SEPTEMBER 2014 ‘TAKING A WIDER VIEW ON LONDON’S HOUSING NEED’ // p.12 • CAN PLANNERS GET COMMUNITY RAIL BACK ON LINE? // p.26 • SANDWELL’S AWARD WINNING TEAM GIVES BOROUGH NEW LEASE OF LIFE // p.30 • INTERPRETING A CONSULTATION // p.40
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
PLANNER
THE
A NEW NORTH Fiona McCandless introduces
Northern
Ireland’s
new planning
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Shaping policy and leading on planning advocacy We stand up for planning on your behalf.
• We regularly meet Ministers, MPs, MSPs, Peers, and civil servants to discuss planning issues. ‡ :H LVVXH OHJLVODWLYH EULH¿ QJV WR LQIRUP DQG LPSURYH SODQQLQJ ODZ DQG SROLF\ • We stimulate debate through organising and attending discussions, lectures and round-tables. • We respond to policy consultations, agencies and other organisations. ‡ :H UXQ 3,3$ D QHWZRUN IRU FRXQFLOORUV LQYROYHG LQ SODQQLQJ ‡ :H FRPPLVVLRQ DQG ZULWH SROLF\ DQG UHVHDUFK SDSHUV LQFOXGLQJ WKH ¾3ODQQLQJ Horizons’ papers in our centenary year. Find out more on how you can help shape our policy positions by visiting rtpi.org.uk/knowledge
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PLANNER P 07 22
CONTENTS
THE
SEPTEMBER
20 14
NEWS
6 Let’s take planning back to basics
7 Development corporation created for Ebbsfleet Garden City 8 Housing crisis: “something’s got to give”
9 CAMRA calls for change to planning law to protect pubs 10 A rethink on retail 11 Two homes built in a day in UK construction first
OPINION 12 Chris Shepley: Wanted – one minister with a brain and an open mind
16 Bruce McVean: If you’re not creating walkable places you’re not really trying
17 Daniel Scharf: Putting the ‘country’ back into town planning
NEW HOUSING AND PLANNING MINISTER BRANDON LEWIS CLAIMS THE PLANNING SYSTEM IS FIXED
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FEATURES
INSIGHT
18 Fiona McCandless is taking over Northern Ireland’s top planning job, David Blackman reports
34 Decisions in focus: Development decisions, round-up and analysis
13
38 Legal landscape: Opinion, blogs, and news from the legal side of planning
22 For half a century planning guru Sir Peter Hall took an optimistic spirit of possibility with him everywhere, says Simon Wicks 26 The disconnect between planners and rail authorities is keeping trains off line, says Mark Smulian 30 Sandwell has been rescued from its fall into decay by its awardwinning planning team Mark Smulian reports
QUOTE UNQUOTE
“THE PUNCH AND JUDY POLITICS OF HOUSE BUILDING HAS GONE”
C O V E R I M A G E | R I C H A R D WA T S O N
16 Adam Sheppard: Permitted disorder
17 Liz Shiel: Affordable housing and the revamped SPP – what will the impact be?
30
“IT’S LIKE THERE WAS ONE LEAGUE FOR PETER HALL AND ANOTHER FOR THE REST OF US”
40 Career development: Interpreting a consultation
26
42 Plan Ahead – our pick of upcoming events for the planning profession and beyond 44 RTPI round-up: News and interviews from the institute 50 Plan B: Why we are all cyclists now
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PLAN UPFRONT
Leaderr Peter Hall - will we ever see his like again? You cannot, of course, replace someone as exceptional as Sir Peter Hall. Characters capable of transcending their own professional boundaries to effect genuine, long-term change are in short supply these days – and those that succeed are easy to identify, such is their scarcity. Seeking to isolate the reasons for Peter Hall’s success has proved fascinating for me as an outsider looking in. The planning profession has clearly benefited from Hall’s exceptional communication skills, but two things in particular stood out – the sheer energy of the man, as evidenced by his phenomenal output as an author, and the obvious affection in which he was held wherever he worked. While these are two important characteristics, they are more an indication
Martin Read of a natural capability and enthusiasm for life that would have found a home in whichever profession he'd become involved in. Had Sir Peter taken up bin collecting or chartered accountancy, you can be pretty sure he’d have racked up a similarly effusive set of eulogies to those we’ve seen since his death in July. Perhaps, then, the question we should ask now is – does today’s planning profession provide the right environment to
attract and engage future Peter Halls? Was Hall, as current RTPI president Cath Ranson suggests, a unique product out of a different time, an age when such bright minds had greater opportunity to stand out from those around them? If we’re looking for places from which visionary minds such as Hall’s might emerge, does today’s process-driven planning system measure up? Hall himself had a hand in developing today’s system – creating, as Alan Townsend of the University of Durham says in our piece this issue, a transformative “upscaling” of the practice. Maybe we should be
"PERHAPS WE SHOULD BE ASKING – DOES THE PLANNING PROFESSION OF TODAY PROVIDE THE RIGHT ENVIRONMENT TO ATTRACT FUTURE PETER HALLS?"
