“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.
“(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.”
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.
“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.
are probably the three words I most associate with the planning system in England, since you asked.
The main part of this post is a commentary by special guest and fellow Town partner Duncan Field on the Government’s Planning for the future white paper, published on 6 August 2020.
But before we get to that, some initial comments from me on timescales.
The consultation period on the white paper ends on 29 October 2020.
The aspiration in the document is that (subject to time extensions for recent plans) new local plans should be in place by the end of this Parliament, so by Spring 2024. Given that those local plans will take up to 30 months to be put in place under the new system proposed, the necessary primary legislation will need to have been passed and in force, with any necessary accompanying Regulations and guidance, by Autumn 2021.
By way of proxy for legislative timescales, the less ambitious Housing and Planning Act 2016 and Neighbourhood Planning Act 2017 each took around seven months to pass through the necessary Parliamentary stages, which would mean introducing a Bill by the beginning of 2021. One perhaps has to look back to the Localism Act 2011 for planning legislation of equivalent complexity. That took eleven months from soup to nuts.
Something is going to have to give – either there is going to be rushed consideration of these proposals, which still need significant refinement, or that “end of this Parliament” aspiration is going to have to be reconsidered before long.
But in any event, things can be expected to move quickly.
The timescales in that document for the four sets of proposals within it are as follows:
· changes to the standard method for assessing local housing need: “Following the outcome of this consultation, the Government will update the planning practice guidance with the revised standard method for assessing local housing need.”
· securing of First Homes through developer contributions in the short term until the transition to a new system: “We intend to begin by making planning policy changes, to ensure that clear expectations are set. However, to ensure that First Homes are delivered, nationwide, on a consistent basis, we are keeping under consideration the option to strengthen the policy through primary legislation at a future date. We also intend to introduce an exemption from the Community Infrastructure Levy for First Homes, to enable delivery prior to wider developer contribution reform. This would require changes to regulations. Lastly, we are also considering significant reforms to the system of developer contributions. We will ensure that First Homes willcontinue to be delivered under a reformed approach”
· supporting small and medium-sized builders by temporarily lifting the small sites threshold below which developers do not need to contribute to affordable housing: “Following the consultation, a decision will be taken on whether to proceed with this approach. If it is taken forward, this could be through the introduction of a Written Ministerial Statement in the Autumn.”
· extending the current Permission in Principle to major development: “Following this consultation, if we introduce Permission in Principle by application for major development, we aim to introduce amending regulations this Autumn, with the regulations expected to come into force by the end of the calendar year. Changes to the fee structure would require separate changes to the Planning Fees Regulations.”
The white paper is in my view a considered document and less radical than might have been expected, although certainly ambitious in its breadth. Proposals spin out of it, one after the other, often just in a sentence or two. There are of course areas where there needs to be further thought or explanation. For me, there are two big ones in particular:
⁃ the way in which housing numbers are to be set by the Government for individual authorities and how to resolve the inevitable tension between a swifter examination process and a process that allows proposals in a plan (and the basis for proposals not being in the plan) to be properly tested (particularly where the plan is going to be the equivalent of a series of outline planning permissions for its growth areas);
⁃ how this new infrastructure levy is really going to work and how obligations are going to be addressed that presently are dealt with by way of section 106 agreement, in particular the delivery of affordable housing.
There will also have to be a clear working through of the respective powers and responsibilities across the system, as between government, strategic authorities, local planning authorities and neighbourhoods.
I must say that I found Chris Katkowski QC’s explanations in the latest Have We Got Planning News For You episode really helpful in bringing the proposals, and the thinking behind them, to life. And, boring to say, there is no substitute for reading the actual document.
Planning for the Future begins with some fairly combative language, referring to “our outdated and ineffective planning system” and drawing comparisons with a patched up building which needs to be torn down.
In truth the Government’s proposals do not go quite as far as that and in practice, to continue with the same analogy, we might end up with a better and more sustainable outcome if we were to save the parts of the “patched up building” which have architectural merit. The biggest problem with the current system is not that it is all inherently bad but that it is not sufficiently resourced; it is a pity that planning reforms by successive Governments have never really grappled with that central issue. The good news on this occasion is that the new system will be accompanied by a comprehensive skills and resources strategy for local authorities and key participants in the system; let’s hope the Government delivers on that.
