OCTOBER 2021 ENFORCEMENT NOTICE NUMBERS // p.4 • IS THE TRANSPORT DECARBONISATION PLAN VIABLE? // p.24 • RETROFITTING FOR NET ZERO // p.28 • CASE STUDY: PLANNING LONDON DATAHUB // p.32 • SCOTLAND: RETURN OF THE TILTED BALANCE // p.42
T H E B U S I N ES S M O N T H LY FO R P L A N N I N G P R O F ES S IO N A LS
Transport
REFR AMED PHIL JONES EXPLAINS HOW A REVISED HIGHWAY CODE COULD LEAD TO MORE PEOPLE CENTRED TRANSPORT PLANNING
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CONTENTS
O CTO BER
04 NEWS 4 Recent government figures show that the number of planning enforcement notices is continuing to fall
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"IF WE WANT HIGHWAYS AUTHORITIES TO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR DOING DIFFERENT THINGS, WE HAVE TO LEGALLY GIVE THEM THE DUTY TO DO DIFFERENT THINGS”
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7 Government makes revisions to environment proposals
OPINION
8 Irish planning reforms highlighted in new housing strategy
14 Louise BrookeSmith: Wheel a while in my chair
9 Barry Docks biomass plant faces shutdown as council takes enforcement action
16 Graham Biggs: Levelling up is failing to solve the rural housing and planning crisis
10 Application submitted for East of England water pipeline
16 Félicie Krikler: What is ‘beautiful’, ‘attractive’ or ‘popular’, anyway?
11 Newsmakers: 10 top stories appearing now on The Planner online
17 Chris Hemmings: Is government’s 10 per cent target for self and custom-build homes realistic? 17 Hilary Satchwell: Good design de has a process – let’s follow it
15 QUOTE UNQUOTE
“WE SHOULD BE SLAMMING ON THE BRAKES, NOT HITTING THE ACCELERATOR WITH YET MORE FOSSIL FUELS” FRIENDS OF THE EARTH CLIMATE CAMPAIGNER TONY BOSWORTH MAKES HIS POSITION ABUNDANTLY CLEAR AS THE PUBLIC PNQUIRY INTO THE PROPOSED NEW CUMBRIAN COAL MINE BEGINS
COV E R I M AG E | R I C H A R D L E A H A I R
FEATURES
INSIGHT
18 ‘Blue-sky’ thinker Phil Jones tells Simon Wicks how a new Highway Code could transform transport planning
38 Cases & decisions: Development decisions, round-up and analysis 42 Legal Landscape: Opinions from the legal side of planning
24 The government’s Transport Decarbonisation Plan is too light on detail. Huw Morris reports 28 Momentum is growing in favour retrofitting buildings to meet net-zero goals, but government is dragging its heels, finds Matt Moody 32 RTPI Awards for Excellence 2021: London’s Planning DataHub
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44 RTPI round-up: News and interviews from the institute
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50 What to read, what to watch and how to keep in touch
Make the most of The Planner by visiting our links for related content
24 O CTO B ER 2 021 / THE PLA NNER
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NEWS
Report { ENFORCEMENT
Enforcement struggles The most recent government figures show that the number of planning enforcement notices is continuing to fall. And many councils are also failing to issue civil penalties to rogue landlords. Huw Morris reports
The planning enforcement officers were shocked when they saw them. They described conditions in the properties as “horrible” and some of the “worst residential accommodation” they had seen. The horror led to what is thought to be the largest court order for a planning breach in the country so far this year. In February, Harrow Crown Court ordered private landlord Mohammed Mehdi Ali of High Road, Willesden, to pay back £739,263.58 in illicit earnings from overcrowded properties following a prosecution by the London Borough of Brent. Ali was found guilty of failing to comply with planning enforcement notices in April 2018 at Willesden Magistrates Court. The case was then referred to the Crown Court for confiscation proceedings under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. Brent’s financial investigators and planning enforcement officers revealed a number of illegal homes and illicit earnings made by renting out the properties as houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) and undersized flats, which were owned by Ali and his father. This prosecution followed an earlier £544,000 confiscation order against his father, Salah Mahdi Ali, which involved criminal earnings on two of the same properties. He had converted four homes into 38 flats without planning consent. The largest part of Mohammed Mehdi Ali’s illegal earnings came from a
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complex of flats built above and behind a minicab office in Willesden, which earned him nearly £90,000 a year on average, largely from housing benefits. His father had earned six-figure sums on the drop was “primarily Covid restricting same property before he was convicted enforcement officers’ ability to do site of failing to comply with a planning visits to investigate breaches”. enforcement order for its conversion Some councils had put a blanket ban into 12 flats without permission. on all visits unless a risk assessment Although the prosecution was a was made first. triumph for enforcement, the latest “They are only now starting to get government figures show that a service back to normal visits,” he adds. “There vital to public confidence is struggling. is also the ongoing lack of resources for The number of planning enforcement councils to have sufficiently resourced notices by local authorities in the year enforcement teams and also the lack to March fell to the lowest since figures of suitably experienced and trained were first recorded in 1997. A total of enforcement officers to be out there 2,996 notices were issued, significantly doing the job. down from 3,933 the previous year and “I don’t necessarily think part of a long-term there has been a drop in trend (see table 1). “I DON’T NECESSARILY reports of breaches of This is the first time THINK THERE HAS BEEN planning control – just the notices have dipped A DROP IN REPORTS overall ability of councils below the 3,000 mark. OF BREACHES OF to properly investigate The previous low was PLANNING CONTROL, cases and take appropriate 3,880 in 2018/19. JUST THE OVERALL actions.” The peak year for ABILITY OF COUNCILS The decline is reinforced notices – 2005/06 TO PROPERLY by other figures for the – saw 5,797 notices. INVESTIGATE private rented sector National Association CASES AND TAKE compiled by the National of Planning APPROPRIATE Residential Landlords Enforcement (NAPE) ACTIONS” – NEILL Association (NRLA). Its chair Neill Whittaker WHITTAKER research into the use of said the most recent
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PLAN UPFRONT
“THE FAILURE TO CONFRONT ROGUE LANDLORDS PUTS TENANTS AT RISK AND UNDERMINES THE REPUTATION OF THE OVERWHELMING MAJORITY OF LANDLORDS WHO PLAY BY THE RULES” – BEN BEADLE
Planning enforcement notices by English district planning authorities Year
Enforcement notices
Breach of condition notices
Contravention notices
2020/21
2,996
566
3,502
2019/20
3,933
754
4,163
2018/19
3,880
703
4,151
2017/18
4,273
759
4,803
2016/17
4,401
699
4,772
2015/16
5,024
805
4,465
2014/15
5,007
916
5,086
2013/14
4,708
797
4,902
2012/13
4,656
764
4,744
2011/12
4,659
835
4,545 4,953
2010/11
5,623
987
2009/10
5,174
945
5,110
2008/09
5,532
1,108
5,293
2007/08
5,565
1,048
5,042
2006/07
5,486
1,144
5,249
2005/06
5,797
1,151
5,366
2004/05
5,019
1,111
5,156
2003/04
4,507
1,051
4,617
2002/03
4,379
1,161
4,103
Source: Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
I M AG E | I STO C K
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civil penalties (see box on page 6) reveals what the NRLA describes as a “local authority enforcement lottery”. The total number of civil penalties increased markedly after 2017/18, when the figure was 332, to 958 in 2018/19. Since then, it has remained relatively static at around 1,000 a year – in 2020/21 the figure was 1,119. The NRLA says this indicates a significant lag time of two years before new enforcement powers are adopted. Despite this increase, numbers remain relatively low for most authorities. Most are either not issuing civil penalties or taking “very tentative steps” towards doing so. The research reveals that 52 local authorities or 19 per cent had issued between one and five civil penalties in the past three years. But a total of 145 local authorities – 53 per cent – had not issued any civil penalties in the past three years. Most of the increase has come from a small group of what the NRLA calls “super users” taking advantage of their new enforcement powers – the 20 biggest users are responsible for the overwhelming majority of civil penalties. Just 7 per cent of local authorities or “super-users'' are responsible for 71 per cent of civil penalties. Within them, there is a group of what the NRLA terms “ultra-users” – 10 local authorities that are responsible for issuing 1,618 civil penalties across three years (see table 2 on page 6). “Ultra-users”, mostly in London, represent more than half of all civil penalties reported.
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NEWS
Report { Top 10 local authorities by total civil penalties issued The NRLA says the “chronic failure” to take action against criminal landlords is putting tenants at risk and demands that the government guarantees that councils have the ability to take enforcement action, backed by upfront, multi-year funding. It points to figures previously cited by the government which show that only 43 landlords are currently listed on the database of rogue landlords in England. This is despite ministers’ previous suggestions that there are up to 10,500 rogue landlords. The research comes as ministers prepare a white paper on the private rented sector. The NRLA says reforms that work for responsible landlords and tenants cannot come soon enough. It wants a system that sets clear and comprehensive rights for landlords, particularly on taking back properties but balanced by additional rights with robust protections for tenants. Crucial to this would be a new landlord-tenant body, similar to the employment mediator ACAS, to settle disputes without going to court. At present, it can take around a year for a legitimate repossession claim to reach a conclusion, NRLA says, and where cases
The NRLA says the “chronic failure” to take action against criminal landlords is putting tenants at risk
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Authority
Region
Civil penalties
Camden
London
335
Newham
London
265
Barking and Dagenham
London
192
West Northamptonshire
East Midlands
147
Brent
London
146
Havering
London
145
Waltham Forest
London
117
Liverpool
North West
103
Manchester
North West
86
Newcastle
North East
82
Total
1,618
Source: National Residential Landlords Association
go to court, they must be dealt with more efficiently, making use of video technology wherever possible. NRLA chief executive Ben Beadle says the chronic failure to confront rogue landlords “puts tenants at risk and undermines the reputation of the overwhelming majority of landlords who play by the rules”. As ministers develop their plans for the sector, “they need to be clear whether any of what they propose will be properly enforced”, he adds.
Civil penalties Introduced under the Housing and Planning Act 2016, civil penalties are issued to landlords or agents as an alternative to criminal prosecution and relate to the following offences: n The licensing of properties under parts 2 or 3 of the Housing Act 2004. n A breach of the management regulations set out in the Management of Houses in Multiple Occupation (England) Regulations 2006. n Not complying with an improvement notice issued under the powers granted by part 1 of the Housing Act 2004. n Breaching a banning order under the Housing and Planning Act 2016. n Contravening an overcrowding notice issued under section 139 of the Housing Act 2004.
I M AG E | S H U T T E RSTO C K
09/09/2021 16:25
NEWS
News { Government makes revisions to environment proposals The government is aiming to strengthen biodiversity targets among a raft of amendments unveiled in its muchdelayed environment bill. A target to “halt the decline in species abundance by 2030” was introduced to the bill at the end of August. Other changes include statutory guidance for planning authorities on new Local Nature Recovery Strategies. The move, after lobbying by parliamentarians and wider stakeholders, follows Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s pledges during the UK’s leadership of this year’s G7 summit. These include the G7 commitment to halt and reverse the loss of biodiversity by 2030 as well as signing up to the global “30x30’' initiative to conserve or protect at least 30 per cent of
The bill includes a pledge to “halt the decline in species abundance by 2030”
the world’s land and oceans by 2030. Among other alterations, the bill will introduce statutory guidance for planning authorities to explain how they should take into account new Local Nature Recovery Strategies. This will also require them to embed these strategies into their planning processes. The bill will create a duty and power for the secretary of state to review and
increase the minimum duration for which new biodiversity gain sites must be secured. The government intends to evaluate and review the early years of mandatory biodiversity net gain practice and understand how developers are making a positive impact on nature. Read the full story here: bit.ly/ planner1021-environmentrevisions
Study on design quality wins RTPI research award Research into the issue of declining design quality after planning permission is granted was among the winners at the 2021 RTPI Awards for Research Excellence at a virtual ceremony during the UK-Ireland Planning Research Conference. Hannah Hickman MA, MSc, MPhil, MRTPI, who is a senior research fellow at the University of the West of England, won the Sir Peter Hall Award for Research Excellence. Her project explored the “poorly understood” area of post-consent, what happens after planning permission granted through to delivery and ongoing management. Jo Williams, from University College
I M AG E | G E T T Y
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London, was commended for her book Circular Cities: A Revolution in Urban Sustainability. Dr Meadhbh Maguire MRTPI PhD MSc MA, McGill University, School of Urban Planning, won the Early Career Research Award while Jianting Zhao, University of Hong Kong, was commended. The Planning Practitioner Award went to Antony Rifkin BCom MCRP Dip Urban Design MRTPI FRSA, Allies and Morrison. Colin Robinson from Lichfields Planning was commended. Nicole Collomb BA (Hons) MSc, from the University of Brighton’s department of architecture and
design, was announced as Student Award winner. Samuel ‘Nepo’ Schrade of the University of Brighton received a commendation. The conference was hosted by the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape at Newcastle University. Full details of winners: bit.ly/ planner1021-RTPIResearch
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10/09/2021 09:42
NEWS
News { Irish planning reforms highlighted in new housing strategy
The Irish Government’s recently published Housing For All strategy promises to deliver 300,000 new homes over the next decade. The plan commits the administration to providing a total of 90,000 social houses, 36,000 affordable homes and 18,000 cost rental properties before the end of 2030. The remaining 156,000 homes in the strategy are to be delivered through the private rental and purchase housing market. Housing and local government minister Darragh O’Brien highlighted a series of measures outlined in the plan to reduce the cost of housing and encourage the building of new homes. These include the introduction of a “land value sharing” measure, which will mean the state will share in any land value uplift arising from state decisions on land rezoned for residential use, with the proportion secured
8
by the state used to fund the necessary infrastructure to support development and, where appropriate, deliver additional social and affordable housing. The blueprint also makes it clear that there will be a new planning process for largescale residential developments, which will replace the existing fasttrack regime. The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage will overhaul and simplify planning legislation to guarantee certainty and stability. It will review the planning code with the Office of the Attorney General. This review will be completed by December 2022. The department will also review the judicial review process relating to the planning system in a bid to cut planning delays.
