

Personal views, et cetera

On Reshuffle Day, In Another Part Of The Forest

“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

Maybe the biggest news this week wasn’t the replacement of Robert Jenrick by Michael Gove as Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government and the consequent likely pause of the still-paused-anyway planning law reforms.

Maybe it was the difficulties which the Government is having with its Environment Bill (original progenitor one M Gove). Aspirations of enactment by the time of November’s COP26 are surely fading fast in the light of a series of defeats for the Government at the report stage of the Bill in the House of Lords. On Monday (13 September 2021) it was already being reported in a Green Alliance blog post, on the back of a Daily Telegraph story, that the Government was reluctant to accept the amendments which had been passed which could ultimately lead to the Bill entering into a period of ping pong (less fun than it sounds) between the Lords and Commons.

The amendments at that stage were reported in this piece: Environment Bill: The 10 government defeats in the Lords (ENDS Report, 14 September 2021). They include:

– making interim targets for nature, air, water and waste legally binding;

– requiring the Government to make a formal declaration of a biodiversity and climate emergency;

– a more ambitious approach to targets in air pollution;

– making soil health a priority;

– removing exemptions for the Treasury and Ministry of Defence from taking into account environmental principles in policy making.

However, on the day of the reshuffle, 15 September 2021 the Lords continued its scrutiny of the Bill and inflicted a further four defeats by way of voting for amendments which in various ways seek to introduce greater environmental protections. Two of the issues are intertwined with matters to do with planning and development and I thought I would give them a bit of airtime – after all, these days can you be a planning lawyer without being an environmental lawyer? And surely DEFRA and MHCLG are going to have to work with each other in ever closer ways.

Habitats Regulations: limits on powers to amend

Baroness Young, chair of the Woodland Trust and former chief executive of the Environment Agency, moved an amendment to ensure “that powers to amend the Habitats Regulations may only be used for the purposes of environmental improvement following consultation. It ensures that the level of environmental protection that must be maintained includes protection for important habitats, sites and species as well as overall environmental protection”

It was passed 201 to 186.

The amendment provides that the Secretary of State may only amend the regulations

“for the purposes of—

(a) securing compliance with an international environmental obligation, or

(b) contributing to the favourable conservation status of species or habitats or the favourable condition of protected sites;

(c) if the regulations do not reduce the level of protection provided by the Habitats Regulations, including protection for protected species, habitats or sites; and

(i) following public consultation and consultation with—

(ii) the Office for Environmental Protection,

(iii) Natural England,

(iv) the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, and

(v) other relevant expert bodies.”

Duty to implement an enhanced protection standard for ancient woodland in England

Baroness Young moved an amendment “intended to address the more than 800 ancient woodlands in England that are currently threatened by development. As a large number of these threats result from indirect effects of development next to ancient woodland, these changes will improve the weight afforded to protecting these irreplaceable habitats in planning policy.”

It was passed 193 to 189.

The amendment introduces the following additional clause into the Bill:

(1) The Government must implement an enhanced protection standard for ancient woodland, hereafter referred to as the “ancient woodland standard” in England as set out in subsections (2), (3) and (4) and this must have immediate effect.

(2) The ancient woodland standard must set out the steps necessary to prevent further loss of ancient woodland in England.

(3) The ancient woodland standard commits the Government to adopting a Standard of protection which must be a requirement for all companies, persons or organisations involved in developments affecting ancient woodlands in England.

(4) This standard must be that—

(a) any development that causes direct loss to ancient woodland or ancient woodland and ancient and veteran trees must be refused unless there are wholly exceptional reasons and, in addition, a suitable compensation strategy must be in place prior to development commencing,

(b) any development adjacent to ancient woodland must incorporate a minimum 50-metre buffer to provide protection, reduce indirect damage and provide space for natural regeneration,

(c) any ancient or veteran trees must be retained within a development site, including a root protection area and appropriate buffer zone.

(5) This buffer zone must be whichever is greater of—

(a) an area which is a radius of 15 times the diameter of the tree with no cap, or

(b) 5 metres beyond the crown.”

The debate is here and Parliament’s summary of the House of Lords report stage is here.