Further on in the document there are some powerful words from the Secretary of State which bring home just how important a time this is for the planning system and what it can deliver. It is hard to disagree with any of this:
The outbreak of COVID-19 has affected the economic and social lives of the entire nation. With so many people spending more time at home than ever before, we have come to know our homes, gardens and local parks more intimately. For some this has been a welcome opportunity to spend more time in the place they call home with the people they love. For others – those in small, substandard homes, those unable to walk to distant shops or parks, those struggling to pay their rent, or indeed for those who do not have a home of their own at all – this has been a moment where longstanding issues in our development and planning system have come to the fore.
Onto the objectives for reform, which can be summarised as follows:
• Reduce complexity and with it, uncertainty and delay.
• In doing so, deliver a more competitive market with a greater diversity of developers.
• Remove the discretionary nature of individual development management decisions and replace it with a rule-based system of development control.
• In doing so, reduce planning risk and the cost of capital for development.
• Reduce the time it takes to produce a local plan.
• Simplify assessments of housing need, viability and environmental impacts.
• Restore public trust and encourage more widespread public participation.
• Get better at unlocking growth and opportunity, encouraging beautiful new places, supporting town and city centres and revitalising existing buildings as well as new development.
• Harness digital technology.
Linked to this is a long list of desired outcomes including the user experience, home ownership, access to infrastructure, economic growth and innovation.
We then come to the main proposals which the Government intends to bring forward:
1. Local plans
a. These will be simplified so that they only identify land for development, the sites that should be protected and the development that can take place. There would be three categories of land:
i. Growth – sites suitable for comprehensive development which, once allocated, will have outline approval for development.
ii. Renewal – sites where smaller scale development is appropriate, which would benefit from a statutory presumption in favour of development once allocated.
iii. Protected – sites with environmental or cultural characteristics where development should be subject to more stringent controls.
An alternative approach might be a more binary system (growth and renewal with permission in principle versus protected areas) or more scope for the existing development management approach in areas other than those allocated for “growth”.
b. Plans should become digital, visual and map-based, interactive and data rich, using a standardised approach to support open access.
c. Local plans (and neighbourhood plans) will be more focused on giving clear area-specific requirements for land that is allocated for growth and renewal including design codes; generic development management policies and duplication of national policy and guidance needs to be avoided.
d. Plans should be subject to a single test of achieving sustainable development instead of the current tests for soundness and the duty to co-operate. There would be no Sustainability Appraisal and instead this would be replaced by a simplified process for assessing the environmental impact of plans.
e. Local plans would meet housing need by reference to a standard method for establishing housing requirements developed and set at a national level; this would mean distributing the national housebuilding target of 300,000 new homes annually, and one million homes by the end of the Parliament, taking into account local factors including constraints, opportunities and affordability. The Housing Delivery Test would stay.
f. Local plans would have to be brought forward by reference to a fixed 30 month statutory timescale with six stages and individual timings for each stage.
g. Local planning authorities would be under a duty to review their plans every 5 years; powers of intervention would remain such as the issuing of directions and preparation of a plan in consultation with local people.
h. Neighbourhood Plans to be retained but with more focus on form of development to reflect the proposals for Local Plans.
This is a refreshingly clear vision of what local plans might become and a digitalised system would be transformative for the user experience and public engagement. However, there are some big questions around how to encourage strategic planning across local authority boundaries for the bigger than local issues (the Government is open to suggestions), how in practice the “sustainable development” test would work and, linked to that, how robust the new environmental assessment process will be.
Equally as important, what will the effect of these promised changes be on current local plans? Without further incentives or assurances around their continuing effect in any transitional arrangements as we switch over to the new system, there must be a real concern they will be halted in their tracks.
2. Development Management
a. As indicated above, growth areas allocated in a local plan would have outline permission for the principle of development; details would be agreed and full planning permission achieved through a new reserved matters process, a local development order or possibly, on bigger sites, via a development consent order.
b. Renewal areas would benefit from a new statutory presumption in favour of development and would benefit from either a new automatic consenting route where specified forms of development meet design and other prior approval requirements, a faster planning application process or a local or neighbourhood development order.
c. Proposals which do not conform to the local plan in renewal and growth areas could still come forward, exceptionally, through a planning application process.
d. In protected areas, proposals will have to be brought forward via a planning application (subject to any permitted development rights or local development orders) and will be judged against the NPPF.
e. Generally, the development management process will be based on a more streamlined end-to-end process with firm deadlines for determination through a mix of:
i. Digitalisation;
ii. Data access;
iii. Shorter and standardised applications with reduced or limited supporting material;
iv. A standardised approach to technical information, conditions and developer contributions; and
v. Delegation of detailed planning decisions to planning officers where the principle of development has been established.
f. The Government will build in incentives for prompt determination of applications by local planning authorities such as deemed approval of some applications or refunds of application fees.
g. The process will still be subject to call-in powers and appeals but the Government expects the volume of call-ins and appeals to reduce over time.
h. There will be encouragement for faster build out by making provision in local plans/design codes for a variety of development types by different builders (picking up on the conclusions of the Letwin Review).