Redevelopment scheme proposed for derelict linen mill near Banbridge The Karl Group has submitted ambitious £6 million proposals to breathe new life into a huge abandoned listed mill complex at the village of Gilford, near Banbridge in County Armagh. The developer has lodged a detailed application with Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council for a mixed-use scheme at the sprawling eighthectare site. This would see the conversion and extension of the vacant mill building to provide a ground-floor level garden centre, a restaurant at first-floor level, 28 flats over floors two to six, a rooftop garden and a children’s activity area. Once a focal point for the Irish linen industry, Gilford Mill at its peak employed 15,000 people. Muckamore-based Karl Group acquired the dilapidated complex in 2016. The mill closed permanently in 1986.
Read the full story: bit.ly/ planner1021-IrishHousing
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10/09/2021 09:43
PLAN UPFRONT
Barry Docks biomass plant faces shutdown as council takes enforcement action The Vale of Glamorgan Council has decided to take enforcement action over a nine-megawatt biomass gasification plant in Barry Docks. This requires the owners to stop operating the facility and permanently remove all buildings, plant, and associated equipment from the land. The order follows a decision by the council’s planning committee after the plant’s owners failed to resolve inconsistencies between the design and what has been built. Features including water tanks, machinery, an external conveyor, and a substation were not shown on approved plans.
Barry Biomass, which operates the facility, is privately owned by an investment fund and is managed by Aviva Investors on its behalf. The owners have indicated that they will appeal against the enforcement notice. Campaigners have fought for years for the plant to be closed because of pollution fears. Eddie Williams, cabinet member for planning and regulatory services, said: “I’m fully aware of the strength of feeling regarding this plant locally and the nature of residents’ concerns. “The original planning application to
erect a plant at Barry Docks was refused by the council in 2010, but that decision was overturned on appeal by a Welsh Government-appointed inspector. “However, the development has not progressed in the manner agreed and, sadly, despite a long-running dialogue, this appears the only way to get certain issues resolved.”
New maps highlight coastal erosion risk in Scotland An estimated £1.2 billion of Scotland’s buildings, transport infrastructure, cultural and natural heritage may be at risk from coastal erosion by 2050, reveals research funded by the government and carried out by the University of Glasgow. As part of the government’s Dynamic Coast project, the university has developed detailed maps to serve as a coastal change adaptation planning tool for government,
I M AG E S | I STO C K / A L A M Y
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agencies, local authorities as well as communities and businesses. Net-zero secretary Michael Matheson said the maps showed that at least £20 billion of assets, road, rail, and residential property lie
within 50 metres of the Scottish coast. “With nature protecting some £14.5 billion of these assets, maintaining our natural coastal defences must be a key part of our resilience and adaptation strategies,” he said.
“We are already locked into future sea level rise and therefore we must plan for the worst-case scenario on the coast. “Modelling suggests, however, that we will see erosion influencing the majority of shores this decade. “The Dynamic Coast maps will be a valuable tool in our fight against climate change, and we are now preparing guidance to help local authorities to produce new adaptation plans,” added Matheson.
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10/09/2021 09:44
NEWS
News { Application submitted for East of England water pipeline Anglian Water has submitted a planning application to West Suffolk, East Cambridgeshire and King’s Lynn and West Norfolk councils as part of its work to install a strategic water pipeline to join up water supplies from Bexwell to Bury. The scheme would be the “largest drinking water infrastructure project the UK has seen for a generation”, said the water and recycling services provider for the East of England. The planning application covers a section of pipeline that will run for 70
kilometres between Bexwell and Bury. It will join up existing infrastructure, include five new pumping stations and three drinking water storage tanks. If planning permission is granted, Anglian Water has said that the work would start on site in 2022. Read the full story: bit.ly/planner1021-waterpipeline
County Antrim village bids for UNESCO Heritage Status William McCaughley, mayor of Mid & East Antrim Borough Council, has met World Heritage representatives in the County Antrim village of Gracehill, as part of a two-day factfinding visit to support preparation of a UNESCO WHS application. The village was founded by members of the Moravians, a religious sect of German origin. It is a designated conservation area whose layout and unique Georgianstyle buildings date from 1765. The Moravian Church is a focal point. Gracehill’s Old School Trust has joined in an international bid for
World Heritage Status from UNESCO for their village, with partners in Herrnhut in Saxony, Germany, and Bethlehem in Pennsylvania, US, which were also key Moravian settlements. The mayor said: “World Heritage Status for Gracehill would benefit Mid and East Antrim considerably by raising the global profile of the borough, supporting the local economy, especially the visitor economy, and would positively impact upon education, regeneration, quality of life and civic pride.”
Spending watchdog slams Carmarthenshire planners Carmarthenshire County Council’s planning department has been heavily criticised by the Welsh public expenditure watchdog in a report that concludes that “significant and longstanding performance issues in the planning service need to be urgently addressed to help support delivery of the council’s ambitions”. Audit Wales stresses that the council’s current arrangement for determining major planning applications “needs strengthening to help it achieve its regeneration aspirations”. The watchdog warns that “longstanding, significant performance issues in development management and planning enforcement are undermining effective service delivery.” It urges the council to its review performance and service improvement arrangements to “better serve its customers”. Audit Wales found that at 15 March this year the council had 847 planning applications awaiting determination, some of which are dated more than five years ago. In respect of planning enforcement, the number of cases to be dealt with at the same date was 761. “This poor performance is potentially affecting the council’s ability to deliver its regeneration ambitions at pace,” says Audit Wales. The watchdog makes 17 recommendations, including establishing a strategy and a timeline to sort out all planning backlogs. Plaid Cymru council leader Emlyn Dole insisted that work was already well under way to improve the planning service “with a dedicated team working through systems and procedures to streamline the way we process applications and carry out effective enforcement whilst supporting current and future development in line with national planning policy”. Read the full story: bit.ly/ planner1021-Carmarthenshire
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I M AG E | I STO C K / A L A M Y
09/09/2021 16:26
CATCH UP WITH THE PLANNER
Newsmakers N New development plan preparation guidelines published in Ireland
1
The Irish Government has begun consulting on draft new guidelines for planning authorities in respect of the preparation of development plans. The guidelines are designed to help planning authorities in the preparation of, and variation to, city and county development plans. bit.ly/planner1021-planprep
2
The government has published the first details of its much-anticipated hydrogen strategy – one it hopes will put the UK at the forefront of international development in this fast-emerging energy sector. bit.ly/planner1021-hydrogen
692 student beds approved in Nottingham South West council updates planning guidance on energy efficiency in homes
Bath and North East Somerset Council is consulting on proposals to update planning guidance to u help residents and businesses he improve the energy use of their properties. bit.ly/planner1021energyguidance I M AG E S | S H U T T E R S T O C K /A L A M Y / I S T O C K
Government seeks to put UK at the forefront of emerging energy sector
Bacon review calls for reforms to boost custom and self-build The government should introduce a specific designation of land for custom and self-build housing among its reforms to the planning system, according to an independent review. bit.ly/planner1021-selfbuild
Viability assessments exert increasing influence on local planmaking, study finds Viability assessments for housing sites are increasingly being ‘front-loaded’ in planmaking and used to judge the soundness of local plans, according to latest research. bit.ly/planner1021-viability
Government allocates billions to affordable housing funds The government has allocated the sum of £8.6 billion in affordable housing funding. The money is part of the £11.5 billion Affordable Homes Programme. bit.ly/planner1021affordablehousing
3
Nottingham City Council has granted planning permission to plans for redevelopment of the city’s former Royal Mail sorting office into a 692bed student living development. bit.ly/planner1021studentNottingham
4 Study accuses England’s planning system of ‘perpetuating’ racial inequality
5 6
England’s planning process is reinforcing racial inequality despite having the clear potential to support ethnic minority residents, according to major research by Heriot-Watt University’s Institute for Social Policy, Housing, Equalities Research. bit.ly/planner1021-racialstudy
SNP and Greens join forces over environmental policy The Scottish Government and the country’s Green Party parliamentary group have agreed to work together over the next five years to ‘build a green economic recovery from Covid-19, respond to the climate emergency and create a fairer country’. bit.ly/planner1021ScottishGreens
7 8 9 10
Battery storage facility approved near Leeds A battery storage facility comprising a substation and control units has been granted planning permission by Leeds City Council under delegated authority. bit.ly/planner1021batterystorage
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03/09/2021 11:59
LEADER COMMENT
Event Impact of hybrid could change rules of engagement As we move towards two consecutive years in which long-worn attitudes to workplace location have come under serious questioning, what might the knock-on effects of these changes in business behaviour have on planning? ‘Hybrid’ working – an acceptance that offices are just one of several locations in which knowledge work can be conducted – looks set to have repercussions for a range of built environment issues. A workforce less tethered to the routine commute will ultimately demand different things of future transport infrastructure; discussions already held this year have considered the viability of existing plans for roads and rail, devised as they were in pre-pandemic times. Then there is the impact this evolving relationship between employers and employees could have on
Martin Read city and town centre office space. Representatives of city centre businesses surveyed this year say that they expect to be downsizing their corporate footprint. One view posits that more organisations will take up this vacated corporate real estate, leading to ongoing demand for similar amounts of city centre space; but another suggests that organisations will seize the opportunity to boost their environmental credentials – or reduce their sustainability
responsibilities – by downsizing permanently. This latter scenario could also see firms relying more on third spaces in which to have more and smaller local presence, to the benefit of both clients and employees. All of which thinking feeds into the work of the government’s High Streets Task Force. This body was set up during Theresa May’s administration, charged with improving workplace equality by understanding the barriers preventing employers from offering, and individuals taking up, flexible working options. Although the pandemic helped to tear down many of those barriers, the task force got a second wind back in February when it was additionally charged with seeking to understand
and support “the change to ‘hybrid’ and other ways of working which are emerging because of the pandemic”. There is also, potentially, a community engagement angle: 2020 and 2021 have seen the ways in which groups of employees come together, to work or socialise, changing dramatically with constant communication within workgroups. Might this newly acceptable digital discourse in the corporate world bleed into stronger engagement on local planning proposals? If these past two years have taught us anything, it’s that longsought changes in behaviour can indeed come about.
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LO U I S E B R O O K E S M I T H O B E
O Opinion
Wheel a while in my chair Ever put yourself in the place of someone else? Or gone undercover? Or done the ‘swap roles at work’ thing where the top-level executives have stepped down from their ivory towers and become cleaners for the day? It’s the closest I can think of to explain my recent experience of caring for someone in a wheelchair. It’s an eye-opener. Those of us who have had kids know about the tribulations of prams and pushchairs. What parent hasn’t been frustrated to the point of ploughing through a crowded pavement with an expression of “Excuse me, small child and fraught adult coming through!” It’s amazing how quickly you can turn a Mothercare accessory on wheels into a lethal weapon when a small child is screaming. But when you are in control of an adult – a big, heavy person who has used all their strength, and most of yours, to get into a wheelchair for a trip out, then it’s another level of experience. Only then do you realise how crap our public highways and byways and town centres can be for disabled people. All the ‘planning best practice’ in the world goes down The Swanee. The most attractive designs on a plan become ludicrous assault courses. Open spaces turn into vanity projects rather than practical spaces that have been truly designed with everyone in mind, rather than just the able-
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bodied. Wheelchair users get thrown the odd ramp and the visually impaired might get a few Braille signs, but my experience in recent weeks has opened my eyes to the challenges a growing number of our community face. Imagine the scenario; it may be elderly relative or a friend who is wheelchairbound and you want to make it a special day. You’ve managed to get them into a car and you’re off to town to visit the shops, a local hostelry and perhaps an art gallery. All bodes well and the traffic is light. You have their blue badge, and you are cruising the town centre for the disabled spaces that were there a couple of weeks back. But the regeneration bid the council was so proud of has been successful and instead of well-placed disabled parking bays, a pocket park
“YOU HAVE THE EXCITEMENT OF UNEVEN PAVING SLABS AND A DEARTH OF DROPPED KERBS” has eaten them up. You then find that the two dedicated disabled user spaces, a little farther away, have a council van and trailer parked up next to some roadworks installing some street art. Frustration grows, you end up parking in the expensive multistorey with a tortuous journey to street level for a wheelchair and pusher, in a cramped lift amid the aroma of urine. Then you have the excitement of uneven paving slabs and a dearth of dropped kerbs. The anxiety of your charge becomes more vocal when you nearly lose him
to an unplanned forward somersault that Simone Biles would have been proud of. The ramp you have used to get into the café has a hidden extra inch drop to the pavement that you misjudged on the way out. Having scored in the gymnastics, it’s time for the slalom through the one high street department store left trading. And so, on to the gallery for the highlight of the afternoon. Except the lift is out of action and the logistics of getting yourself and your 15-stone companion up the previously attractive Victorian staircase is like scaling Everest. Without even trying to find a working disabled loo, you head home, exhausted. So I suggest that all those architects, urban regeneration specialists and planners who want to make their town centres inclusive and attractive should spend some time in or pushing a wheelchair to experience all this first-hand. It might mean that ‘right-on’ street art, ramps, curbs, disabled facilities and pop-up parks end up working better for anyone who is unable to stand on their own two legs.