looking further afield. Perhaps the next Peter Hall will come from one of the emerging nations, such as India or China. Or perhaps he or she will be a product of the new generation of ‘urbanists’ – albeit an urbanist with a powerful grasp of planning. (Hall himself was writing about the rediscovery of urbanism in Europe at the time of his death, arguing for a better understanding of it.) Of course, talking about legacy and impact is one thing, wondering aloud about where ‘another’ Peter Hall might emerge is quite another. No disrespect is intended – indeed, there’s surely much to be gained from a debate around how such dynamic individuals can be nurtured or accommodated. Your thoughts are most welcome – and I’d be happy to reflect them in these pages next month. (Incidentally, next issue celebrates the RTPI’s centenary – look out for our calls for your involvement online.)
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Average net circulation 20,646 (October - December 2013) © The Planner is published on behalf of the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) by Redactive Publishing Ltd (RPL), 17 Britton St, London EC1M 5TP. This magazine aims to include a broad range of opinion about planning issues and articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the RTPI nor should such opinions be relied upon as statements of fact. All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced, transmitted or stored in any print or electronic format, including but not limited to any online service, any database or any part of the internet, or in any other format in whole or in partww in any media whatsoever, without the prior written permission of the publisher. While all due care is taken in writing and producing this magazine, neither RTPI nor RPL accept any liability for the accuracy of the contents or any opinions expressed herein. Printed by Polestar Colchester Ltd.
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NEWS
Analysis { PLANNING REFORM
Let’s take planning back to basics By Marino Donati
C
alls to streamline an over-complex planning process have been a consistent refrain in the planning sector for many years. The government’s most recent efforts to reinvigorate the housing market seem like yet another reiteration of a familiar theme. But in the context of the coalition’s Big Society ambitions and its Red Tape Challenge, the government is continuing widespread reform of planning in England that aims to give more control to communities while catalysing economic growth. The Department for Communities and Local Government’s wide-ranging Technical Consultation on Planning covers changes to neighbourhood planning, use classes, permitted development rights and environmental impact assessments.
“WE ARE PROPOSING HERE PRACTICAL IMPROVEMENTS THAT BUILD ON EARLIER REFORMS, TO HELP MORE PEOPLE BENEFIT AND, OVERALL, HELP US GET THE DEVELOPMENT AND HOUSING OUR FUTURE GROWTH DEPENDS UPON” PLANNING MINISTER BRANDON LEWIS.
Here’s a breakdown of the proposed reforms. 6
1
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NEIGHBOURHOOD PLANS
PERMITTED DEVELOPMENT RIGHTS
PLANNING CONDITIONS
More than 1,000 communities across England have applied for a neighbourhood planning area to be designated, with more than 900 requests granted by local planning authorities, says the consultation. Now the government is proposing a statutory time limit of 10 weeks for planning authorities to decide on neighbourhood designation applications. This will include removing the need for a six-week consultation period.
PROPOSED REFORMS
A third package of permitted development rights brought forward by this government aims to reduce the number of developments needing a full application. It is proposed to permit change of use from light industrial units, warehouses, storage units, offices and some sui generis uses to residential use. A wider retail use class will allow retailers to alter premises easily, although betting and payday loans shops would require a planning application.
Around half of approvals for discharge of planning conditions take longer than six weeks, estimates the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), stalling building work and increasing costs. Under the proposal where a local planning authority fails to make a timely decision certain planning conditions will be deemed to have been discharged to avoid applicants having planning permission that is not, in reality, implementable.