This vision for the new development management system feels less clear: permission in principle and outline planning permission are used interchangeably in places as a consequence of land being allocated for growth; however, over and above this, there appears to be provision for a “full” planning permission through a new reserved matters system or local development orders or even development consent orders. Would this not remove a lot of the benefit of allocating land for growth? There is also a myriad of possible ways in which land allocated for renewal might gain consent and, in the meantime, we retain the current planning application process as well. If the Government is not careful it might add to the complexity of development management.
Certainly, we can all get on board with the much-needed streamlining of the development management process from end to end, with more standardisation, reducing the quantity of application documents and increased use of digital technology. However, resourcing this change will be key to its success.
3. Building better, building beautiful and sustainable places
Design and place-making is still high up on the Government’s political agenda. Proposals in this space include the following:
a. A National Model Design Code to be published in the Autumn which will work alongside the National Design Guide and the Manual for Streets; together these are expected to have a bearing on design of new communities and to guide decisions on development. (This will be an early entrant into the current planning system.)
b. Local guides and codes are to be prepared wherever possible to reflect local character but need to have input from the local community before they are given any weight in the planning process.
c. A new expert body will be set up to help local authorities make use of design guidance and codes, as well as performing a wider monitoring and challenge role for the sector.
d. The much-heralded “fast-track” for beauty will be achieved through:
i. The NPPF – which will have provision for schemes that comply with local design guides and codes to be approved quickly;
ii. Legislation to require that sites in growth areas should have a masterplan and site-specific code as a condition of the permission in principle which is granted through allocation in the local plan; and
iii. Widening permitted development rights through the use of “pattern books” for different building types.
e. The NPPF will require targeted consideration of measures to support climate change mitigation and adaptation. (In our view, policy has been playing catch-up on climate change for some time – this is long overdue and should be welcomed.)
f. There will be a quicker and simpler framework for assessing environmental impacts, stepping away from the current frameworks such as Strategic Environmental Assessment, Sustainability Appraisal and Environmental Impact Assessment. The key requirements for the new framework will be:
i. early consideration;
ii. clear and easy to understand; and
iii. avoidance of duplication.
A further consultation on this is expected in the Autumn.
g. The Government intends to review and update the planning framework for listed buildings and conservation areas, to ensure their significance is conserved while allowing, where appropriate, sympathetic changes to support their continued use and address climate change.
h. Improvements to the energy efficiency standards for buildings will be brought forward to help meet the 2050 net zero commitment.
The intention here is clear and consistent with the recent focus of the Government on design and beauty in the planning system. The area with the most loaded questions is the promised framework for assessing environmental impact; in our view, there is clear scope to reduce the voluminous and highly technical nature of the current framework but now is not the time to water it down in terms of its ambit and its protective function. We will have to wait until the Autumn to find out more.
4. Infrastructure
There are radical proposals for the funding of infrastructure:
a. Replace S106 obligations and the current version of Community Infrastructure Levy with a new Infrastructure Levy calculated as a fixed proportion of the development value above a threshold, with a mandatory, nationally-set rate or rates (potentially variable by area).
b. This new levy will be charged on the final value of a development (or an assessed sales value where the development is not sold, e.g. build to rent) by reference to the rate in force when planning permission is granted. This would have to be paid before occupation.
c. Local authorities would be able to borrow against Infrastructure Levy revenues so that they could forward fund infrastructure.
d. The London Mayoral Community Infrastructure Levy and similar strategic Community Infrastructure Levies in combined authorities could be retained.
e. The Infrastructure Levy Could be extended to capture changes of use without additional floor area and through permitted development.
f. The new levy would be extended to fund affordable housing. Allowance would be made for in-kind delivery on-site, which could be made mandatory where an authority has a requirement, a capability to deliver on site and wishes to do so. In those circumstances local authorities would be able to specify the form and tenure of the on-site provision. The Government anticipates that there would need to be a considered policy approach to the risk of imbalance between the value of the agreed in-kind delivery and the fluctuating nature of the levy liability, contingent as it will be on the development value.
g. Local authorities could be given more freedom on how they spend the levy.