Dr Louise Brooke-Smith is a development and strategic planning consultant and a built environment non-executive director I L L U S T R AT I O N | Z A R A P I C K E N
09/09/2021 16:27
Quote unquote FROM THE RTPI AND THE WEB
“We should be slamming on the brakes, not hitting the accelerator with yet more fossil fuels” FRIENDS OF THE EARTH CLIMATE CAMPAIGNER TONY BOSWORTH MAKES HIS POSITION ABUNDANTLY CLEAR AS THE PUBLIC INQUIRY Q INTO THE PROPOSED NEW CUMBRIAN COAL MINE BEGINS
“just because new ing ways of thinking ly don’t fit easily ve with how we’ve ing evolved planning and design, all on the more reason man to use our human gifts for reason, imagination and cooperation to evolve it again” SCOTT CAIN, CO HOST FOR THE ACTIVE TRAVEL SUMMIT, ON THE NEED TO ‘THINK BIG’ ABOUT 15 MINUTE CITIES AND 20 MINUTE NEIGHBOURHOODS
“Iff we “ “I w are are going to achiev eve an ambitious ev achieve transformation of our relationship with biodiversity — one that sees us living in harmony with nature by 2050 — we need to put tree species conservation at the heart of work in ecological restoration” ELIZABETH MARUMA MREMA, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY OF THE UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION ON BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY, RESPONDING TO ITS STATE OF THE WORLD’S TREES REPORT
“With consistent long-term national policy and a coordinated approach across government, local councils can work alongside their communities to take bold climate action and deliver wider benefits such as warmer homes, better health and secure green jobs”
“The construction industry is fast becoming a victim of its own success. Supply chain problems are no longer just project speed bumps; they’re applying the brakes to new orders as well”
ASHDEN’S CEO HARRIET LAMB EMPHASISES HOW COUNCILS CAN CONTROL KEY SECTORS IN THE PUSH TO DECARBONISE
“Government should be refusing to buy internal combustion engines, promising greater tax benefits, and approving planning reforms for charging points”
I M AG E S | I STO C K / S H U T T E RSTO C K
MARK RICHARDS, PARTNER AND CO LEADER OF THE ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT & INFRASTRUCTURE TEAM, BCLP
“The architect investigated what he could do to layouts when we were no longer having to design for cars – and it was astonishing. We now have this mini-Venice in Nottingham. We just don’t see, really, how much our residential layouts are driven by the need to accommodate some meaningless parked cars.”
GARETH BELSHAM, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL PROPERTY CONSULTANCY NAISMITHS, DISCUSSING THE AUGUST SLOWDOWN IN CONSTRUCTION OUTPUT GROWTH AS DETAILED IN THE LATEST UK CONSTRUCTION PMI DATA
PHIL JONES, FOUNDER OF PHIL JONES ASSOCIATES AND ADVISER TO GOVERNMENT ON ACTIVE TRAVEL INFRASTRUCTURE
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B E S T O F T H E B LO G S
O Opinion
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Graham Biggs is chief executive of the Rural Services Network
Levelling up is failing to solve the rural housing and planning crisis
The government has announced a range of new funding mechanisms and plans for postCovid recovery, to support its ‘levelling-up’ agenda. These have included a shake-up of the planning system through the planning bill, the Levelling Up Fund and the Community Renewal Fund, Towns Fund and the proposed UK Shared Prosperity Fund. The case for fair funding for public services in rural areas predates the pandemic and urgently needs to be addressed. There are huge challenges nationally, with the availability of affordable housing one of the biggest. An influx of spending won’t change things overnight, yet the question is whether these mechanisms are being targeted appropriately. Our research shows they are not, and that proposals for reforming the planning system will fail rural areas. Our recent report, Towards the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, reveals that the geographical prioritisation of the government’s allocation of funding for levelling-up proposals favours nonmetropolitan urban locations, while rural areas of similar need are overlooked. Rural towns frequently serve a far wider geographical area and provide the same functions as larger
Félicie Krikler is a director at Assael Architecture
What is ‘beautiful’, ‘attractive’ or ‘popular’, anyway?
towns. At present, just 18 rural districts are on the government’s priority list of 123 local authorities. If rural standards of living were properly accounted for, the number would be 27. It’s not just this fund that is failing to meet needs in rural areas. Proposals for zoning and a national infrastructure levy risk leaving many rural communities with little or no affordable homes at all. If rural areas are to thrive, local planning authorities should be able to decide the quotas for and the tenure of affordable housing, based on local needs. Government soending fails to unlock the opportunities rural areas can offer. Levelling up funds need to be allocated where living standards and economic opportunities are lowest – regardless of whether these are in the North or South, in towns, cities, conurbations or countryside. If government economic and structural development funds were allocated on the basis of local real incomes, there would be a clearer line of sight from the levelling-up objective through to action on the ground. And more rural locations would benefit from a fairer distribution of national funds. Levelling up will be meaningless if rural housing needs are not also addressed. It’s time for a rethink.
“LEVELLING UP WILL BE MEANINGLESS IF RURAL HOUSING NEEDS ARE NOT ALSO ADDRESSED”
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2 BLOG
BLOG
Reforming a ‘culture of mediocrity’ is at the heart of the government’s reactionary plans for the National Model Design Code. New development ought to be beautiful, green, and considered in both character and style. It’s a popular aspiration, appealing to a public united against modern ‘brick boxes’. The only problem is a critical one; who defines what’s ‘beautiful’, ‘attractive’, or ‘popular’, anyway? The government speaks volumes about how local design codes should reflect the rich diversity of our architectural preferences, yet its idea of ‘beauty’ is coloured by a distinctly Victorian typecast. In its vision for verticality, expressed through tall windows and porches, traditional materials, and terraces, the government ought to be wary of their stylistic appropriateness in distinctly local settings. Modern architecture which embraces and adapts tradition, but is not altogether led by it, shouldn’t be ignored in favour of merely replicating past precedent. We must ask ourselves what we want out of new housing. Greater emphasis on decoration and detailing over simple, but high-quality, materials does not necessarily precipitate the conservation areas of tomorrow. Many standard
bearers of ‘beauty’ today, like the Peabody housing estates of the late-19th century, used standardised designs to great success. Repetition is not incompatible with this agenda, but low quality is. Giving legitimacy to this more fixed definition by leaning on what’s ‘provably popular’ reduces scope for flexibility in design. Rather than driving standards of quality, new policy risks building-by-prescription, diminishing the appetite of more adventurous architects to introduce local-led concepts for want of planning consent. Was this rigidity what the ‘fast track for beauty’ had envisaged? We didn’t build places now considered pinnacle ‘beauty’ through continuity and acceptance alone. The evolution of our built environment is a deeper story of trial and error, competing visions and tastes. What’s ‘attractive’ ought then to be tested in the crucible of public opinion, rather than stringently defined by it. That means providing more avenues for community involvement in the design process, and a requirement to show how design adopts features of its local environment. Policy that makes this easier would serve the objective of making beauty central to the planning system.
"THE EVOLUTION OF OUR BUILT ENVIRONMENT IS A DEEPER STORY OF TRIAL AND ERROR"
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Have your say Would you like to see yourself in these pages? Get in touch by email – editorial@theplanner.co.uk Topical, inspirational, angry or amusing – we consider all relevant comment
3 BLOG
Chris Hemmings is associate partner with Carter Jonas
Is government’s 10% target for self and custom-build homes realistic?
The government has welcomed the Bacon Review into self-commissioned new homes, suggesting that 30,000-40,000 new homes a year could be self and custombuild. This is a threefold increase on existing levels of self-building and would represent at least 10 per cent of the government’s target of 300,000 homes built a year. To boost supply of self and custom-build plots, will the government now set a national target of 10 per cent for all authorities to deliver? A selfcommissioned home involves a person organising the design and construction of their own home. For self-build projects, this involves a person purchasing a single plot and employing an architect and contractor to design and build the house to the individual’s specification. For custom-build homes, this could take the form of purchasing the land and foundations from a developer to the individual’s specification or purchasing the plot and the shell of the building, through to customising an existing house type in terms of the internal layout, fixtures and fittings, and/or minor changes or upgrades to the exterior. As most housebuilders are volume-driven and rely on
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Hilary Satchwell is director of Tibbalds Planning and Urban Design
Good design has a process – let’s follow it
pace of delivery, requiring a set proportion of self and custom-build homes could have a negative impact. For example, with custom-build a volume housebuilder can use its own architects and building contractors to ensure the style is in keeping with the wider scheme and can be delivered on time; with a purchased selfbuild plot there is less control on what is delivered and when. The market perception of a scheme could be affected if self-build plots remain undeveloped or are not finished to a sufficiently high standard. There would also be a cost implication involved in managing a number of third-party self-build contractors on site. In time, more SME developers may enter the custom-build market to work with volume housebuilders, while modern methods of construction could also play a role in increasing delivery rates and the range of customisation available. But in the short term greater financial support may be required to deliver a set target; or, in the absence of this support, housebuilders could seek to mitigate any rise in costs through fewer planning obligations, including affordable housing.
“THE MARKET PERCEPTION OF A SCHEME COULD BE AFFECTED IF SELFBUILD PLOTS REMAIN UNDEVELOPED”
Following the publication of an updated NPPF where so many things hinge on the term “welldesigned”, what stands out for me is how much of the discussion isn’t about the actual wording, but more about what people think it says – or even what they might want it to say. Rhetoric about traditional design is sometimes seen as a shortcut to well-designed places but the reality is more complex and often oversimplified. Well-designed, beautiful places start much earlier than architectural elevations, bricks and mortar. Used well, the National Model Design Code (NMDC) and National Design Guidance give us a strong base and should bring about higher standards, especially when supported by good local guidance that is driven by each area’s defining characteristics, needs and aspirations. More importantly, these places come from an aligned design and planning process that moves from strategy to detail in a logical sequence. They have a clear vision from early on that drives forward the design and that follows all the way through, and they come about with careful consideration of a range of views and issues. Understanding of these
characteristics is not as widespread as we think, but there are useful examples setting out how a coordinated design process can work. Ahead of the NMDC, Bradford’s design guidance brought together design and planning in a workable manual – starting with defining the brief and working through creating a neighbourhood and making a home, before going into more detail. Local people and engagement need to sit at the heart of new plans, and applicants must build the community holistically, ensuring it remains fit for generations to come. We need wellresourced local authorities with design officers or advisers at both policy and guidance stage, as well as through regulatory processes, for this to work. We need the Office for Place to move forward the discussion at national level, and we need developers and landowners to engage with the concerns people have for the places delivered on their doorsteps. As an industry, we need to understand which parts of the debate relate to apprehension about change and how much is about developments that do not meet residents’ needs.
“WELLDESIGNED, BEAUTIFUL PLACES START MUCH EARLIER THAN ARCHITECTURAL ELEVATIONS, BRICKS AND MORTAR”
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INTERVIEW: PHIL JONES
B ENEATH BLUE SK IES
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CIVIL ENGINEER, TRANSPORT PLANNER, URBAN DESIGNER – PHIL JONES IS A SELFCONFESSED ‘BLUESKY’ THINKER WHO TELLS SIMON WICKS HOW A REVISED HIGHWAY CODE COULD TRANSFORM TRANSPORT PLANNING
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he Conservative ideology is that it’s quite strong about choice, isn’t it? The government is not here to lecture people, we are not a nanny state, we are here to enable people to do what they want – and people like to drive. So there’s a tension on the current decarbonisation strategy that seems to say ‘Yeah, we can carry on, business as usual – you just charge [electric cars] instead of filling up’.” Phil Jones is into his flow. The civil engineer turned transport planner and urban designer is on to a favourite subject. “But there was a really interesting article from Professor Phil Goodwin of UCL about traffic forecasts,” he goes on. “He said the government is following this logic that the traffic is going to grow by 45 per cent by 2050, or whatever it is, and he said that can’t happen. Even if we continue with electric cars, that amount of roadbuilding, carbon emissions, that amount of embodied carbon – you know, business as usual – if we try to go along that trajectory, the climate crisis will hit us. “We won’t be able to achieve that level of growth because there’ll be catastrophic climate change. We won’t get that level of car traffic because the economy will be shot and we’ll all be eating rats or whatever. “Or,” he continues, hitting the point, “we take a more enlightened approach and we don’t get to that future because we choose not to. We invest in other forms of transport. Either way, that business as usual future doesn’t exist, because it can’t exist. I thought that was really quite profound.” There are moments in my interview with Phil Jones – an ebullient man – where he is almost despairing about the politics
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surrounding transport and transport investment. He repeatedly stresses that we won’t meet our carbon goals unless we change our behaviour. Changing behaviour involves changing cultures, laws and guidance, the design of places, minds and, in some cases, ideological positions. It could cost some politicians some votes. But not to acknowledge the need for change and to pursue it is a pathway to catastrophic failure. We could almost end the interview here, with this fundamental point distilled. But we’re supposed to be talking about the revised Highway Code, in which Jones has had a significant hand.
Recoding the road Jones, who founded Phil Jones Associates in 2003, is a chartered civil engineer who works at the meeting point of engineering, transport planning and urban design. He has authored or co-authored practitioner manuals and guidance notes for the UK, Scottish and Welsh Governments. He’s sat on design review panels for HS2, Highways
England, the Design Council, Transport for London and is a member of the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation (CIHT) Urban Design Panel. He is one of the go-to people when it comes to active travel infrastructure. It was almost inevitable that he should be involved in recent revisions to the Highway Code. The opportunity arrived through British Cycling’s Turning the Corner report (which he co-authored) and his engagement with the Walking and Cycling Alliance, which responded to the government’s consultation on the code with a paper co-written by Jones, Joe Irvin of Living Streets, and Roger Geffen of Cycling UK. Responding to a prompt by thentransport minister Jesse Norman, they devised a tripartite hierarchy of road users. The first of these is now a central pillar of the code. “H1 is this ‘hierarchy of responsibility’, which says the person that can do the most harm has the greatest responsibility,” Jones explains. “The Road Haulage
“IF THE PUBLIC'S ATTITUDE IS VERY PROCAR, ARE COUNCILLORS GOING TO PUSH AGAINST THAT? IF YOU’VE GOT OFFICERS WHO ARE VERY RISKAVERSE, DO THEY INFLUENCE COUNCILLORS WHO MIGHT WANT TO DO SOMETHING MORE RADICAL?”