Consultation on the proposals runs until September 26: www.bit.ly/1y1VIWV
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CONSULTATION
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENTS EIAS
NATIONALLY SIGNIFICANT INFRASTRUCTURE
The proposal here is partly motivated by a belief that concern about legal challenges has led planning authorities to require environmental impact assessment for projects unlikely to give rise to significant effects. Developers also appear to be carrying out overcomplex environmental assessments, says the DCLG. The proposal is to raise the threshold for screening for EIAs for industrial and residential developments, avoiding unnecessary screening and EIAs for smaller schemes.
This involves making the Development Consent Orders process more flexible, creating clearer guidance on the definitions of material and non-material changes, and increasing the number of consents and licences that can be included in the orders.
Third parties, such as statutory consultees and other bodies, play an important role in the planning process, acknowledges the consultation. But consulting can add complexity, especially where centrally mandated rather than left to local discretion, says the DCLG. The proposal suggests reducing the need to consult for certain consultees on certain types of applications, to achieve a “more proportionate approach”, although better notification for railway infrastructure managers of applications near railways is proposed.
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PLAN UPFRONT The development corporation has scope at Ebbsfleet with available land, good infrastructure and local goodwill
Durkan blocks trial drill at Shale gas site
Corporation created for Ebbsfleet Garden City Communities secretary Eric Pickles has outlined plans to set up a development corporation to co-ordinate future development of the proposed Ebbsfleet Garden City in Kent. The body will be tailored to the DCLG’s goal of putting local people at the heart of shaping projects. Pickles also announced that he has appointed Michael Cassidy CBE as chairman-designate of the corporation. Previously a City of London lawyer and non-executive Crossrail director, Cassidy is currently chair of the City of London Property Investment Board. The DCLG said the new corporation would assist local authorities in solving issues that have previously held Ebbsfleet back, as well as co-ordinating investment and ensuring that development is driven forward. Pickles said: “Locally led development is the key to unlocking growth and creating the places and communities that people actively want to be a part of.” Cassidy, he said, would “work with local people to develop Ebbsfleet and
grow the garden city in the way that is right for the local area”. Cassidy added: “The development at Ebbsfleet is an exciting prospect, finally bringing to life an area where progress has been slow for many years and delivering the high-quality homes and jobs that local people need.” The DCLG launched a consultation in mid-August looking for views on the area in which the Ebbsfleet Development Corporation will operate, the planning powers it will be granted, and the composition of its board. n www.bit.ly/1kVYGMs
Role of the Ebbsfleet Development Corporation Acting as a catalyst – analysing the requirements of the area, bringing parties together and persuasion. Direct investment – the development corporation will be able to invest directly in infrastructure that unlocks development. Planning powers – the ability of the Ebbsfleet Development Corporation to determine planning applications will be a key mechanism for delivering sustainable development. Compulsory purchase powers – the corporation will have its own powers – similar to those available to local authorities – to buy land on a compulsory basis.
Port funding boosts Highland prospects Employment and development prospects in the Highlands have been boosted by a £4 million grant from Highlands
Portside activities will be expanded by a £25m quayside development
I M AG E S | S H U T T E RSTO C K /i STO C K /CG I
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Northern Ireland environment minister Mark H Durkan has blocked proposals for exploratory drilling in County Fermanagh to test for shale gas. Australian firm Tamboran had applied to drill a 750-metre hole at a quarry in Belcoo. The company wants to ascertain whether there is enough shale gas to warrant applying for a production licence and ultimately set up a fracking operation in the area. The site has been the focus of round-the-clock protests. Durkan refused to allow the company to sink a borehole under permitted development rights. He said the activity would require full planning permission and an environmental impact assessment (EIA). “I have been mindful of my department’s responsibility to Tamboran had ensure that the applied to carry out test drilling in environment is protected at all Co Fermanagh times and that full consideration is given to any likely significant environmental impacts of such a proposal,” he said. “I have concerns that this is an existing quarry where unauthorised extraction has taken place. I believe there is insufficient information to establish what environmental impacts may have already arisen as a result of these unauthorised activities. Therefore, it is not possible to assess the environmental impact of the drilling cumulatively with other unknown environmental impacts of unregulated activity.” A spokesman for Tamboran Resources said the company was “deeply concerned with the announcement”.
and Islands Enterprise (HIE) towards construction of a £25 million deepwater quayside at the Port of Cromarty Firth. The 35-acre Invergordon Service Base has been close to capacity for many years and the funding will enable an additional nine acres of land to be reclaimed for portside activities. The investment forms part of a continuing programme by the port and could support hundreds of jobs in the
Highlands and Islands. Port of Cromarty Firth chief executive Bob Buskie said: “The new development will offer an additional deep-water quay and essential laydown space, both of which are greatly in demand by the oil and gas market and the renewables sectors. “The expansion is a crucial step forward for the port in securing future opportunities and supporting the economic health of the wider region.”