(Incidentally, Ruth Keating (39 Essex Chambers) gave a very clear summary of the Environment Bill at today’s (virtual) Joint Planning Law Conference. Watch out for the paper in due course.)

As a further indication of how environmental matters are going to take centre stage in coming months, Duncan Field brought to my attention yesterday that Lord Frost made a statement to the House of Lords (16 September 2021) as to the Government’s approach in relation to various areas of retained EU law. A supporting paper, Brexit opportunities: regulatory reforms contains references which may be of interest to those in the planning and environmental areas:

“Environmental Licencing [sic] and Permitting – Defra is continuing to rationalise the existing Environmental licensing and permitting (ELP) regimes so they are more streamlined and easier for businesses and users to navigate, whilst maintaining and even enhancing environmental protections.

Promote a flexible, market-based trading system for biodiversity offset credits – Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) is a critical part of Defra’s strategy for enhancing the natural environment and promoting sustainable growth. Defra will shortly be publishing a consultation on our plans for implementing BNG. This consultation will include proposals for a market-based approach to delivery of biodiversity offset units.”

That latter is interesting in the context of the biodiversity net gain provisions within the Environment Bill, which do not currently refer explicitly to any notion of a structured “market-based trading system for biodiversity offset credits”.

Keep your ears open is all I’m saying…

Simon Ricketts, 17 September 2021

Personal views, et cetera

And on the theme of ears, do join our clubhouse Planning Law Unplanned event at 6pm this Tuesday 21 September 2021, whether to listen or participate. We will be returning to the big news story and associated question – “ALL SYSTEMS GOVE! What to expect from our new Secretary of State?”. We have a planoply of leading commentators lined up to give their views including Catriona Riddell, Matthew Spry, Zack Simons, Wyn Evans and Nick Cuff as well as our usual planel. Link to app here.

Photograph by Michael Aleo courtesy of unsplash

Thanks to my colleague Stephanie Bruce-Smith for some background research. All errors mine.

Don’t Print The Environment Bill

Two reasons not to press print:

It’s long. The Environment Bill, which had its First Reading on 15 October 2019, comprises 232 pages. It has 130 sections and 20 schedules. If you want a quicker read, the Explanatory Notes are only 212 pages.

Its shelf life may be short. Of course, we are likely to see a General Election before the Bill has made much progress (although there has been rumour that it may proceed quickly to Second Reading this month) and it will at that point fall unless a motion is passed to carry it over to the next Parliamentary session.

However, there is much within it of interest, and much of direct relevance to the operation of the planning system. I’m sure I’ll come back to various elements in different blog posts. The purpose of this post is to flag the main parts to be aware of from a planning lawyer’s perspective and first to look in particular at the improvements (yes improvements) that have been made to the first part, which sets out the new, post-Brexit regime that would apply to environmental principles and governance.

I am focusing on the relevance of the Bill to English planning law. For a detailed explanation of the territorial extent of each of its provisions, see Annex A of the Explanatory Notes, and the detailed table contained in Annex A.

NB There is no additional protection for the natural environment that could not have been secured with us still in the EU, and there are obvious risks of replacing protections in international obligations with protections in domestic legislation that (even if it is enacted in this form and brought into law) is vulnerable to political short-termism, but I set that issue to one side for the purposes of this summary.

Environmental Governance (Part 1 of the Bill)

This covers the ground previously mapped out in the December 2018 draft Environment (Principles and Governance) Bill which I covered in my 22 December 2018 blog post The Office For Environmental Protection, although the ground has moved substantially.

Some of the changes, and the reasoning for them, are summarised in the Government’s Response (published alongside the Bill on 15 October 2019) to the House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee’s Pre-legislative scrutiny of the Draft Environment (Principles and Governance) Bill (30 April 2019).

Having flicked through Part 1 and compared it to the December 2018 draft, I would note the following:

Clause 1 to 6 are entirely new, enabling the Secretary of State to set long-term (at least 15 year) “environmental targets” in respect of any matter which relates to (a) the natural environment or (b) people’s enjoyment of the natural environment. At least one target must be set in each of the following priority areas: air quality; water; biodiversity, and resource efficiency and waste reduction. A target in relation to particulate matter in ambient air must also be set. The Secretary of State must take independent advice before setting targets, must be satisfied that the target can be met and there are restrictions on his ability to lower the target. Draft statutory instruments containing the targets must be laid before Parliament by 31 October 2022. There are provisions in relation to reporting and regular reviews of the targets.