Highway Code revisited The UK government consulted on proposed changes to the Highway Code between July and October 2020. At the end of July 2021, it announced forthcoming changes to the code: n Rule H1 (for all road users) ensures that those road users who can do the greatest harm have the greatest responsibility to reduce the danger or threat they may pose to other road users. n Rule H2 (for drivers, motorcyclists, horse riders and cyclists) creates clearer and stronger priorities for pedestrians, particularly at junctions, and clarifies where pedestrians have right of way. n Rule H3 (for drivers and motorcyclists) places a
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requirement to give priority to cyclists when they are turning into or out of a junction, or changing direction or lane. Once agreed by Parliament, the code will be updated online and in print. “You can be sceptical and say the Highway Code itself doesn’t change anything,” says Jones. “But it’s still important because it’s a kind of gateway. My interest is a lot around designing infrastructure. Very often there is a pushback from highway authorities, in particular, over designing infrastructure that gives pedestrians and cyclists priority across side roads. They say, ‘But it’s not really clear who’s got responsibility’... and
‘If things go wrong and it’s not clear who’s responsible and it could be held that our design has encouraged people to do something that’s unsafe, we can be held liable. So we’d rather err on the side of caution by not giving pedestrians and cyclists priority’. “Now, you can point to the Highway Code and say ‘It’s very clear. If something goes wrong, it’s very clear who’s at fault. And it’s not us. It’s not the highway authority at fault. You’ve designed something that’s in accordance with the Highway Code, it reinforces the behaviours that the Highway Code recommends. And if somebody disregards it, that’s clearly their fault’.”
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INTERVIEW: PHIL JONES
CU RR I CU L U M VI T AE Born: Tipton Education: BSc civil engineering, University of Surrey 1980
19801986 Atkins (graduate), Humphries and McDonald
19861999 Senior engineer and associate, Halcrow Fox
1999 2003 Technical director, WSP Development
2003present Founder and chairman, Phil Jones Associates
20062011 Enabler, CABE
2007 Co-author, Manual for Streets for the UK Department for Transport
20092019 Design review panel member, MADE
2009present Design review panel member, Midlands
2010 Adviser, Designing Streets: A Policy Statement for Scotland
2012present Design Council expert
2013present Panel member, Northern Ireland ministerial advisory group for architecture and the built environment
2016 Co-author, Turning the Corner, British Cycling
20192020 Chair, 20mph and Pavement Parking Task Forces, Welsh Government Pro bono joint author, draft Highway Code updates for the Walking and Cycling Alliance
2020 Co-author of DfT's Local Transport Note 1/20 on Cycle Infrastructure Design
2021 Member, High Streets Task Force
Association is not particularly keen on that because they’re the ones at the top, but it’s really hard to argue with the principle that why wouldn’t a petrol tanker driver have more responsibility than a child cyclist? “H2 is about pedestrians and strengthening rules around pedestrians, and H3 is around cyclists, where we get the turning the corner thing.” The “turning the corner thing” is a shift in priorities at junctions to favour cyclists over cars. It’s modelled on Danish law, which made a strong impression on Jones and Chris Boardman, Manchester’s transport commissioner, during a study trip to Copenhagen. H2 similarly prioritises pedestrians at junctions over cyclists, cars and others. The reforms create an explicit hierarchy of priority that puts the most vulnerable road user in any scenario at the top of the pyramid and places the greatest duty of care towards others onto the shoulders of the least vulnerable. Jones believes that this change to the code could accelerate both behaviour change and the creation of more pedestrian and cycling-friendly infrastructure. The way that we use our I M AG E | R IC H A R D L E A H A I R
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roads, he argues, is not inevitable or immutable, but can change. “I’m just about old enough to remember when zebra crossings didn’t have zigzag markings,” Jones offers. “But they came in because of a need to control parking on the approach to zebra crossings and make them more conspicuous. When they came in, there were public information films that taught people how to do this, so we changed, we modified our behaviour. “So if we start doing continuous footways and cycle tracks that have priority over side routes, people will begin to understand how to behave. But how do you take that first step? If a highways authority is reluctant to do that, maybe the Highway Code just gives them the nudge to start putting this stuff in.”
Barriers to change The case for giving greater space to walkers and cyclists in built-up areas has been gathering momentum. It’s even government policy to encourage local authorities to trial ‘low-traffic neighbourhoods’ with government funding. These have been controversial to some – to the extent that the
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INTERVIEW: PHIL JONES
government has threatened to withhold other funding from authorities that pull their pilots prematurely. Roads, and the rights they are understood by various parties to enshrine, are profoundly contested spaces. Changing the way we design and use them, even if the evidence suggests it is beneficial to most or all of us, is almost inviting a scrap. This is where politics complicates matters, says Jones. “You’ve got public, you’ve got elected members, and you’ve got professionals, and they all kind of potentially reinforce each other. If the public’s attitude is very pro-car, are councillors going to push against that? If you’ve got officers who are very riskaverse, do they influence councillors who might want to do something more radical? It’s an interesting, dynamic relationship.” He continues: “I read a quote the other day from, I think, the leader of Worcestershire County Council, who said something like ‘Why would we invest in cycling around here? Why would we take away from cars around here? Because nobody cycles’, which is completely the wrong way round. The reason nobody cycles is because it feels very unsafe. Because he doesn’t see people on bikes and assumes this is not a place where people want to cycle, he’s equating the actual behaviour with desired behaviour. A lot of us believe – and there’s evidence for this – there’s a huge suppressed demand for cycling.” The only way to bring that demand to light, however, is to instigate changes that might reveal it. Do we start with the chicken or the egg? Other barriers to change include the understandable caution of highways engineers and authorities who fear being held liable for accidents that may be related to road design. Jones has two suggestions for overcoming this: one, the Highway Code change, is already accomplished (see ‘Highway Code revisited, p20). The second is a radical reconfiguring of the statutory responsibilities of highways authorities. “What is the highway authority for, legally? What they’re actually responsible for is not climate change or public health or anything; it’s about keeping the traffic moving. It’s about maintaining the roads in a fit state, reducing casualties. They’ve got lots of powers, but only a few duties. “If we want highways authorities to be held accountable for doing different things, we have to legally give them the duty to
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do different things. We are probably now overdue for a new highways act that might begin to widen what highway authorities are for and therefore what highway engineers are for. And then you might begin to see a change in behaviour…”
Such “super advocates” who are “inside the system” are integral to change, Jones suggests. “It’s been really interesting to see people like Lee (Waters) who have gone from campaigner to decisionmaker. Increasingly, I realise that, as professionals, as advisers, and techie people, we can take things so far. But Super advocates ultimately, all of this is political. It’s ‘What Jones notes that the average car occupancy kind of future do you want?’ As planning is around 1.2 people – “very inefficient professionals, transport professionals, are in space terms”. Removing cars from the we comfortable to be in that arena?” design equation frees up significant space. Although he’s an “incurable optimist”, “How much space is taken for car Jones is also an engineer, his idealism parking? It’s huge!” Jones declares. “We tempered by practicality. Change will can jack up densities. I did a design review happen but may require a “constituency for a development team in Nottingham of dissatisfied people” to push it through. about a year ago and they were looking at “I think it’s going to be two steps forward, the effect of moving the car parking out one step back. But the logic is so strong, of the residential area and putting in a and climate change…” car barn. The architect investigated what Above all, Jones he could do with layouts possesses an almost when we were no longer “I’M JUST ABOUT boyish enthusiasm having to design for cars and OLD ENOUGH TO and inquisitiveness. it was astonishing. We now REMEMBER WHEN When I ask what he have this mini-Venice in ZEBRA CROSSINGS did on his summer Nottingham. DIDN’T HAVE holiday, he surprises “We just don’t see really ZIGZAG MARKINGS. me by explaining that how much our residential BUT THEY CAME he spent a week at a layouts are driven by the need IN BECAUSE OF A workshop where he to accommodate so many NEED TO CONTROL built a melodeon, a parked cars.” PARKING ON squeeze box instrument Although he acknowledges THE APPROACH similar to an accordion. that some people will TO ZEBRA He jokes that he’s a ignore the evidence of “frustrated” musician, benefits generated by such CROSSINGS.” having learnt to play a schemes, he is encouraged number of instruments by work going on around to a particular standard the UK. He’s full of praise for but never going further. Waltham Forest, where the But you might also implementation of active say that once he’s worked out how an travel infrastructure has been well thought instrument works – ie, his engineering out. Then there is Manchester, under the brain has worked out the solution – he guidance of Chris Boardman. feels a need to move on to another Jones agrees that the active travel challenge. The business, he says, works commissioners in devolved and combined because he is able to think strategically authorities have a significant role as chairman while his joint managing in leading the transition from a cardirectors Nigel Millington and Mark dependent public realm to one that is Nettleton focus on the practicalities. PJA more people-centred. Andrew Gilligan, is now 100-strong and has seven offices, for example, instrumental in the walking from its Birmingham HQ (Jones maintains and cycling infrastructure in London, pleasing hints of Black Country in his is now influencing central government accent) to Melbourne. thinking; Boardman, Sarah Storey and “They are tremendous,” he says. “Really, others are affecting other other English they manage the business far better than regions; Scotland has an active nation I ever could. And it frees me up to do this commissioner in Lee Craigie; in Wales, Lee more kind of blue-sky stuff. Brilliant.” Waters, formerly chief of Sustrans Cymru and deputy minister for economy and transport, now deputy minister for climate n Simon Wicks is deputy editor of The change, has been making things happen. Planner I M AG E | R IC H A R D L E A H A I R
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A road to nowhere 24
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THE GOVERNMENT’S TRANSPORT DECARBONISATION PLAN IS BILLED AS THE FIRST IN THE WORLD. SOME, HOWEVER, FEEL IT IS LIGHT ON BOTH DETAIL AND SUPPORTING POLICY WHILE BEING OVERLY RELIANT ON CARS EVOLVING. HUW MORRIS REPORTS
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hen he reflects on transport’s role in meeting net-zero carbon emissions, Martin Griffiths is not someone who pulls his punches. “The country will not deliver on its ambitions by grand strategies or technology change alone,” he says. “We need radical behaviour change and incentives to reward the right choices to make net zero a reality. We need to be more honest about the scale of the challenge and the changes we will need to make to how we live now.” As chief executive of Stagecoach, one of the UK’s leading public transport providers, Griffiths has a point. His company has just unveiled a long-term sustainability strategy to become carbon-neutral by 2050. The plan will see investment in new zero-emission fleets and other green technologies in the next 15 years, as well as initiatives to cut waste, boost recycling and conserve water to decarbonise the business by around 70 per cent by 2035. But Griffiths says his company can only do so much. “Governments need to get real and stop cherrypicking the easy wins. We urgently need practical changes by the national and regional governments to address contradictory policies and mixed messaging currently being sent to citizens. “We need an end to the ludicrous situation where some clean air zone plans effectively tax bus passengers making a sustainable choice but do nothing to address diesel cars contributing to the deaths of tens of thousands of people in our communities every year.” The transport sector is the largest
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contributor to UK greenhouse gas emissions, responsible for 27 per cent. While Covid-19 resulted in reduced travel, as national lockdowns encouraged people to stay at home, emission levels are returning to pre-pandemic levels. Griffiths’s views are in sharp contrast to those of transport secretary Grant Shapps. Launching the Transport Decarbonisation Plan – billed as “the first in the world” – he said its contents were “just the start” and each transport mode will decarbonise in different ways (see box). But the plan is “not about stopping people doing things”.
“THIS WOULD BE A MISSED OPPORTUNITY TO PUT IN PLACE A NEW APPROACH TO HOW WE ALL TRAVEL, WITH SOLUTIONS BENEFITING WELLBEING, HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENT”
Angus Walker, a partner with legal firm BDB Pitmans, notes this sentiment. “The principal thrust of the plan is based on people being able to continue to travel and technology will allow this to be compatible with achieving net zero; there will be no ‘demand suppression’. “In the dichotomy of approaching the future between ‘technology will always come to the rescue’ versus ‘we’re doomed unless we change our behaviour’, the government is clearly going with the former.” The government pledges to review the National Networks National
Policy Statement (NPS) because it was designated before the government’s legal commitment to net zero, the 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution, the Sixth Carbon Budget and the policies outlined in the decarbonisation plan. This is a “hostage to fortune”, says Walker. “If that’s so, why not review the ports and airports NPSs as well?”
Cars still at the heart of policy Even before the plan’s publication, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) warned that the drive to decarbonise transport focuses too much on electric vehicles (EVs). It could even lead to an 11 per cent increase in car traffic by 2050 and a 28 per cent increase in car ownership – equivalent to 43.6 million vehicles. IPPR Environmental Justice Commission chief Luke Murphy notes little extra funding to support the switch to more affordable and clean transport alternatives to cut overall car use. “This would be a missed opportunity to put in place a new approach to how we all travel, with solutions benefiting wellbeing, health and environment. We need to massively expand the provision of and affordability of clean public transport options, such as trains, buses and trams, while helping more people to regularly walk and cycle alongside a shift to electric vehicles for those that need them,” he insists. “We also need to see a firm commitment from the government to review the £27 billion roads programme, including schemes that are currently planned as well as future ones.”
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Senior Department for Transport (DfT) sources say decarbonisation is the biggest of the three “big games in town” – the other two are levelling up and recovering from Covid-19 – because it poses an “existential threat”. But they acknowledge challenges in “getting everyone to sing from the same hymn sheet” even within the department, never mind Whitehall and beyond. So, key issues have been kicked down the track. The plan is noticeably silent on new funding, a nationwide EVcharging network or reforming fares to make public transport more affordable. All eyes are on the autumn Spending Review for that. Monitoring is another cause for concern. The DfT will report on progress every five years, putting even more onus on parliamentary select committees to hold ministers’ feet to the fire.