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22/08/2014 16:03
NEWS
Analysis { HOUSE BUILDING
Housing crisis: “something’s got to give” By Marino Donati
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M A R K I T/ C I P S U K
Councils across England will CONSTRUCTION PMI also be able to bid for a share of £200 million available to create PMI, Seasonally adjusted 10 new housing zones on 50.0 = no change brownfield land, each large 65 enough to accommodate between 750 and 2,000 homes. 55 Meanwhile, house builder Persimmon’s chief executive 45 Jeff Fairburn told the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme 35 b Markit/CIPS UK that development had to be Construction PMI viable and sustainable, and that 25 the availability of green belt land should be looked at if there was no other option. SOURCE: MARKIT/CIPS Matthew Spry, senior director at Nathaniel Lichfield & Partners, said “something needed to give” and called for a “grown-up discussion” about releasing some of the green belt. “London is delivering less than half the 50-60,000 homes a year it needs and the new London Plan only has firm proposals for 42,000. Outside London, the 51 local authority areas in the Metropolitan Green Belt have growth totalling some 29,000 additional households every year; existing local plans propose around half that number, and the annual rate of housing completions is just 15,000.” The National Housing Federation’s head of policy Rachel Fisher welcomed the recent positive announcements, but warned that a look at the wider picture was needed to find an effective and sustained solution to the problem. “Housing starts are increasing but we’re now seeing problems with the supply chain and workers, and worrying about whether we have enough bricks. “If we don’t want another boom-and-bust situation we need a coherent strategy for the next government to get a grip on the problem and make sure we solve the housing crisis within a generation.”
JAN 04 JAN 05 JAN 06 JAN 07 JAN 08 JAN 09 JAN 10 JAN 11 JAN 12 JAN 13 JAN 14
H
ouse building, or lack of it, is never far from the planning agenda, but recent weeks have seen a ramping up of government announcements on the issue. Last week, communities secretary Eric Pickles unveiled a shortlist of 36 large housing schemes lined up for cash as part of a £1 billion, five-year funding scheme to build 200,000 homes across the country. Meanwhile, almost 62,000 homes are to get funding under the first phase of the government’s £23 billion Affordable Homes Programme. The latest government figures released show a 22 per cent jump in housing starts over the past 12 months compared with the previous year, the highest level of house building since 2007. Housing and planning minister Brandon Lewis said the figures were evidence that the government’s long-term economic plan to improve the housing market was working. But other voices are giving alternative perspectives that there is still a long way to go and potentially significant barriers to providing enough homes in the UK. AMA Research’s house building market report predicts that growth in housing starts will be more modest from 2015 to 2018. It also says that despite growth in the market, there remains a significant mismatch between supply and demand. Concerns about rising house prices and a ‘housing bubble’ persist, with data from the National Housing Federation showing that although the overheated London market is getting most of the attention, many rural areas in the UK are less affordable than the capital. There is little disagreement that more homes are needed, but different opinions about where they should be continue to threaten meaningful progress in solving the problem. Earlier this year the government proposed a new generation of garden cities, starting with 15,000 homes at Ebbsfleet in Kent. In Scotland, the housing undersupply is such that it needs to create up to eight new communities to avoid a potential housing crisis, according to last month’s report from “HOUSING STARTS ARE INCREASING The Scottish Housing Commission. But in August Lewis talked about the BUT WE’RE NOW importance of protecting the country- SEEING PROBLEMS side when he announced a WITH THE SUPPLY multi-million fund to help councils CHAIN AND WORKERS” prioritise brownfield development.