There is a lot of detail to be worked through here. Setting the new levy at a level which does not deter development (and indeed land supply through the price paid by developers) will be key and a difficult issue to judge.
The Government will also need to be scrupulous in ensuring that affordable housing continues to come forward using levy funds and still comes forward as part of mixed and balanced communities.
The removal of the blunt and inflexible tool that we have come to love or hate in the form of CIL is welcome in our view and with it the removal of a considerable amount of confusing and time-consuming red tape. For practical reasons – not least delivering site-specific solutions for development – we are not sure we are witnessing the end of S106 obligations or an equivalent just yet but they will undoubtedly be slimmed down.
5. Delivery
The consultation document ends with a few final proposals and thoughts from Government on the delivery of a new planning system:
a. As a first step there is a parallel consultation on changes to the current system including extension of Permission in Principle (by application to major development), the standard method for assessing local housing need, First Homes and supporting SME builders by temporarily lifting the small sites threshold below which developers do not need to contribute to affordable housing. More here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/changes-to-the-current-planning-system
b. The Government sees a potential delivery role for development corporations.
c. The reforms are considered likely to reduce judicial review risk.
d. The need for resources and skills is recognised and will be addressed through a comprehensive strategy. In principle, the Government’s view is that the cost of operating the new planning system should be principally funded by the beneficiaries of planning gain – landowners and developers – rather than the national or local taxpayer. Funding may also be achieved through application fees and potentially the new infrastructure levy or- to a limited extent – general taxation.
e. The Government intends to strengthen the powers for local planning authorities to enforce against breach of planning control and provide incentives for enforcement action to be taken.
To end where this overview began, resources are key and a comprehensive strategy to ensure the sufficiency of funding and skills will be very welcome, as long as it does what it says on the tin. This will be vital to the success of the new system.
We know now what the Government wants to achieve. It is up to all of us in the sector to help them make it work and if parts of the system are worthy of retention for their “architectural” merit, to explain why that is, with reference to the Government’s objectives.
Whether dog whistle politics, a dead cat strategy or a jibe at the triturus cristatus, the prime minister’s reference to “newt-counting delays” in his 30 June 2020 speech was no accident:
“Why are we so slow at building homes by comparison with other European countries?
In 2018 we built 2.25 homes per 1000 people
Germany managed 3.6, the Netherlands 3.8, France 6.8
I tell you why – because time is money, and the newt-counting delays in our system are a massive drag on the productivity and the prosperity of this country
and so we will build better and build greener but we will also build faster
and that is why the Chancellor and I have set up Project Speed to scythe through red tape and get things done”
The underlying messaging that was intended by the statement is of course clear: that there are environmental rules, “red tape”, previously foisted on us by Brussels, unnecessary, holding back development.
To continue with the animal references, this is a topical canard. I had in any event intended this week to sidestep the recent announcements about radical planning reform and go back to the possibly related question as to what is actually likely to happen from 1 January 2021 following the end of the Brexit transition period. My Town colleague Ricky Gama and I gave an online talk on this issue last week as part of the Henry Stewart Conferences course The Planning System. We need to focus again on all this, now that we are less than six months away from….what?
The EU (Withdrawal) Act received Royal Assent on 23 January 2020, amending in various respects the EU (Withdrawal) Act 2018 and giving Parliamentary approval for the withdrawal agreement between the UK and EU that was then completed on 1 February 2020. We left the EU on 31 March 2020 in the sense of no longer being part of its structures, including the European Parliament or European Commission. But we remain subject to EU law until 31 December 2020.
Until 31 December 2020, decisions of the UK government and UK public bodies can still be the subject of complaints to the European Commission and rulings by the European Court of Justice, and we are bound by changes in law and by any rulings of the ECJ by that date.
On 31 December 2020, EU law becomes “retained EU law” and existing rulings of European Court of Justice have binding effect.
However (not to scare the horses but…), from that date Parliament may review, amend or repeal all EU-derived domestic legislation without restriction. The Government can provide regulations as to how the UK courts should interpret retained EU law. The Supreme Court is not bound by any retained EU case law. Ministers can by regulations provide for any other relevant court or tribunal not to be bound (first consulting with the president of the Supreme Court president and other specified senior members of the judiciary). Indeed, the Government is already consulting as to how it might give freedom to lower courts to do this: it is no longer a hypothetical possibility – see Government consultation on lower courts departing from retained EU law (Philip Moser QC, 2 July 2020).
Of course we will go into 2021 with EU environmental law fully domesticated into our own systems. As far as planning law is concerned, the EIA, SEA, protected habitats and species regimes will remain, as already set out in our domestic legislation. But then what?