Transport decarbonisation: key themes Polluting vehicles Vehicles make up around 20 per cent of the UK’s total emissions. In response, all new vehicles sold after 2040 must be zero-emission. The sale of combustion-engined vehicles weighing between 3.5 tonnes and 26 tonnes will be banned by 2035 and new petrol and diesel heavy goods vehicles and buses by 2040, with the government promising to electrify its own fleet by 2027. The government will consult on the introduction of a Zero Emissions Vehicle mandate (ZEV mandate) following calls by the Climate Change Committee for battery electric vehicles accounting for around half of all new cars sold in 2025 and nearly 100 per cent by 2030. Observers argue that by setting electric vehicle sales targets for manufacturers, a ZEV mandate will increase the EVs available on the market.
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Active travel The plan promises to make public transport, cycling and walking “the natural first choice” but without new policies or funding. Councils will be required to align local transport plans with climate aims and the DfT will work with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to ensure low-carbon transport is at the heart of its planning reforms, signalling a crucial shift away from new developments that entrench car-dependent lifestyles. Aviation The plan sets a 2040 net-zero target for domestic aviation and a 2050 target for all aviation emissions, largely through increasing the use of less polluting, synthetic fuels and developing new fuel and aircraft technologies, such as electric or hydrogen-powered aircraft, as well as carbon offsetting. Many within industry say these simply will not exist at sufficient scale by 2050
The plan predicts that aviation emissions could remain flat until 2050 and relies on carbon offsetting, but this is likely to be in high demand from many quarters by 2050. The plan makes no mention of bans on airport expansion or a frequent flier tax. Rail The government pledged to phase out diesel trains – accounting for around 2 per cent of the UK’s total emissions – by 2040 but more than half have yet to switch to electric. The plan promises to support the development of battery and hydrogen trains and has previously stated that new rail projects, including HS2, will align with net zero although the government has admitted to significant greenhouse gas emissions from the high-speed line’s construction. The plan promises to publish a “rail environment statement” to include air quality, biodiversity, decarbonisation and waste in the future.
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Spatial planning and net zero transport
Interim targets for transport emissions are similarly noticeable by their absence in the plan. Again, the forthcoming net-zero strategy will be scrutinised to see if it sets them. Griffiths remains unimpressed. “Our current tax system and approach to road management puts cars first and is directly resulting in higher fares for people doing the right thing and choosing greener bus travel,” he says. “The biggest opportunity to address climate change and protect our communities from extreme weather, poor air quality and the road traffic gridlock strangling our economy is not from electrifying Britain’s transport system. It is from incentivising the country to switch from cars to greener and healthier public transport and active travel.”
Latest RTPI research shows the UK’s transport has a long journey ahead to net zero. It warns that no single intervention, or even combination of interventions, will achieve the required 80 per cent reduction in surface transport emissions by 2030. Chillingly, it argues that progress in increasing journeys by active travel and electric public transport must substantially exceed the “bestpractice scenarios” that previous evidence from the UK suggests is possible. Most of all, the UK needs to think holistically about transport and housing to do so. “The sector is still fixated on ideas like EVs as a significant factor in decarbonising transport,” says RTPI infrastructure specialist Harry Steele. “While they do and will contribute to the decarbonisation of transport, the sector needs to promote and embrace a change in how we travel. “Until we approach decarbonisation holistically and embrace new ideas and policies, the transport sector will face an uphill struggle to decarbonise itself.”
A key concept will be the 20-minute neighbourhood. This means development designed to ensure that people have everything they need on their doorstep. “The UK needs a widespread and holistic behavioural shift in how we travel,” Steele adds. “We must move beyond the idea that a single policy or technology will decarbonise the transport sector and instead look at every element of travel from how we travel to why we travel and address each individual point. “The demand for individual travel must be reduced, moving people on to public transport and active travel. Through policies such as the 20-minute neighbourhood, this can be achieved by providing and planning greater transport links while ensuring communities can reach all of their local amenities and services through these methods.” Read Net Zero Transport: The Role of Spatial Planning and Placebased Solutions, bit.ly/planner1021transport
n Huw Morris is consultant editor
with The Planner
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RETROFITTING FOR NETZERO
Retro FUTURES MOMENTUM IS GROWING IN FAVOUR OF NATIONWIDE POLICIES AND FUNDING TO SUPPORT RETROFITTING BUILDINGS TO MEET NETZERO GOALS. BUT, DESPITE A STRONG CASE, GOVERNMENT IS DRAGGING ITS HEELS, FINDS MATT MOODY
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he greenest building is the one that is already built.” That’s the ethos – embodied by a phrase coined by the US architect Carl Elefante in 2007 – that has come to represent a growing movement seeking to drive down carbon emissions by retrofitting existing buildings instead of replacing them. RetroFirst, a campaign founded by the Architects’ Journal, has been steadily gathering support since it was announced in 2019. In early 2021, architects Thomas Heatherwick and Norman Foster, along with Grand Designs presenter Kevin McCloud, joined a list of 35 built environment heavyweights calling on the government to adopt the campaign’s three demands for prioritising and supporting retrofitting works: reforms to tax, policy, and procurement. Two of these three demands are relatively simple: the first calls for an end to VAT policy that requires more tax to be paid on retrofit work than demolition (see box, The case for VAT change, Page 31); the second, for all publicly funded construction projects to look to retrofit solutions first. But the third, however, is more complicated, calling for changes to planning policy and building regulations.
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It poses what is likely to become an increasingly important question: how can the planning system be changed to enable – rather than inhibit – the retrofit revolution?
Policy changes One organisation leading the way on retrofit is Grosvenor, the international property group that traces its origins to 1677. At the end of 2020, the group committed £90 million to retrofitting its grand London estate in Mayfair and Belgravia – which contains 500 listed buildings – as part of its plan to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2030. In June, Grosvenor produced a report arguing that “historic buildings can play a leading role in the fight against climate change”. To do that, however, there are issues that need to be addressed – chiefly, planning policy. “If you don’t get the highlevel policy right for heritage adaption and energy efficiency, then I think it’s very difficult for everything else to fall into place,” says Tor Burrows, executive director of sustainability and innovation at Grosvenor. “At the moment, the policy hierarchy for this is really difficult to make sense of – it’s complicated and inconsistent, and it doesn’t make it easy for developers and homeowners to retrofit historic properties.”
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What does retrofitting involve? Grosvenor’s Heritage & Carbon report points out that, at a global level, about 40 per cent of carbon comes from the built environment. Half of this comes from operational use (residential and commercial). This is “even more marked” in London, where the figure is an astonishing 78 per cent. The report observes that “roughly 80 per cent of buildings that exist today will do so in 2050 and so to achieve a net-zero position, it is clear that tackling existing stock is essential”. Within its London portfolio, which contains some 500 listed buildings, Grosvenor’s work has focused on installing better insulation, replacing gas boilers with electric heat pumps, and more energyefficient lighting. Cornwall’s ‘whole house retrofit’ scheme addresses regular housing stock and identifies 10 areas where additions or refurbishments can improve carbon performance. The £4.2 million ‘whole house retrofit’, funded partly by government, seeks to improve 83 of the worstperforming houses by: n Decommissioning chimneys n Loft insulation n Solar panels n New hot water tank n Insulation to external walls n Ground-floor insulation n Ground source heating n Temperature controls n Double glazing n Single-room ventilation and heat recovery
Heritage & Carbon, the report by Grosvenor, states: “The ambiguity and inconsistency of planning policy and guidance regarding energy efficiency in historic buildings has left a substantial amount of England’s existing building stock vulnerable to the impending climate crisis.” It proposes changes to chapter 14 of the NPPF that would create “a much stronger direct link” between heritage and sustainability, as well as the addition of policies seeking carbon reduction in all existing buildings, including designated heritage assets (but not scheduled ancient monuments). The report also calls on the government to promote the use of listed building heritage partnership agreements. HPAs – agreements Grosvenor uses thermal imaging to understand how and where its building stock loses heat
between building owners and local authorities that allow the latter to grant blanket consent for routine alteration works to repetitively designed buildings or groups of buildings – save time and money, but despite being introduced in 2013, they remain “vastly underutilised”. The Architects’ Journal campaign floats changes to national planning policy, too, including a “presumption in favour of refurbishment” as a subset of the existing presumption in favour of sustainable development under NPPF paragraph 11, and the scaling back of permitted development rights that allow demolition works without permission. From all corners, there are calls for leadership from central government on retrofit. The UK Green Building Council (UKGBC) has “joined calls from the across the industry, championed by the likes of the Construction Industry Council and Federation of Master Builders, to campaign for a national retrofit strategy” to “provide muchneeded business certainty following the damage of several stop-start policy cycles and deliver a longterm plan for achieving net-zero and securing associated green jobs”.
Local efforts The alternative to clear central leadership is confusion and inconsistency, says Russell Smith, founder of RetrofitWorks, a not-for-
See pages 30-31 for examples of retrofitting buildings to improve carbon efficiency.
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The case for VAT change
Above: The “radical retrofit” at the Institute of Physics in London. Left: Princedale Road in London was the UK’s first Passivhaus retrofit
One of the most frustrating aspects of national policy for retrofitting advocates is the rate of value-added tax (VAT) it attracts. Since the tax was introduced in the 1970s, demolition and new building work have been exempt. Retrofit and repair work, on the other hand, falls under the standard rate, which has since risen, most recently to 20 per cent in 2011. The result is a discrepancy that financially incentivises the demolition and replacement of existing buildings that could have been made more efficient
through retrofit work. The Architects’ Journal RetroFirst campaign calls for VAT on retrofitting to be lowered to 5 per cent, in line with other existing exceptions, such as the refurbishment of homes that have been vacant for more than two years, or the installation of energysaving equipment such as solar panels. Proponents argue that the resulting increase in the number of retrofit projects being undertaken would balance out the loss of government income per scheme. Others have gone further, calling for the rate to be lowered to
profit cooperative that connects people or groups that want to undertake retrofit projects with expert tradespeople who can carry out the work. Retrofit policy differs from council area to council area, and decisions are made on a case-by-case basis. This adds more confusion for householders who already need to think about which technology three authorities that won £7.7 million is the best choice, which contractors of funding from the Department for will be able to do the work, and which Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy government grants they might be eligible to pursue whole house retrofit pilot for, he says. Add to that the fact that schemes in 2020, along with Nottingham budget cuts have forced many councils to City Council and Sutton charge for pre-application Borough Council. advice, and the result is that “TO ACHIEVE The UKGBC has also “often people just don’t go A NETZERO been working to propagate ahead” with retrofit works POSITION, IT retrofit expertise among that would have shrunk IS CLEAR THAT local authorities. Through their carbon footprint. TACKLING its ‘Accelerator Cities’ Despite these challenges, EXISTING STOCK project to “catalyse action local authorities around IS ESSENTIAL” on home retrofit”, the the country are working to organisation has created make retrofitting easier for a ‘retrofit playbook’ that residents. One example is aims to aid councils Cornwall Council, which in “developing retrofit has undertaken a £4.2 policies and initiatives, million pilot scheme to through sharing best practice and make 83 of its poorest-performing guidance”. It offers tips on designing an homes warmer and greener. Its ‘whole overarching retrofit strategy, engaging house retrofit innovation’ scheme householders and landlords, financing, (WHRI) works by carrying out numerous and developing skills and supply chains. improvement works to a property at the Central government is still lagging same time – an approach that lowers behind, however, even as the fastcosts through economies of scale. approaching COP26 means its climate The whole house retrofit model has change policy is under more scrutiny been designed to be replicable, so that it than ever before. In March, its flagship can be deployed in other communities retrofit scheme, the Green Homes Grant, with similar housing stock across was scrapped just six months after it the UK. Cornwall Council was one of
zero. Although there was speculation that changes would be announced in the 2021 budget, these failed to materialise. There is a precedent for reducing retrofit VAT rates in the British Isles: in 2000, the Isle of Man was given temporary permission by the European Commission to reduce the VAT rate for property repairs to 5 per cent. After firms reported a boost in trade, this was extended and then made permanent. In 2009, the EU allowed all member states to reduce VAT on the renovation of private dwellings to 5 per cent.
was announced. The scheme, which offered grants of up to £10,000 to pay for insulation upgrades and other efficiency measures, was intended to secure improvements to 600,000 homes, but only £71 million of the £1.5 billion that had been made available was spent. The government further angered campaigners by scrapping it shortly after the 2021 budget, having missed the opportunity to announce a new programme. In August, however, business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng indicated that the government was in talks to introduce a replacement for the Green Homes Grant. Its next opportunity to do so is through the highly anticipated Heat and Buildings Strategy, which is expected this autumn after repeated delays. Whether or not the government chooses to lead on retrofitting, it seems that councils, developers and professional bodies across the country will continue working to make Britain’s homes greener, but within a policy context that does not necessarily make it the easiest or most cost-effective path to creating buildings that are future-proofed. n Matt Moody is section editor with The Planner
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The Planning DataHub concept is highly transferable and scalable to other cities
THE HUB OF THE MATTER THE PLANNING LONDON DATAHUB TAKES PROPRIETARY STREAMS OF DATA FROM ACROSS ALL OF LONDON’S 32 BOROUGHS AND OTHERS AND PLUMBS THEM INTO A SINGLE, MULTILAYERED AND EXTRAORDINARILY POWERFUL NEW TOOL THAT HAS THE POTENTIAL TO TRANSFORM THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PLANNERS AND END USERS. MARTIN READ REPORTS Award: Excellence in Tech within Planning Practice Winner: Planning London Datahub – Greater London Authority Submitted by: Atkins Limited
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WHAT IS THE PLD?
meaning it is accessible to all, giving anyone contributing an incentive to The Planning DataHub (PLD) is the continue the free flow of data from result of a mammoth undertaking to their own proprietary solutions get all of the planning authorities in into the whole. London to supply their own data on Because the data is public, it is development proposals in their area so expected that it will be used by Londonthat a comprehensive data set can be ers to understand the planning system published and maintained. In so doing, better as well as by SMEs in the planit allows for a cross-borough-border tech space for a variety of purposes. understanding of all planning data across the city which can be accessed in one place. WHAT HAS IT BEEN DESIGNED The data set is accessed through a TO DO? web interface that allows various visThe principal purpose for the GLA ualisations of the data by planners, resicollecting this information in the PLD dents and other prop tech firms seeking is so that it can monitor the impact of to turn the raw data into insight. the London Plan and borough plans on The synchronisation of links with the city. But the data is also used by the boroughs’ own systems means that the GLA for purposes ranging from envidata is updated in real ronmental monitoring and time as the planning prodemographic shift, allowcess progresses on each ing for wider infrastructure “ANYONE LIVING application. planning. ON BOROUGH PLD data also informs BOUNDARIES CAN WHO CAN VIEW NEW SCHEMES tools such as the accessible ACCESS IT? PASSING THROUGH housing register and Infrastructure Mapping ApplicaThe data set has been THE SYSTEM ON tion (IMA). made publicly available, BOTH SIDES”
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Key to the PLD data set design is its ability to inform future GLA work in the green and energy space such as LETI (London Energy Transformation Initiative), and alignment with EPC (Energy Performance Certificate) documents. The data will support the GLA’s Infrastructure Mapping Application and London Underground Asset Register projects by providing context data about planning development. The PLD is seen as a key tool to support infrastructure planning in the city, where accurate data about ‘what is to come’ has been a continuous challenge for utilities companies.