I M A G E S | I S T O C K / G E T T Y /A L A M Y
22/08/2014 16:03
PLAN UPFRONT
31
The number of public houses closing in the UK every week, according to pressure group CAMRA
CAMRA calls for change to planning law to protect pubs
Growing vehicle use threatens Irish climate change target Officials from the Republic of Ireland’s transport department say the country’s growing population and increasing vehicle use are making it difficult for the state to meet its 2020 climate change targets. Ireland has been set a target to reduce transport, household, industry and agricultural greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent by 2020. But a 15-23 per cent increase in emissions is anticipated in the next six years. In a briefing document for transport minister Paschal Donohoe, the department of transport’s sustainable transport division described the 20 per cent reduction target as “very ambitious” and warned there was “a significant risk of a material shortfall in emissions reductions and renewable energy targets by 2020”. “Transport emissions are closely coupled to economic growth and the Environmental Protection Agency’s projections reflect this with transport emissions projected to show strong growth over the period to 2020 with a 15 -23 per cent increase on current levels,” the briefing noted. “In terms of emission abatement, Ireland’s dispersed settlement patterns and lack of urban areas with the critical mass to support efficient public transport systems present a particular challenge.”
The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) has called for planning law to be tightened to stop pubs in England and Wales being demolished or converted into shops. The Pubs Matter campaign was launched at this year’s Great British Beer Festival, where CAMRA asked festival-goers to lobby their local MP. Pubs currently fall into the A4 planning use class, which means they can be converted into shops (A1), banks (A2), restaurants and cafes (A3), office space (B1) or be demolished – all without planning permission. CAMRA want this changed so that developers at least have to apply for planning permission before being able to convert a pub. The government has said councils already have powers available to protect pubs. According to figures from the beer body, two pubs a week on average have been turned into supermarkets since 2012, in conjunction with 31 pubs closing every week. CAMRA also says that pubs support more than a million UK jobs and inject an average of £80,000 into their local economies yearly. Stephen Langdon, a campaigner trying to save the Maiden Over in Reading, said: “We found out just a couple of weeks ago that our valued local pub is shutting. My first thought on learning that Tesco were involved was that they would struggle to get planning permission for change of use – I was stunned when I learned that there was no requirement for this at all. “The reality is that our local pub, a genuine community venue and the only public meeting place within a large residential area, is very likely to disappear, and the local community has had scarcely any opportunity to voice an opinion on the matter. CAMRA’s head of communications Tom Stainer said: “Popular and profitable pubs are being left vulnerable by gaps in English planning legislation as pubs are increasingly being targeted by those wishing to take advantage of the absence of proper planning control. A pub is an entirely different proposition to a convenience store, estate agent or funeral directors and the planning system needs updating to reflect this.” As The Planner went to press the campaign’s Early Day Motion, EDM 208, had 44 MP signatures.
Gas network extension to help homes and business in west Northern Ireland Northern Ireland’s enterprise, trade and investment minister Arlene Foster has welcomed the Utility Regulator’s consultation on the preferred applicants for licences to take forward the Gas to the West project. The project would extend the natural gas network now based in the greater Belfast area to urban areas in the west, including Dungannon, Coalisland, Cookstown, Magherafelt, Omagh,
Strabane, Enniskillen, and Derrylin. The natural gas network extension will reduce costs for businesses and households, as well as helping the province to meet its targets for reductions in greenhouse gases. Foster said: “I also welcome the European Commission’s clearance for the NI Executive’s grant assistance of up to £32.5 million to support the licensees in constructing the main pipelines within the project. “This news represents an important stage in the £200 million Gas to the West project. This will offer natural gas to up to 40,000 business and domestic consumers in the west. Once the Utility Regulator’s competition is complete I look forward to the formal award of the new gas conveyance licences, which will allow the developers to obtain planning and other consents,” she said.