Interim targets must be set out in the environmental improvement plans which the Secretary of State must prepare pursuant to clauses 7 to 14 (which largely reflect the draft).

As per the draft, the Secretary of State must prepare a policy statement on environmental principles, which he must be satisfied will contribute to the improvement of environmental protection and sustainable development. The list of “environmental principles” is reduced to the following:

(a) the principle that environmental protection should be integrated into

the making of policies

(b) the principle of preventative action to avert environmental damage

(c) the precautionary principle, so far as relating to the environment

(d) the principle that environmental damage should as a priority be rectified at source, and

(e) the polluter pays principle.

The following were in the draft but no longer appear:

⁃ the principle of sustainable development

⁃ the principle of public access to environmental information

⁃ the principle of public participation in environmental decision-making, and

⁃ the principle of access to justice in relation to environmental matters

I get why the principle of sustainable development has been removed from the list and made an overarching requirement (and I support that as otherwise we would have risked detailed principles set out in a policy statement that may have conflicted with the NPPF, although I wonder how the overarching requirement will be interpreted without further explanation), but why the removal of those Aarhus Convention principles?

Government ministers were to be required to “have regard” to the policy statement. As explained in the Government’s Response, this has been beefed up to “have due regard”. I hadn’t appreciated that this was a higher legal threshold but will bow to others. There is still surely a question as to whether this is strong enough.

The principal objective of the Office for Environmental Protection and exercise of its functions is now set out, as “to contribute to –

(a) the protection of the natural environment, and

(b) the improvement of the natural environment”.

One of my concerns as to the potential scope of the OEP’s operations was that it might get drawn into individual planning disputes. The Government addresses this in its Response:

“We agree, however, with the core of the Committee’s comments around avoiding the OEP becoming inundated with complaints relating to local matters. This is not our intention. Clause 20(7) in the Bill introduced today (formerly clause 12(4)) already directs the OEP to prioritise cases with national implications. We believe this already guards to a significant extent against the Committee’s concerns regarding the OEP having to take on too many complaints relating to local matters or being at too much risk of challenge over its own judgements. However, we have considered this matter further, and have now amended the Bill to provide that the OEP’s enforcement policy must set out how it intends to determine whether a failure to comply with environmental law is serious for the purpose of subsequent clauses (clauses 20(6)(a) and (b) in the Bill introduced today). This should provide greater transparency in relation to the OEP’s approach to the meaning of the term “serious”, and guard against this further.”

My main concern as to the previously proposed procedures was that it was envisaged that the OEP might bring judicial review proceedings in the High Court, a year or more after the decision under challenge, and secure the quashing of the decision, as one of the remedies available. Plainly, this would have introduced unwelcome and unworkable uncertainty into the development process.

I have been impressed at the openness of DEFRA and MHCLG civil servants during this process. Indeed we at Town held last year a breakfast event and, after sharing the concerns of many around the table on precisely this issue, I suggested that “statement of non-conformity” outcome might be more workable, drawing upon the approach in the Human Rights Act 1998.

To my pleasant surprise, the proposed judicial review mechanism has been replaced with provision for an “environmental review” to be brought in the Upper Tribunal.

“(5) On an environmental review the Upper Tribunal must determine whether the authority has failed to comply with environmental law, applying the principles applicable on an application for judicial review.

(6) If the Upper Tribunal finds that the authority has failed to comply with environmental law, it must make a statement to that effect (a “statement of non-compliance”).

(7) A statement of non-compliance does not affect the validity of the conduct in respect of which it is given.

(8) Where the Upper Tribunal makes a statement of non-compliance it may grant

any remedy that could be granted by the court on a judicial review other than damages, but only if satisfied that granting the remedy would not—

(a) be likely to cause substantial hardship to, or substantially prejudice the rights of, any person other than the authority, or

(b) be detrimental to good administration.”