HOW DID IT COME TOGETHER? The Greater London Authority’s planning team launched the project in 2018, keen to iron out the deficiencies in the data sets available to them. Planners from across the city’s boroughs were interviewed to understand the scope of the challenge for planners, infrastructure providers and developers. The aim was to “build a network of systems to unlock information about I M AG E | I STO C K
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development proposals hidden in planning applications (often in supporting documents), turning it into data to make it open, accessible and live”. Key to all of this has been the development of application programme interface (API) links between each London borough’s differing systems so that each borough’s own data flowed into the PLD in the same way. London based #plantech firms were asked for their input to ensure that the system would create new opportunities for them. It involved the GLA and Atkins using both GLA funding and money from MHCLG’s Local Digital Fund. As well as the 32 London boroughs, the City of London and the two Mayoral Development corporations that make up the 35 Planning Authorities in London, Atkins and the GLA worked with Planning Portal tech partners including the companies IDOX, Northgate, AGILE and Ocella. Atkins and the GLA claim that the resulting data set represents the first time a single register of planning
W H AT T H E JUDGES SAID “This project was strong across all of the criteria. The data hub transfers an immense amount of information into digital data that can then be transferred into other platforms and tools. It can also be a helpful tool for strategic cross-boundary planning. The scheme is true to the principles of good plan tech and the judges are impressed that it has truly been driven by the planners themselves. This brilliant concept is also highly transferable and scalable to other cities.”
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The PLD may represent the first single register of planning applications and decisions achieved by the public sector for a city the size of London
applications and decisions across this contributing party stands to gain from size of city has been achieved by the restricting access to it, so all are incenpublic sector. tivised to contribute and maintain their Ensuring each system’s data was own input. plumbed into the PLD data set cleanly The result is a shared evidence base was more than simply moving outputs out of which a comprehensive picture around like a switchboard. Creating can be painted of what impact decithe right delivery model sion-making is having on required putting planthe way London as a city is “IT SHOULD ners at the centre of the changing. ENABLE BETTER project to manage the In how it democratises MONITORING OF work required by each access to so much data, LONDON PLAN borough. the PLD seeks to empower AND LOCAL PLAN Planners from Atkins individual residents right up POLICIES ” were involved in facilito planning policy developtating workshops with ers. Being a single register, end users to ensure that it eliminates the artificial the system’s Kibana boundaries between bordashboards (a combinaoughs so that any individual tion of charts, graphs, metrics, searches can assess how their communities are and maps) met each borough’s needs, changing and become involved in the working with the GLA to identify potenprocess of overseeing any change to tial data anomaly reports that could be their community. And at the other end, built into the system. it should enable better monitoring of London Plan and local plan policies and other key performance indicators, ultiWHAT ARE ITS BENEFITS? mately leading to more robust planning The importance of the PLD being a policymaking. publicly owned asset is that no single
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In the ways in which it seeks to strip out duplication and delay, the PLD chimes with the intent of the government’s planning white paper. Its architects see the PLD as a key milestone, describing it as a ‘foundational’ digital technology in the move from document-led to data-led planning with all its multiple view benefits. It’s been described as analogous to Transport for London supplying its data for the CityMapper app.
WHAT FRESH PERSPECTIVES DOES IT OFFER? Benefits include the automatic annual monitoring reports for planning authorities, and evidence bases that are faster to prepare. Moreover, the ability to assess the impact of local policies is reduced from up to two years down to about two months. Anyone at any step in the chain can track all activity themselves, hopefully ensuring that for planning decisions any arguments about any evidence base are reduced dramatically in terms of both variety and time taken to play out.
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A key aim was to reduce what the project team call the ‘technocratic mist’ that can surround planning
Peter Kemp, head of change and delivery, Planning, at the Greater London Authority, talks about the PLD’s development and future role “We worked closely with the growing #plantech ecosystem to consider their needs and how this new open data set can help to power the next wave of citizensupportive technology.” “What we’re trying to do is standardise the way the industry collects and presents data, allowing local authorities to maintain their own business processes.”
For residents, anyone living on borough boundaries can now view new schemes as they pass through the planning system on both sides of the boundary without needing to access two separate borough systems. A key aim was to reduce what the project team call the ‘technocratic mist’ that can surround planning. Affordable housing percentages will be easily visualisable by scheme and across the city as a whole, while the number of new homes, total height and other information will be dragged from technical drawings and made accessible for all parties.
WHAT IS THE UNDERLYING TECHNOLOGY? Theoretically, the PLD’s open-source structure allows for it to be expanded further or linked with other similarly constructed data projects run by regional and city bodies across the country, should political will allow. The PLD was built using GDS (Government Digital Service Standard) principles. Importantly, this structure allows
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for it to inform and support plan tech providers developing new solutions. (A linkage to energy certificates is one example given.)
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? Perhaps inevitably, given the extent of its scalability, the Planning DataHub remains a work in progress. In its immediate future is a project to add a live London SHLAA (Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment) layer as an open data set. The GLA also hopes to introduce tools enabling residents to be notified about development proposals regardless of which borough they live in. Further iterations of the system are being designed to include Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) data, while it has also been designed to be directly connectable with the ‘PlanBase’ project – an open-source 3D planning portal allowing residents and planners alike to review planning proposals and comment on them, essentially democratising the process.
“We’ve been making decisions in the dark, and that’s what this project really set out to drill into.” “This project involved a whole load of people and I’m still not sure how we did it.” “We don’t see ourselves as providing solution, we see ourselves as being a curator. With this data set, our role is to drive innovation and insight for the benefit of Londoners.” “What it doesn't have built in yet is an automated commencement of completions, which is something that we want to play with.”
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CASES &DECISIONS
A N A LY S E D B Y M A T T M O O D Y / A P P E A L S @ T H E P L A N N E R . C O . U K
Replacement for deposed Colston statue blocked by inspector A proposal for a temporary sculpture to be installed on the plinth of the former slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol has been rejected, after an inspector decided that it would fail to preserve the special architectural and historic interest of the listed monument. Colston’s statue was pulled down by a crowd in June last year and thrown into Bristol’s harbour. In July last year, artist Marc Quinn installed a sculpture of Black Lives Matter protestor Jen Reid on the plinth previously occupied by the grade II listed Colston statue. However, this work was installed without planning permission and was subsequently removed less than a day later. Interpolitan Ltd made two appeals against Bristol City Council’s refusal to grant permission to install the Reid statue for two years. It argued that the Colston statue had not been on the plinth for some time and was unlikely to be put back. The company said it was unreasonable and unjustified to consider the Colston statue to be present when assessing the merits of its appeals. Inspector JP Sargent said in the absence of any consent authorising its removal, the fact that the Colston Statue had been absent for some 14 months
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LOCATION: Bristol AUTHORITY: Bristol City Council INSPECTOR: J P Sargent PROCEDURE: Hearing DECISION: Dismissed REFERENCE: APP/ Z0116/W/20/3260461
did not mean it was no longer a lawful part of the designated heritage asset under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990. When an element of a listed building has been unlawfully removed the expectation is it could be put back without needing listed building consent, Sargent said. But under the act, the monument must still lawfully include the full description of
the listing, encompassing both the Colston Statue and the plinth. The inspector said the statue was erected apparently in recognition of Colston’s philanthropy, and was “a striking and attractive bronze portrait” at a scale slightly larger than life size. He also noted that the plinth is made of Portland Stone and is of a baroque style, with bronze relief tablets on each face. One of the tablets explains
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I M AG E S | A L A M Y / G E T T Y
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why the statue was erected, while the other three feature scenes reflecting aspects of Colston’s life, with the bronze dolphins at each corner alluding to his family crest. The quality of its design and detailing meant the plinth had a heritage value in its own right, he found. The monument’s special architectural and historic interest was therefore focused partly on the design detailing the Colston statue and the plinth, and “partly on the depiction of a citizen who has been remembered by some for his philanthropic acts in Bristol”. As such, its significance was artistic and historic, said Sargent. The Jen Reid Statue is a high-quality, bold portrait statue in black resin of the activist with her arm raised in a Black Power salute. As a work of statuary, “I do not doubt that it is commendable”, the inspector said, but “the Colston statue is a fundamental part of the monument”. As a whole, the monument is in recognition of Colston and “would not have been erected otherwise, and to replace it with a statue of someone else would appreciably undermine the monument’s historic integrity”. The plinth was also designed to accommodate a statue of a specific person. Without that statue, “the understanding of the plinth and its purpose is very much diminished”, the inspector continued. It would also sit in “an uncomfortable and discordant manner beneath a depiction of a different
person, as there would be a clear conflict between the tablets on the plinth and the figure it contained”. The presence of the Jen Reid Statue would therefore further harm the heritage value of the plinth and would not help the wider understanding of the historic and social context of the monument, he ruled. Although the statue would stand for two years only and would be removable, Sargent found, it would still cause harm to the listed structure during this time, eroding, “albeit slightly, the link with Bristol’s past, especially given Colston’s involvement in business, politics and philanthropy”. Consequently, he found, the works would fail to preserve the character and appearance of the conservation area and cause harm, albeit less than substantial, to its significance. Balanced against this, the inspector noted the appellant’s argument that the new installation would create a more inclusive
public realm is a portion of the “ONE OF THE by displaying city’s population TABLETS in the place of who would EXPLAINS WHY a slave trader, not agree with THE STATUE “a statue of the appellant’s WAS ERECTED, someone from contention. WHILE THE a community “Moreover, OTHER THREE that is underwhilst civic FEATURE SCENES artwork represented in REFLECTING civic statuary”. promoting ASPECTS OF Sargent women and/ COLSTON’S appreciated or people of LIFE, WITH the “depth of diverse heritage THE BRONZE the feelings” backgrounds DOLPHINS AT against may be justified EACH CORNER Colston. to redress any ALLUDING TO However, imbalance that HIS FAMILY there was little exists in the CREST” to substantiate public domain the appellant’s at large, such claim that the artwork could be new sculpture placed elsewhere would make and not the public realm more necessarily on this plinth.” inclusive and encourage The inspector concluded community cohesion, he the proposal would be commented, and this was contrary to section 16 of the not supported with firm or NPPF, as well as Bristol’s decisive evidence. core strategy and local plan, “Indeed, I was told that which seek to safeguard the numerous objections were significance of designated lodged against the Jen Reid heritage assets. Statue on the day it was on The appeals were the plinth last year. From therefore dismissed. this it can be assumed that, Huw Morris for whatever reason, there
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LANDSCAPE
C&D { C 576-home scheme’s design ‘disappointing, not harmful’
The appeal concerned the distinctive Icon Building, dating from 1989, which the appellant planned to demolish to make way for 576 homes across seven highrise blocks. “Although not of the first rank of architecture, it is nevertheless a fine building of its time,” said inspector PW Clark. The lack of demand for the building in its current use owing to its “long, thin areas of office space” was undisputed and made its demolition “inevitable”, but
the inspector still considered its loss “a matter of regret”. Turning to the replacement scheme, Clark noted that “the mere fact that one can see the development would not make it harmful”. Its effect was down to its impact on the town’s skyline, he noted. The proposal “would not be beautiful or of the highest quality, and so... not a worthy successor to the building it would replace”, he said. Clark also criticised the fact that 24 per cent of the flats proposed would “experience
No exceptional circumstances to justify 473-home AONB scheme A developer’s plans to build 473 homes in the northwestern tip of the High Weald AONB have been blocked by an inspector, who decided that the ‘huge challenges’ the council faced in providing housing were not exceptional. The appeal concerned two fields and an area of woodland within the northwestern tip of the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The appellant sought outline permission to build 473 homes on the site. A virtual inquiry met in May 2021. Considering the scheme’s landscape impact, inspector A J Mageean found that the plans would “introduce a significant area of residential development into an area of moderate to high landscape
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sensitivity”. Although design quality was “not at issue”, she continued, “the notion of relative beauty, and the fact that the appeal site is not
LOCATION: Stevenage AUTHORITY: Stevenage Borough Council
INSPECTOR: P W Clark PROCEDURE: Inquiry DECISION: Allowed REFERENCE: APP/ K1935/W/20/3255692
within deep countryside, with other areas perhaps having greater scenic beauty, is not important”, nor was the fact that the appeal site was “a tiny corner of a much larger AONB” amounting to “two fields out of some 10,000”. After analysing the council’s housing land supply in depth, Mageean found it to be midway between the two parties’ estimates, standing at 4.3 years. In the planning balance, the inspector weighed the scheme’s provision of market, selfbuild and affordable housing, biodiversity benefits and high standard of design against the significant harm she had found to the scenic beauty of the AONB. Ultimately, she concluded, “the reality is that the circumstances of the housing shortfall, including huge
substandard privacy levels”. But he noted the plan’s “considerable and tangible benefits”, which would contribute around 15 per cent of the council’s housing needs for each of the five years it would take to build, reusing a large brownfield site. Noting that other than the effect of living conditions on future occupants, the scheme’s adverse impacts “would be disappointments rather than actual harm”, he concluded that its benefits carried decisive weight.