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NEWS
Analysis { A rethink on retail RETAIL DEVELOPMENT
By Marino Donati
T
he “Great Recession” may be starting to fade from memory but at least one legacy of the economic downturn is still distinctly visible across many towns and cities. Rows of empty and boarded-up shops have become an increasingly common sight in many high streets across the UK. The phenomenon has prompted observers to call for changes to planning rules and a rethink in the way that high street space is used. But it seems that a rebalancing of the high street could already be happening. According to research by the University of Southampton, there are fundamental changes to the way people shop that are transforming the high street. Its report, High Street Performance And Evolution, concludes that the number of smaller convenience stores on the high street is expected to increase as superstore market share falls. According to the study there has been a “modest resurgence” in specialist shops and “artisanal” retailers such as bakers, butchers, and tea and coffee merchants. That trend is expected to continue over the next five years, with convenience stores accounting for a quarter of the grocery market by 2019. The market share for superstores is expected to fall from 42 per cent to 34.9 per cent over the same period. “Convenience retail in town centres/high streets – both independently and corporately owned – has experienced significant growth over the past 15 years, a growth sustained during the economic crisis and subsequent period of austerity,” says the report. The study also finds that high “CONVENIENCE streets that include cafes, bars and RETAIL HAS restaurants have longer ‘dwell time’ EXPERIENCED and people spend more. LongerSIGNIFICANT term shifts towards leisure, health GROWTH, A GROWTH and beauty services are also set to SUSTAINED continue, while ‘recession-related’ DURING THE retail such as pawnbrokers and ECONOMIC CRISIS betting shops will decrease, it AND SUBSEQUENT predicts. PERIOD OF In Scotland, reaction to research AUSTERITY” on vacancy rates published by the
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Local Data Company, the Institute for Retail Studies and the University of Stirling at the end of last year tended to focus on headline figures. In a third of Scottish cities, around 70 per cent of shops that were vacant had been so for more than a year, according to Scotland: Retailing In The Top 100 Cities And Towns. Across Scotland, 14.5 per cent of shops were empty – 40 per cent of those have been vacant for more than a year. But Perth, Edinburgh and Aberdeen have more than 50 per cent independent shops. Gourock has the most independent retailers in Scotland, but many smaller towns have high proportions. The Future High Streets Forum and the Association of Town and City Management is highlighting some of the UK’s most successful high streets with its High Street of the Year Award. High streets minister Penny Mordaunt said the University of Southampton’s findings proved that flexible town centres were experiencing a retail resurgence despite competition from the internet and out-of-town stores. Recent proposals for changes to permitted development rights are likely to make it easier for some shops to convert to other retail uses, as well as making it easier to change some buildings into homes. But perhaps there is evidence that the retail market and the UK’s high streets could be more capable of finding their own equilibrium than previously thought. I M AG E | COR B I S
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PLAN UPFRONT
£900k
Cash from the Department for Transport’s Local Sustainable Transport Fund going to seven communities in England
Two homes built in a day in UK construction first
million Beechdale development, on the former Beechdale Primary School site. The homes are designed and manufactured at the Accord Group’s timber factory LoCaL (Low Carbon Living) Homes. The process creates panels that have insulation and external cladding in place, as well as windows and doors fitted. These are craned into place, enabling rapid construction. “We need to build more homes in this country, and new housing should be
A housing association made history this week when it erected two full-size family homes in a day. In a first for UK construction, the Accord Group built the two houses in Beechdale near Walsall. They were the start of 40 affordable homes that will be erected in the £5
Welsh green chief calls for more joined-up environmental planning
efficient and built quickly to a high quality, using brownfield land wherever possible,” said planning and housing minister Brandon Lewis. “Innovative approaches such as offsite construction are one way to achieve this. They are widely used on the continent, but only play a limited role in British house building.” Alan Yates, the Accord Group’s executive director of regeneration, said: “We’re delighted that a site that has stood derelict for seven years can be regenerated to benefit local people.”
Going green: Where the £900,000 will be spent
l Organisations in Wales need to change the way they think about the environment, according to the chief executive of Natural Resources Wales (NRW). Emyr Roberts said that institutions in Wales should become far more joined up in their environmental planning. “If we are really going to make the best of the environment in Wales, we must all think of it in a joined-up way,” he argued in a speech at the National Eisteddfod in Llanelli. “All the institutions in Wales need to consider the opportunities our natural resources provide and the threats they are facing, and act in a way which optimises the outcome. “This means thinking not just about impacts on wildlife, or jobs, or society, but considering all these things together, and making the right choices. If we fail to act in a joined-up way then future generations will pay the price for our mistakes.” Roberts cited the example of a project in Llanelli where Dwr Cymru (Welsh Water) has been working in partnership with NRW. This work has created swales to divert rainwater away from surface water drains, providing a greener, more pleasant area for local people and reducing their flood risk.