This Government has given no assurances.
There was previously a requirement in section 16 of the 2018 Act that the Government would maintain environmental principles and take steps to establish overseeing body, by publishing a draft Bill in relation to those matters by the end of 2018
Section 16 set out the relevant environmental principles ie
a) the precautionary principle so far as relating to the environment,
b) the principle of preventative action to avert environmental damage,
c) the principle that environmental damage should as a priority be rectified at source,
d) the polluter pays principle,
e) the principle of sustainable development,
f) the principle that environmental protection requirements must be integrated into the definition and implementation of policies and activities,
g) public access to environmental information,
h) public participation in environmental decision-making, and
i) access to justice in relation to environmental matters.
A draft Bill was published by that deadline and its provisions, with some amendments (including a reduced version of that list), are now within the current Environment Bill.
The reduced list of environmental principles (in clause 16(5) of the Bill) is now as follows:
“(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.”
It no longer includes the principle of “sustainable development” or the last three principles set out in the 2018 Act, which derive from the Aarhus Convention rather than directly from EU law.
Progress on the Bill has been delayed until September 2020 due to Covid-19 (whilst the Government has not chosen, by the 30 June 2020 deadline in the withdrawal agreement, to agree an extension to the 31 December date, which would of course have been possible on exactly the same basis). But in any event Royal Assent would only be the start of a long process of arriving at policy statements so as to deliver on those principles and have up and running a functional Office for Environmental Protection (recruitment for roles within the proposed OEP has not yet commenced).
So any “radical” reform of the planning system is likely to slip in ahead of oversight, in any meaningful way, by this new body or application of the principles that were intended at the time of the 2018 Act to plug the gap post Brexit.
In fact, it’s worse than that. Section 16 of the 2018 Act was repealed by the 2020 Act. There is no longer any duty upon the Government to adopt any particular environmental principles or to establish any independent overseeing body. If the Environment Bill is withdrawn, kicked into the long grass or, by way of amendment, stripped of meaning, there’s nothing to be done, the horse has bolted.
The December 2019 Queen’s Speech said this:
“To protect and improve the environment for future generations, a bill will enshrine in law environmental principles and legally-binding targets, including for air quality. It will also ban the export of polluting plastic waste to countries outside the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and establish a new, world-leading independent regulator in statute.”
By way of political commitment, that’s all there currently is. (NB I think we need to give that “world-leading” epithet a rest – I am trying to think of a recent example where we wouldn’t have been content to swap “world-leading” or “world beating” for, say, “functioning”?).
So from 1 January 2021, what changes might we see to EU-derived environmental law?
It’s pure guess-work, because the Government will not presently be drawn on that subject (which makes the “newt” reference so triggering).
But do you think it was an accident that the last essay in the Policy Exchange publication Planning Anew, just before the tail-wagging endorsement at the end by the Secretary of State, was an essay entitled Environmental Impact Assessment fit for the 21st Century by a William Nicolle and Benedict McAleenan? A flavour:
“To make them fit for the 21st Century, EIAs should focus only on the environmental impacts of development, like natural ecosystems, biodiversity, water, and other components of natural capital. Greater weighting and priority could be given to the most pressing environmental impacts of today, such as biodiversity, given recent evidence of the scale of international and national wildlife decline.
There are several, more subjective facets of EIAs that need to be stripped out, as they dilute this focus and prioritisation of environmental impacts. Landscape aesthetics, for example, should not be included in EIAs, as they are not environmental impacts per se. Policy Exchange has led calls for beauty to be a central factor in the planning system. We applaud this, and have argued for the natural landscape to be the inspiration for architecture, but the EIA should be concerned with what the environmentalist Mark Cocker calls the “more than human”.”
Who are the authors? William Nicolle apparently joined Policy Exchange in 2019, having been a graduate analyst at a utility. Benedict McAleenan is managing partner at “political risk and reputation” firm Helmsley Partners.
The prime minister’s 30 June 2020 “Build, Build, Build” press statement promised a “planning Policy Paper in July setting out our plan for comprehensive reform of England’s seven-decade old planning system, to introduce a new approach that works better for our modern economy and society.”
If changes are proposed to EU-derived environmental laws, please can that be made absolutely clear so that we can have an informed debate. Change and improvement is possible but only where led by the science, not by the think tanks.