I M AG E S | I STO C K / S H U T T E RSTO C K / A L A M Y
The demolition of a landmark office building in Stevenage to make way for 576 new homes can go ahead, an inspector has ruled, registering his ‘regret’ at the loss of the existing building and ‘disappointment’ concerning some aspects of the new scheme.
challenges around providing for affordable housing and self-build and custom-build housing, are not unusual”. Ruling that exceptional circumstances that would justify harm to the AONB did not exist, she dismissed the appeal.
LOCATION: Horsham AUTHORITY: Horsham District Council
INSPECTOR: A J Mageean PROCEDURE: Virtual inquiry DECISION: Dismissed REFERENCE: APP/ Z3825/W/21/3266503
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DECISIONS DIGEST{
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Neighbour’s witness log supports shortstay breach claim An inspector has upheld an enforcement notice alleging the use of a Covent Garden flat as “temporary sleeping accommodation” for more than 90 days a year, citing a neighbour’s witness log and da data scraped from booking website. a holiday b bit.ly/planner1021-lets bit.ly/p yp
Charityled ‘unity park’ scheme dismissed Charity led Nottingham ‘u A charity’s plans to combine land on the edge of Nottingham purchased at auction in 2018 with three public open spaces to create a 39-acre ‘unity park’ have been blocked by an inspector, who deemed the 11 homes also proposed as ‘enabling development” unacceptable. bit.ly/planner1021-unity
Locally listed Art Deco clock tower saved from demolition Plans to demolish a derelict clock tower in Watford have been rejected by an inspector, who ruled that the “striking and recognisable” building remained “a notable symbol” of the former printing industry presence in the area. bit.ly/planner1021-deco
Cattle market retirement scheme fails to rustle up approval A proposal to redevelop a busy livestock collection centre in Devon into retirement homes has been rejected after an inspector decided that the scheme would significantly harm job opportunities. bit.ly/planner1021-cattle
Housing would ‘drive a coach and horses’ through NP process Plans for 35 homes on the edge of a Sussex village that were contrary to a just-adopted neighbourhood plan have been blocked by an inspector, who commented that allowing the appeal would “significantly undermine public trust in the planning system”. bit.ly/ planner0121-np
Paragraph 80 ‘silhouette barn’ denied despite panell support Plans for a five-bedroom home e in Suffolk featuring a steel shroud laser-cut with leaf-like -like silhouette patterns did nott comply with the requirements ents of NPPF paragraph 80 (formerly 79), an inspectorr has ruled, despite a local design n review panel’s support. bit.ly/planner1021-panel
‘Clothes optional’ at incorrectly described naturist club An inspector has sided with a Dorset members’ club which had argued that the local authority’s reference to it as a “naturist facility” in the wording of a lawful development certificate did not reflect its operation on a “clothes optional” basis. bit.ly/planner1021-club
Danger from protected trees precludes home beneath
Bromsgrove urban extension granted approval for strategic growth
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Outline planning permission has been granted for a major urban rban extension to Bromsgrove after an inspector decided d that two appeals were essential to the town’s strategic growth. bit.ly/planner1021-bromsgrove
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Plans for a new home on land cut into the site of a steep hill in the South Devon AONB were blocked by an inspector, who was concerned that a “reasonable fear” of branches falling from two protected trees above the site could lead to their harm in future. bit.ly/planner1021-cliff
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LLegal landscape OPINION
Return of the tilted balance A poor consultation process by the Scottish Government means that its efforts to remove a presumption in favour of approval where the development plan is out of date have been thwarted – for now – writes Pippa Robertson
Amendments made to ‘tilted balance’ in favour of Scottish Planning Policy’s planning permission, with “presumption in favour of the same ‘tilted balance’ also development that contributes applying when a development to sustainable development” plan is out of date. in December 2020 were In December 2020, quashed by the Court of Scottish Ministers sought Session in July this year, along to tilt this balance back by with other amendments changing the wording of the made at the same presumption time. But why, and removing “THIS IN TURN and what are the any reference to RENDERED THE implications? this becoming CONSULTATION As introduced a significant PROCESS in 2014, the material MATERIALLY presumption consideration MISLEADING AND in any specific is a material SO UNFAIR AS TO circumstances. consideration BE UNLAWFUL, in planning The amendments WITH THE applications, were challenged AMENDMENTS elevated to grounds that THEREFORE ALSO included that a significant UNLAWFUL AS A material the consultation RESULT” consideration if process which a development preceded them plan is out of was unfair and date or there is that they were a shortfall in the irrational, with housing land supply. petitioners concerned that More recently, it was fewer homes would be built established that any as a result. development addressing In terms of the a shortfall in housing consultation process, the land supply would almost amendments were described inevitably contribute to as being clarifications of a sustainable development, technical and procedural and that planning permission nature which would have no should then only be refused impact on the outcome of if it would have adverse planning decisions. impacts which ‘significantly In contrast, the Court and demonstrably’ outweigh of Session found that the its benefits. amendments were in fact In other words, there is a substantive and potentially
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wide-reaching. The court also found that the statement that these would have no impact was likely to have affected responses to the consultation, as reasonable readers may have decided not to respond, or to have given a response that was predicated on the absence of any impact. This in turn rendered the consultation process materially misleading and so unfair as to be unlawful, with the amendments themselves therefore also unlawful. So what happens now? On the basis that the amendments were quashed owing to the unlawfulness of the consultation rather than because of their substance, Scottish ministers could repeat the consultation in a way that addresses the issues, and the same amendments could be remade. Meanwhile, given their short period in force, it is not possible to draw conclusions about the impact they might have had on housing delivery. Irrespective, the Scottish planning system allows for departures from the development plan where there are material planning reasons for doing so, with Scottish Planning Policy requiring decisions to be informed by principles that include giving weight to net economic benefit,
responding to economic issues, and making efficient use of existing land. The proper application of these principles arguably provides a more balanced basis for such decisions than applying a blanket presumption, and this should offer some comfort to those concerned about housing delivery in the event that the amendments are remade. There has not yet been any announcement on the Scottish ministers’ intended response to the court’s decision, so the ‘tilted balance’ is back in play – for now at least. Pippa Robertson is an environmental and planning solicitor and co-founder of Aurora Planning. She is an associate member of the RTPI
In brief Scottish Planning Policy’s “presumption in favour of development that contributes to sustainable development” was amended in Dec 2020 Ministers sought to tilt its balance away from a presumption in favour of development An appeal led to it being overturned Ministers can revisit the consultation but for now the ‘tilted balance’ is back in play
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EVENTS
CASES
LEGISLATION
NEWS
NEWS Council to rethink warehouse approval after ruling is questioned Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council’s development control committee will reconsider a full planning application for a storage and distribution warehouse on land at Oakdown Farm on the A30 near junction 7 of the M3 later this year. In April, the committee approved the application (20/02586/FUL), which features the demolition of three dwellings and outbuildings and the construction of a storage and distribution warehouse including mezzanine floor space (use class B8). However, planning permission has not been granted, the Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council explained, because the government’s Planning Casework Unit is considering a request to the secretary of state to call in the application. While this is being considered, a decision notice cannot be issued. Dummer Parish Council has written to Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council to challenge the legality of the decision. It considers there to be an error in the information given to the committee about how visible the development would be from the village. Russell O’Keefe, chief executive at Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council, said: “It is important that we are robust and transparent in our decision-making. The council has carefully considered Dummer Parish Council’s letter challenging the decision on the application and taken legal advice. We have decided that the best way forward is to take the application back to the development control committee. This is possible as a way of resolving this, as the decision notice has not yet been issued owing to the secretary of state considering a call-in request.” Unless the secretary of state calls in the application, the development control committee will reconsider it at a meeting later this year.
High Court to hear ‘pork barrel’ challenge to levelling-up fund The government’s levelling-up policy will come under scrutiny after the High Court granted permission for a legal challenge over its funding. The Good Law Project, a campaign group which has launched several legal challenges to government policy, had claimed the £4.8 billion Levelling Up Fund is “a way to funnel money into constituencies of political benefit to the Conservative Party”. It is accusing the government of “pork barrel politics” for the criteria it used to prioritise areas for cash under the fund. Forty out of the first 45 schemes to be approved under the fund in March were in areas with at least one Conservative MP. The fund has been criticised for prioritising the Richmondshire and Newark constituencies of chancellor Rishi Sunak and communities secretary Robert Jenrick while Barnsley and Salford – among the most deprived parts of the country on the index of multiple deprivation, and which have Labour MPs and councils – were ranked as a second-tier priority. The project’s analysis of a places list for allocating the funds shows 31 areas in category 1 were not ranked in the top third most deprived places in the government’s index of multiple deprivation. Of those areas, 26 are entirely represented by Conservative MPs. The project says the government failed to take account of equalities considerations under section 149 of the Equalities Act 2010 and breached the common law duty of transparency and good administration by failing to make publicly available data used for decisions behind allocating funds. Campaigners also argue that “rather than using the index of multiple deprivation or some other objective and transparent allocation measure, the government has invented a new, and troublingly opaque, set of criteria”.
ANALYSIS
LEGAL BRIEFS Cumbria coal mine inquiry The high-profile public inquiry into a potential new coking coal mine in Cumbria is expected to last until early October. Proceedings from the virtual inquiry can be watched live daily on the Planning Inspectorate’s YouTube channel. bit.ly/planner1021-mine
Council must go down JR route after permissions issued in error Swale Borough Council must seek judicial reviews to rescind planning applications mistakenly granted consent during testing of new software. A junior employee, believing they were commenting on dummy applications, observed that one, for an animal sanctuary to remain on site, was “proper whack”, reports Kent Online. bit.ly/planner1021-swale
Consultation on making Covid hospitality measures permanent The government is consulting on whether PDRs to enable England’s hospitality firms to operate in outdoor space around their venues during Covid-19 should be made permanent. This runs until 14 November. bit.ly/planner1021-hospitality
Exemption for developers in Irish housing plan ‘has no legal basis’ An exemption in Ireland’s Housing For All plan, which could see the loss of many affordable homes, has no legal basis, say experts. The housing minister says exemption for land bought between 2015 and 2021 is necessary to stave off legal challenges, reports the Irish Examiner. bit.ly/planner1021-homes
Billionaire fails to halt spaceport Billionaire Anders Povlsen, the largest landowner in Scotland, has lost a judicial review of a decision to permit a spaceport in Sutherland in Scotland. He had objected to the development on environmental grounds, reports Daily Business. bit.ly/planner1021-spaceport
Fond farewells for retiring QC Rhodri Price Lewis QC has been given a heartfelt send-off by colleagues at Landmark Chambers. A planning and environmental law specialist, he was called to the bar in 1975, and has been a deputy High Court judge and an assistant parliamentary boundary commissioner. bit.ly/planner1021-lewis
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NEWS RTPI news pages are edited by Dominic Brady at the RTPI, 41 Botolph Lane, London EC3R 8DL
Shortlists revealed for regional planning awards
HS2 Phase One Automated People Mover, Birmingham
This project, which forms part of the
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wider High Speed 2 rail scheme, was shortlisted for the RTPI West Midlands Award for Planning Excellence. The driverless transport system will connect HS2’s interchange station in Solihull through to Birmingham Airport in just six minutes. Millbay Boulevard and Associated Works, Plymouth
Millbay Boulevard is a unique infrastructure project which delivers a range of environmental benefits. The newly-completed boulevard provides a transport link between the Plymouth city centre and waterfront at Millbay. The project added 26 new pine trees and a new district heating network. It has been nominated for
the RTPI South West excellence in planning delivery award. Earth Trust: Earth Lab
Environmental charity Earth Trust has been shortlisted for the RTPI South East Award for Planning Excellence for environmentally focused classrooms. Earth Lab welcomed its first schoolchildren in June 2021 with the aim of providing immersive experiences of ecosystems that fully engage learners with the environment around them. n For more information about regional planning awards visit: bit.ly/planner1021-shortlist
I M AG E S | RT P I
The Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) has announced the shortlists for its annual regional awards for planning excellence. The shortlists include a variety of projects demonstrating some of the country’s finest planning. Projects that made the shortlists include large infrastructure schemes, state of the art housing and sustainability-focused plans. Winners of the regional awards will be announced at ceremonies in November 2021. Selected projects include:
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Editorial E: rtpinews@rtpi.org.uk
RTPI (switchboard) T: 020 7929 9494
Registered charity no. 262865 Registered charity in Scotland SCO37841
M Y V I E W O N … HOW DESIGN CODES CAN HELP PROTECT BIODIVERSITY Emma Marsh, director of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), considers how design codes es can be used to protect biodiversity and help the country ry meet its net-zero targets. The RTPI and RSPB have appointed consultant LDA Design to conduct research h in this area Nature is in freefall. This is a critical time as the scale and significance of the most pressing challenge of our age – the nature and climate crisis – is becoming ever more clear and immediate. We are at the point of having already lost more wildlife than we have left. It is critical that steps are now taken not just to protect our biodiversity, but to actively support its restoration and
recovery including within the new developments and places that we build. The RSPB therefore welcomess the opportunity to work in conjunction ction with the Royal Town Planning Institute to showcase to the development nt industry and local planning authorities how design codes and guides can be positively harnessed to create genuinely vibrant and sustainable places that contribute towards nature’s recovery. Indeed, places within which communities and nature can mutually benefit and coexist harmoniously.