The Government’s Response said this:

“The approach will have a number of benefits compared to that of a traditional judicial review in the High Court. In particular, taking cases to the Upper Tribunal is expected to facilitate greater use of specialist environmental expertise.”

Judicial review will still be available if the OEP considers that a public authority’s conduct “constitutes a serious failure to comply with environmental law”.

There are now fewer exclusions to what falls within the ambit of “environmental matters” for the purposes of Part 1. Unlike the draft, the Bill does not exclude matters relating to:

⁃ the emission of greenhouse gases within the meaning of the Climate Change Act 2008

⁃ taxation, spending or the allocation of resources within government.

Thumbnail sketch of the rest of the Bill

Part 3 covers waste and resource efficiency, including:

⁃ producer responsibility obligations

⁃ deposit schemes and charges for single use plastic items

⁃ managing waste

⁃ waste enforcement

Part 4 covers air quality and the environmental recall of motor vehicles.

Part 5 covers water, including powers to direct water undertakers to prepare joint proposals for the purpose of improving the management and development of water resources.

Part 6 covers nature and biodiversity, including:

⁃ biodiversity

⁃ local nature recovery strategies

⁃ tree felling and planting (including requirements for local highway authorities in England to consult before felling trees).

The biodiversity net gain provisions introduced by clause 88 are particularly important. My 30 March 2019 blog post Biodiversity Net Gain: A Ladybird Guide summarised DEFRA’s proposals at the time. Clause 88 states:

“Schedule 15 makes provision for biodiversity gain to be a condition of planning permission in England”.

Schedule 15 sets out that every planning permission shall be deemed to have been granted subject to a condition that the developer has submitted a biodiversity gain plan to the planning authority and the authority has approved it. The plan must demonstrate that the biodiversity value attributable to the development exceeds the pre-development biodiversity value of the onsite habitat by at least 10%. Certain types of development are excluded, including our old friend: development deemed to be permitted by virtue of a development order.

More anon.

Part 7 covers conservation covenants.

These provisions will also be important for users of the planning system. The provisions follow DEFRA’s February 2019 consultation paper and seek to provide a legal mechanism for landowners to give binding conservation covenants.

As described in the consultation paper, “a conservation covenant is a private, voluntary agreement between a landowner and a “responsible” body, such as a conservation charity, government body or a local authority. It delivers lasting conservation benefit for the public good. A covenant sets out obligations in respect of the land which will be legally binding not only on the landowner but on subsequent owners of the land.”

Again, more anon.

Concluding remarks

So sorry to have kept you from the rugby, Brexcitements or other more healthy Saturday activities – perhaps even enjoying the natural environment.

Admission: I did press print.

Simon Ricketts, 19 October 2019

Personal views, et cetera

Secretary Of State Throws Another Curve Ball

My 15 June 2019 blog post National Lottery: 2 Problematic Recovered Appeal Decisions focused on two appeals dismissed by the Secretary of State against inspectors’ recommendations.

Well, here is another one, in relation to the Chiswick Curve scheme on the Great West Road within the London Borough of Hounslow, the 19 July 2019 decision letter out just before Parliament rises on 25 July (by which date we will have a new prime minister). Another long inquiry (15 days), long delays (the initial application was made over three and a half years ago, the inquiry was a year ago), detailed analysis from an experienced inspector who had heard the evidence and seen the site first hand, ultimately counting for nothing.

The Secretary of State’s decision followed an inquiry held by inspector Paul Griffiths BSc(Hons) BArch IHBC, into appeals by Starbones Limited against the decisions of the London Borough of Hounslow to (i) refuse planning permission for a mixed use building of one part 32 storey and one part 25 storeys comprising up to 327 residential units, office and retail/restaurant uses, basement car and bicycle parking, residential amenities, hard and soft landscaping and advertising consent with all necessary ancillary and enabling works and (ii) refuse to grant advertising consent for 3x digital billboards. The applications were dated 11 December 2015 and amended in October 2016.

The differences of judgment as between the inspector and Secretary of State appeared to boil down to the following:

⁃ The Inspector considered “that the proposal would bring a massive uplift to the area around it” and would be in accordance with various local plan policies. “While the Secretary of State recognises that public realm improvements and the publicly accessible elements of the scheme…do offer some improvement to current conditions, in terms of accessibility and movement, he does not agree that this constitutes the massive uplift as described by the Inspector.”