After all, any move towards a more zoning-based approach, where the development consenting process is simplified by setting detailed parameters at a plan-making or rule-setting level, will face complications due to the need for strategic environment assessment of any plan or programme required by legislative, regulatory or administrative provisions that sets the framework for subsequent development consents and which is likely to have significant environmental effects – assessment which has become highly prescriptive, particularly in terms of the need to consider, in detail, reasonable alternatives to the selected policy option. Projects which are likely to give rise to significant effects on the environment require environmental impact assessment. It must be shown that plans or projects will not adversely affect defined species of animals or the integrity of defined habitats – with rigorous processes and criteria. Politicians will be bumping up against EU-derived environmental law, and those environmental principles (not yet finalised), at every turn.
Of course, the Government would not have a completely free hand in changing or removing these processes. We are subject to wider international duties, under, for instance the European Convention on Human Rights, the Aarhus Convention, the Paris Agreement (climate), the Espoo Convention (environmental assessment) and the Ramsar Convention (habitats). Trade deals in relation to the export of our goods or services, with the EU and/or other countries and trading blocs, may also require specific commitments.
But, if the Government is moving rapidly towards “comprehensive” reform of the planning system, it’s a fair question to ask: What changes are proposed by this Government to these EU-derived regimes from the end of this year?
Isn’t this the elephant in the room?
Yours faithfully, a newtral observer.
Simon Ricketts, 4 July 2020
Personal views, et cetera
PS Two webinars coming up, free registration, covering the sorts of issues I cover in this blog. Do register and tune in if of interest:
4pm 7 July (hosted jointly by Town Legal and Francis Taylor Building): NSHIPs? The case for residential-led DCOs. I am chairing a discussion between John Rhodes OBE (director, Quod), Bridget Rosewell CBE (Commissioner, National Infrastructure Commission), Gordon Adams (Battersea Power Station), Kathryn Ventham (partner, Barton Willmore) and Michael Humphries QC (Francis Taylor Building). Register here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_7SoJtOhqQwSJNt0jtmUFVA
5pm 14 July (hosted by Town Legal): Living, Working, Playing – What Does The Covid Period Teach Us? My Town partner Mary Cook is chairing a discussion between Steve Quartermain (Government’s former chief planner, consultant Town Legal), Karen Cook (founding partner, PLP Architecture), Jim Fennell (chief executive, Lichfields), Simon Webb (managing partner, i-transport) and myself. Register here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_pSbroYIoSRioMXvtDlGP3Q
Aren’t we bored now of Zoom meetings? They are no substitute for the real thing.
But there is another topical Z word. Should we adopt a Zone based approach to development consenting? Again, is this any substitute for the real thing?
The Government seems to have determined that it has a once in a lifetime opportunity, to (according to Robert Jenrick) “rethink planning from first principles” with a shake-up designed to accelerate the process.
“The time has come to speed up and simplify this country’s overly bureaucratic planning process,” he said on Wednesday. “This government is thinking boldly and creatively about the planning system to make it fit for the future.” (England’s planning system set for shake-up Financial Times, 10 June 2020).
“The Government should announce a clean break with the land use planning system introduced in 1947 that largely continues in the same form today. This reform programme should focus on the following issues:
• Ending detailed land use allocations. The planning system should not try to systematically control what specific activity can take place on individual land plots based on fallacious projections of housing and commercial ‘need’. Local planning authorities have proved ineffective and inefficient at micro-managing land markets. In this regard, the supply of new homes, offices and other types of land use should no longer be capped by local planning authorities in local plans or by site allocations.
• Introducing a binary zonal land use planning system. Land should be zoned either as development land, where there is a presumption in favour of new development, or non-development land, where there is not a presumption and minor development is only possible in more restricted circumstances. Land zoned as development land will include existing urban areas and new urban extensions made possible by infrastructure improvements. In this new system:
• Zones should, in general, have no reference to what specific land uses are allowed on individual private land plots. Market conditions should instead determine how urban space is used in the development zone. Land and buildings in the urban area would then be able to change use without requiring the permission of the state (as long as rules on separating certain harmful uses are not broken, as detailed below).
• Zonal designations should be separate from any concept or calculation of ‘need’.
Instead, they should be dependent on metrics that determine whether land has good access potential, whether new development would cause environmental disturbance; and the potential for an existing built development to expand. Zones should be updated an ongoing basis and would need to be periodically reviewed by the Planning Inspectorate.
• These proposals do not negate the need to separate certain harmful uses that have a negative impact on neighbours, for instance a quarry next to a children’s play park. Nor do the proposed reforms negate the need to protect certain uses, for instance for their natural or heritage value. These incompatible and protected uses should be clearly defined in the local plan.”