n Read more about RTPI and RSPB’s project which will look at how design codes can be used to protect biodiversity: bit.ly/planner1021biodiversity
POSITION POINTS
TRANSPORT FOR THE NORTH’S DRAFT DECARBONISATION STRATEGY HARRY STEELE, INFRASTRUCTURE SPECIALIST The RTPI praises the ambitions of Transport for the North (TfN) to achieve net-zero in surface transport emissions by 2045, five years ahead of the current UK government commitment to achieve net-zero through a variety of means. Although the RTPI acknowledges the inherent legal limits of TfN and their capacity to enact changes unilaterally, there is scope for TfN to influence policy and set an example for other regions. The RTPI believes that spatial planning can play a larger role in the decarbonisation process and looks forward to working with TfN in the future to support making this a reality. Recent RTPI research highlights that there is a clear relationship between spatial planning and decarbonisation, and that only a place-based approach can deliver net-zero transport emissions and be a catalyst for better placemaking to deliver healthier, happier, more resilient communities. Read the RTPI’s full response to the consultation bit.ly/planner1021-tfn
SHORT TERM LETS DRAFT LICENSING ORDER ASSESSMENT CRAIG MCLAREN, DIRECTOR OF RTPI SCOTLAND RTPI Scotland would like to reiterate concerns previously expressed in consultation responses on proposed short-term let regulations regarding resources. The new proposed provisions will place a significant burden on planning departments resulting from the gathering evidence of local characteristics and impact, the processing of more planning applications, the submission of more appeal statements, the handling of more complaints from the public and undertaking more enforcement action. RTPI Scotland would also like to highlight the existing workforce issues in the planning system. Planning has demographic and succession challenges with a limited pipeline. Data gathered from planning authorities’ Planning Performance Frameworks indicate that that only around 9 per cent of staff in planning authorities are under 30 while over 35 per cent of are over 50 years old. Read more about RTPI Scotland’s response bit.ly/planner1021-shortlets
I M AG E S | RT P I
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NEWS
RTPI chief executive and president make first post-Covid visits RTPI president Wei Yang and chief executive Victoria Hills were delighted to make some of their first inperson events since the pandemic began
k Wei and Victoria were also delighted to present the young planner of the year award to Ryan Walker MRTPI at an event held at Coal Drops Yard, King’s Cross, London
m After visiting Lincoln Wei Yang took a trip to Nene Park, Peterborough. (From left to right: Lynette Swinburne MRTPI associate director of planning Savills, Errin Marshall, graduate planner at Savills, Matthew Bradbury, CEO of Nene Park Trust, and Andrew MacDermott, head of development at Nene Park Trust)
k In August, Wei Yang FRTPI and Victoria Hills MRTPI visited Lincoln town centre accompanied by Ursula Lidbitter, chief executive of Lincolnshire Co-op
Conduct and Discipline Decision
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against other sources that were readily available. This included whether protected species were present on the site, the ownership of the land and the date that structures had been present and then removed. The second case involved a local authority planner who had failed to take due care when assessing the nature of a development proposal.
This had led to a failure to assess properly whether a development was a major or minor application, to undertake the appropriate consultation and publicity, and to assess the information that was required to meet local and national validation requirements. The panel accepted that there were mitigating circumstances which affected the member.
In both instances the panel agreed to warn the member without naming them in the published report. n If members have any
queries concerning the Code of Professional Conduct they should contact Ruth Richards, the Institute’s Complaints Investigator, by email: ruth.richards@rtpi.org.uk
I M AG E S | RT P I
The Conduct and Discipline Panel has found that two members have breached the Code of Professional Conduct. The panel found that the first member had repeatedly shown a lack of due care and diligence by relying on information provided by their client, which was material to the proposed development, and without checking that information
I M AG E S | RT P I
09/09/2021 16:45
MEMBER NEWS
NEW CHARTERED MEMBERS Congratulations to the following planners who were recently elected to Chartered membership of the RTPI
Elected in August 2021: East Midlands Amy Hayes Clare Howe Stuart Small
Opani Mudalige
East of England Mark Balaj Katie Hogendoorn Zenab Haji-Ismail Pamela Longhurst-Pierce Iain Robertson Martin Swaffield Imogen Thompson
International Ka Ying Cheung Jiangnan Huang Wing Sum Sam Kong Sze Kong Lok Kung Lok Kung In Wai Kwok Tse Kang Mark Lim Wai Hing Tse Pak Wu Shuk Yik Tianren Yang Cheuk Man Wong Chi Fung
North East Ifeanyi Chukwujekwu Amelia Robson
Tsz Ng
South East Laura Baker Emily Hall Rebecca Hoad Nyra John Tsz Ng Harry Palmer Sangeeta Ratna Caroline Downie Andrew George Elizabeth Withall
Alice Jennison Wai Lee Emily Napier Charlotte Thomas Alasdair Thorne Reiss Sadler Ragu Sittambalam
South West Gemma Davis Marcus Evans Samantha Mason Opani Mudalige Liam Webster
Wales/Cymru Kym Scott Sian Thomas Lowri Hughson-Smith Rhodri Williams
West Midlands Leila Batchelor Stuart Crossen
North West Bryanni-May Cartledge Tamara Ettenfield Sophie Moore Leanne Turner Hannah Wild Calum Woods Fiona Huyton Jonathan Storey
London James Emblin James Lambert Conor Lennon William Philps Nina Radford Stella Rialas Anna Solomon Nyra John
Emma McKie
South East Scotland Ross Irvine Catherine Kelham West of Scotland Mark Brand John Mack
“For me, planning is so important for making sustainable places and environments whilst balancing the needs of local communities and it’s great to have recognition from the RTPI as a Chartered Member for the often challenging, but important work I have undertaken in my career so far.” – Nyra John
IN MEMORIAM Former president Andrew Thorburn passed away on 4 August 2021. He was a long-standing member of the RTPI and served as president between 1982 and 1983.
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ISLE OF MAN GOVERNMENT APPOINTMENT OF MEMBERS OF THE ISLE OF MAN PLANNING APPEALS INSPECTORS PANEL
Planning appeals in the Isle of Man are dealt with under the provision of the Town & Country Planning Development (Development Procedure) Order 2019.
The Council of Ministers is seeking to recruit a number of persons to join the panel of Isle of Man Planning Appeals Inspectors. (1) Article 3 of the Town & Country Planning (Development Procedure) Order 2019 deƓnes “planning inspector” as a person whose name appears on a list approved for the purposes of this Order by the Council of Ministers (Council is therefore required to consider and approve a list of persons to act as Planning Inspectors). Planning Appeal Inspectors act as the person appointed for the purpose by the Council of Ministers in respect of any case referred to them by the Secretariat: (i) Under the provision of Article 10 of the Town and Country Planning (Development Procedure) Order 2019; (ii) In relation to planning applications to be considered by the Council of Ministers under Section 16 Town and Country Planning (Development Procedure) Order 2019; an: (iii) Under the provisions of Article 11 and 13 of the Town and Country Planning (Registered Buildings) Regulations 2013. (2) Planning applications where persons aggrieved at decisions of the Planning Committee submit an appeal to the Minister for the Department of Environment, Food and Agriculture under the provisions of the Town & Country Planning (Development Procedure) Order 2019.
(3) Applications for development by the Department of Environment, Food and Agriculture, or for the development of land in which the Department has a vested interest, or on land which is occupied or controlled by the Department which are for determination by the Council of Ministers. (4) Applications called in by the Council of Ministers which raise considerations of general importance to the Island or for some other reason ought not to be determined by Department of Environment, Food and Agriculture. Persons who wish to be considered for appointment to the panel of Inspectors are invited to download an information pack at https://www.gov.im/co/ Alternatively hard copies can be obtained from: Mr A Johnstone, Planning Appeals Administrator, Cabinet OfƓce, Bucks Road, Douglas, Isle of Man IM1 3PN. Applications, including a current CV and how you meet the requirements of the person speciƓcation, should be sent to Mr Johnstone by Friday 22 October 2021.
Principal Planning Officer Development Management (Strategic Sites and Place Team) Salary £42,186 to £47,745 per annum Permanent post. Generous annual leave and benefits including private health care. This is a new post within a newly restructured and expanding development management section that is needed to help address a significant increase in developer and inward investment interest within the district, realise Dover’s ambitions for high quality growth and regeneration and contribute to the Council’s strategy to mitigate climate change. This is a senior role that will make a positive contribution to the shaping and delivery of the Council’s planning service. Dover District is an exciting place to come and work, live and enjoy life. The area is steeped in history, with the iconic White Cliffs, Dover Castle and the historic coastal towns of Dover, Deal and Sandwich. Leisure opportunities abound along our stunning coastline, within our vibrant and growing towns and attractive countryside, part of which includes the North Downs AONB. The district is amongst one of the most attractive and diverse in Kent and offers a stimulating and varied range of environments and opportunities within which to develop and advance your planning career. Principal Planning Officer: Reporting to the Team Leader (Strategic Sites and Place), this post will play a key role in the newly established Strategic Sites Team. Having a breadth of experience
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in processing major planning applications and negotiating S.106 agreements with minimal supervision, you will take responsibility for your own caseload and also contribute to a development team approach focused on processing pre-application enquiries and planning applications for the Council’s strategic (plan allocation/ project) sites. You will have a customer focused and proactive approach and aim to secure high quality outcomes, using PPA’s and arranging/attending Design Reviews when required and negotiating S.106 agreements. You will present cases at planning committee and at appeal and will deal with all applications in a timely way and to target. The role provides an opportunity to take on linemanagement responsibility to assist the Team Leader as required. Knowledge/experience of dealing with Urban Design, viability and other specialist issues aligned to this role would be an advantage. For an informal discussion about this post, please contact Peter Wallace at peter.wallace@dover.gov.uk or on 01304 872462.
Closing Date: 27th September 2021 Interviews to be held 5th/6th October 2021.
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CONTENT THAT'S WORTH CHECKING OUT
A digest of planning-related material. Each month our work takes us around the internet in search of additional detail for our stories, meaning we invariably come across links to items we think you’ll find educational, entertaining, useful or simply amusing. Here’s our latest batch.
What’s caught our eye Online: New from the RTPI – Research If you’ve not been a regular visitor to the RTPI website, you may well have missed out on the much clearer layout of content introduced in recent months, perhaps best exemplified by the institute’s research output, which is presented chronologically or by specific search term. bit.ly/planner1021-research
Book: Planned Urban Development: Learning from Town Expansion Schemes in the UK and Europe – Elgar Studies in Planning Theory, Policy and Practice Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd / ISBN-9781788976909 Chris Couch examines the expanded towns programmes that emerged in the em mid-20th century to mi accommodate growth ac and overspill from an densely populated urban areas. de He considers how development pressures have hit health and pr housing standards, and how a ho fresh look at the link between fre urban form and public health is urb necessary after the pandemic. ne
Book: Artificial Intelligence in Urban Planning and Design: Technologies, Implementation, and Impacts Publisher: Elsevier Science Publishing Co Inc / ISBN: 9780128239414 Prithwish Basu and Imdat As consider how the concept of AI generates unprecedented city planning solutions without defined rules in advance, a development raising important questions for urban design and city planning. The book articulates current theoretical and practical methods and suggests future directions for the meaningful use of AI.
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Book: Intercultural Urbanism: City Planning from the Ancient World to the Modern Day – Just Sustainabilities Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC/ISBN: 9781786994103 Cities are engines of innovation and opportunity that are also plagued by income inequality and segregation by ethnicity and class – divisions often reinforced by the built environment. Dean Saitta explores urban sustainability by taking an intercultural, trans-historical approach to city planning. (Available February 2022.)
Catch-up: Cornwall with Simon Reeve Cornwall and Yorkshire would appear to be the two mostdocumented counties during these pandemic times. In this particular series, presenter Simon Reeve investigates the environmental challenges facing Cornwall (and the rest of the country) looking at the marine, agricultural and rewilding projects along the way. bit.ly/ planner1021cornwall
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Podcast: The UK Housing Market Podcast Independent mortgage advisers Anish Patel and Thomas Honour survive a jarringly frenetic Radio 1 style of introduction to present these punchy guides to developments in the market. Episodes range from cladding and stamp duty holidays through to market sentiment and service charges. Patel and Honour promise to report “up-to-date information on the UK housing market as it happens”. These episodes also benefit from being mercifully short – with each typically around the 15 to 20-minute mark.
Online: Working with Brian Eno on design principles for streets Catch-up: Kevin McLoud and the Big Town Plan Thirteen years ago, Grand Designs presenter Kevin McCloud followed what was seen as an innovative community-led regeneration scheme in the former mining town of Castleford in Yorkshire. The local community worked with architects to redesign key areas of the town in the hope of that doing so would act as a catalyst for further change. This series, originally broadcast in 2008, is now available to watch on All 4’s catch-up service – allowing viewers to compare and contrast with the town as it is today. bit.ly/planner1021-bigtown
Available on the Medium platform, this intriguing piece chronicles what happened when the musician Brian Eno was asked to provide a set of design principles building on the suggestion that “the whole point of cities is culture, not efficiency”. Eno’s 10 principles are fascinating, with “Think like a gardener, not an architect: design beginnings, not endings” but one example. It’s about what we really value – strong stuff. bit.ly/planner1021-eno
What we’re planning ks: Climate Books: Adaptation – Accounts of Resilience, Self-Sufficiency and Systems Change and Great Adaptations In the Shadow of a Climate Crisis ISBN: 9781 9120 9214 7 Two new books from publisher Arkbound, with Climate Adaptation coming out a week before COP26 featuring contributions from 20 climate experts promising an ‘unflinching’ look at climate change. Great Adaptations is already out, with Morgan Phillips FRSA, co-director of The Glacier Trust, dispelling myths about climate adaptation by giving examples of good (and bad) adaptation projects.
Goodness, how is it Q4 2021 already? Clearly, the COP26 conference is set to be the big event of the autumn and we’ll be attending it live. We’re giving the editing rights for our November edition to the RTPI’s Young Planners, whose Edinburgh conference takes place immediately before COP26 in Glasgow. If you have a theme you’d like us to explore, email us in the first instance – editorial@theplanner.co.uk
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