⁃ Both agreed that the harm to designated heritage assets (the Strand on the Green Conservation Area plus its listed buildings; Kew Green Conservation Area plus its listed buildings; Gunnersbury Park Conservation area plus its listed buildings and Registered Park and Garden, and the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew World Heritage Site plus its listed buildings) would be less than substantial but the Secretary of State disagreed with the inspector’s finding that the public benefits of the proposals would be sufficient to outweigh the harm.

⁃ The Secretary of State disagreed with the Inspector that there would be no conflict with a local plan policy concerning the impact of tall buildings proposed in sensitive locations such as conservation areas, listed buildings and their settings, and World Heritage Sites.

⁃ Accordingly the Secretary of State disagreed with the Inspector and found that the proposals did not comply with the development plan when read as a whole.

⁃ The Secretary of State “considers that the site has a strategic location, and he recognises the constraints and challenges associated with it. While he agrees with the Inspector […] that the proposed design seeks to respond to those challenges in a positive way, he does not find the proposal to be of such high quality as to be a brilliant response to its immediate context. He finds the scale and massing of the proposal to be such that the proposal does not relate to its immediate surrounding. While he recognises that attempts to minimise this impact have been taken with regard to glazing and fins, the building would still dominate the surrounding area. He considers the design to be a thoughtful attempt to respond to the challenges and opportunities of the site, but due to its scale, he disagrees with the Inspector […] that it is a significant benefit of the scheme.”

⁃ The Secretary of State considered that the proposals “would not provide the levels of private and communal amenity space that [the relevant local plan policy] requires. While he has found this to be a limited departure from this policy, the Secretary of State also recognises that the on-site provision, supplemented by the relative proximity of Gunnersbury Park does reduce the weight to be attached to this conflict.”

⁃ Given his finding that the proposals would not be in accordance with the development plan he went on to consider whether whether there were any material considerations to indicate that the proposals should be determined other than in accordance with the development plan. After a detailed analysis in paragraphs 34 to 38 of the decision letter, he concludes:

“Overall, the Secretary of State disagrees with the Inspector […], and finds that the moderate weight to be attached to the benefits of the appeal scheme in terms of housing provision, workspace provision and economic benefits, are not collectively sufficient to outweigh the great weight attached to the identified ‘less than substantial’ harm to the significance of the above heritage assets. He considers that the balancing exercise under paragraph 196 of the Framework is therefore not favourable to the proposal.”

Local MPs Ruth Cadbury (Labour) and Zac Goldsmith (Conservative) were recorded as having objected to the proposal. The objectors appearing at the inquiry included Historic England, the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew and the Kew Society (the first two instructing Richard Harwood QC and James Maurici QC respectively). Russell Harris QC and Richard Ground QC appeared for the appellant and for the London Borough of Hounslow respectively.

I note that on 19 July 2019, the Secretary of State also refused, against his inspector’s recommendation, Veolia’s called in application for planning permission for an energy recovery facility in Ratty’s Lane, Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire.

The Secretary of State accepted that there is an “urgent and pressing need” for the facility, that there is “no obvious alternative site”. “Given the urgent and pressing need, the Secretary of State considers that the provision of an ERF with sufficient capacity to accommodate the waste demands of the county carries substantial weight in favour of the proposal, and the climate change benefits of the proposal also carry substantial weight”. However, he considered that in view of the fact that the proposal was contrary to the development plan and there were unresolved concerns over highways matters, together with “significant adverse landscape and visual impacts”, the application should be refused. I thought that “need” means “need” but there we go.

Not much getting past this Secretary of State is there? An inference of his recent letter to the Planning Inspectorate (see my 13 July 2019 blog post Less Than Best Laid Plans: Political Pragmatism) might be that he considers that inspectors may on occasion be too robust in their examination of local plans and yet an inference of his approach on recovered appeals and call-ins might be that he considers that on occasion inspectors are not robust enough in assessing development proposals that are before them at inquiry. For my part, neither inference would be justified.

Simon Ricketts, 20 July 2019

Personal views, et cetera