In February 2020 co-author Jack Airey becomes no 10’s housing and planning special advisor.
Robert Jenrick publishes his pamphlet Planning For The Future (12 March 2020), setting out a range of proposals which are to form the basis of a Planning White Paper, then promised for Spring 2020 but now of course delayed.
The pamphlet picks up on some of the themes of the Policy Exchange work and particularly on the Z word, but in more cautious terms:
“Expand the use of zoning tools to support development – the government will outline further support for local areas to simplify the process of granting planning permission for residential and commercial development through zoning tools, such as Local Development Orders. The government will trial the use of templates for drafting LDOs and other zonal tools to create simpler models and financial incentives to support more effective use. The government has also launched a consultation on a new UK Freeport model, including on how zoning could be better used to support accompanying development.”
(I comment on the proposals in my 21 March 2020 blog post What To Do?).
So what is actually happening? In a House of Lords debate on 8 June 2020, there was this exchange:
I declare my interest as noted in the register. Can the Minister confirm the reports across the weekend media that the Government are intending to take planning decisions away from councils and give them to development corporations? This is extremely concerning after recent developments in Tower Hamlets, which resulted in the developer not having to pay between £30 million and £50 million in the community infrastructure levy?
The situation at the moment is that there is a planning commission that has started under my right honourable friend Chris Pincher, the planning Minister. I cannot make any further comments about what the noble Baroness has read in the media.”
There is nothing else in the public domain about this “planning commission”, although of course, as referred to in this exchange, there has been much speculation in the media. Back to that 10 June FT piece:
“Downing Street has set up an advisory panel that includes Bridget Rosewell, the national infrastructure commissioner who recently headed a review into accelerating planning appeal inquiries, property developer Sir Stuart Lipton and barrister Christopher Katkowski.
The other members are Nicholas Boys Smith, founder of Create Streets, co-chair of the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission, and Miles Gibson, head of UK research at advisory group CBRE.”
The piece speculates:
“Ministers hope that the reforms can be agreed in time for a wider economic announcement in July by Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, which will also include extra infrastructure spending.”
If we are talking about fundamental changes to the planning system, of course reforms cannot be “agreed” in time for July. But might we expect this delayed Planning White Paper by then? I suspect that separately and ahead of the white paper we will see legislation in relation to shorter-term responses to the current crisis, including the extension of planning permission time limits and changes to PD rights.
In the meantime, the think tank onslaught continues. The prompt for the 10 June FT piece was the publication by the Policy Exchange of a series of essays: Planning Anew: A collection of essays on reforming the planning system for the 21st century. There are pieces by Bridget Rosewell CBE, Professor Robert Adam, Charles Dugdale, Warwick Lightfoot, David Rudlin, John Myers, Jamie Ratcliff, Reuben Young, Dr Sue Chadwick, William Nicolle and Benedict McAleenan.
The essays are diffuse in their themes and I would be wary of drawing too much from them.
There are some eye-catching comments from Bridget Rosewell:
“It’s clear that we can’t stop humans planning, or probably being planners. But we must abolish the Plan as a shibboleth, a straitjacket and an industry”
“Abolishing the current planning edifice does not remove the need for frameworks for permissions. Tensions still exist and must be resolved. My review of Planning Inquiries showed that they could be done twice as fast just by applying sensible rules, most of which already existed, to manage the process. Other planning disputes are often also resolvable without having a complicated set of rules including local plan preparation and examinations in public.”
David Rudlin’s contribution, News from Nowhere: the future of planning and cities, addresses zoning full-on. It is a fantasy piece, looking back from a 2050 utopia that had been delivered in part by a change to a zoning system in 2020. To give you a flavour:
“Clara and William transferred to a water taxi, heading down the Irwell, canyoned by the towers of Manchester and Salford that William remembered being thrown-up in a brief moment of madness in the late 2010s. As they passed into the Ship Canal, Clara explained that the new spatial planning system had allowed for the much more balanced growth of the conurbation. The inner areas of Manchester and Salford had been developed with mid-density neighbourhoods of housing, apartments and workspace resembling the cities of continental Europe. Higher density nodes, like those he had seen from the train, had been promoted around transport interchanges and local centres. There were still plenty of suburbs, of course, like the one where Clara lived with her family that they would visit later, but the overall structure of the conurbation made much more sense and was far more sustainable.
This had happened as a result of the new planning structure introduced in 2020. It had been based on a three tier system that had finally given some clarity to the way that the country had been planned, as well as rejuvenated the role and status of planners like Clara. The top tier was a National Spatial Plan, the middle was City Region / County Spatial strategies and the third was district-level zonal coding plans, but more of that in a moment”
The piece (and indeed the interesting debate about it when David Rudlin guested on Have We Got Planning News For You on 18 June 2020) illustrates the problem with the current debate, because surely what is contemplated (and flagged in March by Robert Jenrick), whilst no doubt “radical”, is not an across-the-board move to a system of comprehensive zoning plans – and so there is the risk that we all have a theoretical debate in one side of the room and fail to engage with the more practical reality that may be emerging across the way. I sensed the same impractical utopianism in another think tank piece published this week: Planning for the future: How flexible zoning will end the housing crisis (Anthony Breach, Centre for Cities, 19 June 2020).
Because the real debate is not a straight-forward one. How can we focus so much on the Z word before considering:
⁃ what are the Government’s policy objectives, and how does it prioritise as between them?
⁃ in which ways does the Town and Country Planning Act system play its part in meeting those objectives?
⁃ in what ways can the operation of the existing system be improved and in what ways are changes required, so as not just to reflect current policy objectives but as a resilient engine to be applied towards whatever may be future political priorities? Or is the idea to lock the engine into a specific political direction?
⁃ how do we guard against unintended consequences and against new blockages forming, if for instance the stress point between the potential for profit and the restriction on certain forms of development moves exclusively to the process of arriving at the zoning plan or scheme? That stress point is where there is the potential for delay, political difficulties and legal challenge. (In our present system of course we have multiple stress points!).
⁃ to what extent would a form of zoning (ie a greater level of predictability being given via the rule-setting and policy-forming stages in return for, at the project stage, less flexibility and less room for political discretion) be better or worse than the current system at achieving those policy objectives?
It’s difficult because those policy objectives will surely not just not include the Covid-accentuated need for housing and economic activity, but the need for communities to continue to have an appropriate level of influence over outcomes and the need not to rule out, through rigid prescription, unexpected forms of development which may be in the public interest but simply not anticipated by the plan?
For a really good, detailed analysis of zoning, different models, the pros and cons and potential application to our English system I recommend Jennie Baker’s blog post Should zoning be introduced in England? (Lichfields, 14 May 2018). I also strongly recommend that you read Zack Simons’s #planoraks blog post Welcome to Euclid! (16 June 2020), which, aside from examining the landmark 1926 US Supreme Court case on zoning, Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co, pulls us back to the guidance that the Planning Advisory Service have already published on preparing Local Development Orders, surely one of the prime mechanisms within our existing system for taking a more zoning-based approach (as is specifically mentioned in that passage from Planning For The Future).
Personally speaking, surely there are also two other opportunities to expand the use of existing mechanisms, so as to move more towards what might be termed a zoning-based approach to planning, if this what is required.
First, there is the potential to expand the use of the permission in principle route, introduced in the Housing and Planning Act 2016 but currently far too narrow in its scope. What about building on the existing regime by placing an enforceable duty on LPAs to identify land that is appropriate for permission in principle specifying the location, land use and development parameters? As suggested in a paper by Field, Somerville and Bischoff, Permission in Principle under the Housing and Planning Act 2016: Considering an Australian Approach [2017] JPL 338, such ‘zoning’ overlay permissions in principle could either be promoted by local planning authorities as part of their local plan/ separate mini-development plans, by neighbourhoods through neighbourhood plans or alternatively requested by landowners/ promoters if certain defined criteria are met.
Secondly, the whole Use Classes Order/General Permitted Development Order system is already a form of zoning. Any further liberalisation in relation to, for instance, “high street” uses, is utilising an existing form of zoning. It might be said that recent problems in relation to permitted development have been as a result of the GPDO not being sufficiently prescriptive in relation to building specifications (or perhaps the lack of sufficient protections by way of the Building Regulations) and as a result of the ability to dodge affordable housing or other social infrastructure requirements, rather than through any more fundamental flaw in the basic concept.
As we try to make sense of all this, I have two final suggestions:
My firm is co-hosting with Landmark Chambers a, yes, Zoom, webinar panel discussion on these very issues at 5pm on 23 June 2020. I am chairing the panel which comprises Bridget Rosewell, Sir Stuart Lipton, Steve Quartermain, John Litton QC, Charlie Banner QC and my Town partner Duncan Field. We have had over 800 registrations so far – I am not the only one focused on the Z word it seems – but you can still register for free here.
Alternatively, if you need some fresh air after all this, there is another topical four letter word beginning with Z. Zoos are now open.
SIMONICITY 