Green transport schemes get cash to expand Seven communities in England will get a share of £900,000 government funding to extend their sustainable transport schemes. The cash comes from the Department for Transport’s Local Sustainable Transport
Fund and will benefit schemes promoting cycle routes, 20 miles per hour zones, and public transport use. Transport minister Baroness Kramer said the government was serious about making transport better for the environment. “Encouraging more people to cycle or use public transport makes sense for local economies, as it reduces congestion and improves public
health,” she said. “That’s why we’re providing record levels of funding for communities wanting to make their transport networks greener.” In July, the government also announced £440 million of funding for sustainable transport, as part of a £2 billion investment in sustainable transport, including encouraging the uptake of electric cars and other ultra-low emission vehicles.
£50k
BOURNEMOUTH BOROUGH COUNCIL : £50,000 for design of a high-quality cycle route serving schools and employment centres
+
£64k
DORSET COUNTY COUNCIL : £64,000 towards plans for 20 miles per hour zones in Weymouth and Dorchester town centres
+
£130k
HERTFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL : £130,000 towards schemes encouraging uptake of cycling, walking and bus use
+
£160k +
£350k +
£84k
LEICESTERSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL : £160,000 for schemes including better information at bus stops, encouraging parents to leave the car at home for the school run and loaning mopeds to jobseekers LINCOLNSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL : £350,000 to build on successful projects encouraging more people to choose public transport, cycling or walking
SHROPSHIRE COUNCIL : £84,000 for schemes to promote cycling, walking and public transport
+
£62k
WOKINGHAM BOROUGH COUNCIL : £62,000 to extend a programme to help households plan more sustainable travel
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CHRIS SHEPLEY
O Opinion Wanted – one minister with a brain and an open mind Although, like most planners, I frequently find the phrase “I told you so” springing unbidden to my lips, I rarely get much satisfaction from it. I just feel frustration that some distant politician has ignored or misunderstood the carefully evidence-based, far-sighted advice that one of us has given. In 2007 I chaired an Examination in Public (EIP) into one of the sets of alterations to the London Plan. Looking again at the relevant and surprisingly cogently argued section of the panel report, which I wrote at the time, I find this: “We conclude that there are issues which go across the boundaries between London, the East of England and the South-East which need to be considered in a comprehensive way. It is perfectly obvious that housing markets [etc] pay no regard to the boundaries, and… require a wider view of some kind.” This had not been a difficult conclusion to reach because the linkages were unmistakable, and even if we had been too dim to notice them, many of the participants pointed them out. Mayor Ken had sought, quite cheekily, in the plan to introduce the idea of ‘corridors’ of development beyond his boundaries – for example, towards Gatwick and Bedford. Authorities in those areas were naturally unimpressed. Much argument ensued, but in the end we identified the need “to establish a coherent inter-regional perspective and evidence base” and said that: “with some
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“ANY NEED FOR THE SOUTHEAST TO CONTRIBUTE SHOULD BE “TACKLED IN A STRATEGIC AND COLLABORATIVE WAY” urgency, and certainly before the end of 2008, arrangements (should be) established… ” This had been the view also of the panels examining the late and frequently lamented Regional Spatial Strategies for the South-East and the East of England. There were already in existence some arrangements for inter-regional co-operation but nobody at the EiP seemed to think much of these. So Mayor Ken, supporting this nobrainer of an idea, set about doing something, with the estimable aid of people like
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Robin Thompson, a former president of this parish. But Mayor Boris, without seeming to think about it very much, soon put a firm and rapid end to this kind of bureaucratic nonsense. And Eric the Short-Sighted compounded the error in 2010 by putting a further end to the Regional Assemblies, which were the only bodies which might have had a chance of trying to tackle these blatant inadequacies. Recently, however, persons on behalf of the said Boris have taken to writing letters to people like Bedford Borough Council telling them to take account of a potential gap between housing supply and growing demand in London, and throwing at them that most dismal of inventions, the Duty to Co-operate. In response 51 south-eastern authorities have sent a tetchy
but entirely understandable letter which inter alia says that an authority “cannot possibly come to a realistic view on what level of need London might be failing to plan for or provide and what proportion of that failure it should seek to plan for in its development plan”. And that any need for the South-East to contribute should be “tackled in a strategic and collaborative way”. Which is pretty much what we said all those years ago. What this story does – apart from confirming that politicians should not ignore what planners tell them – is to provide just one rich illustration of the importance of, nay the necessity for, strategic planning. And it does so in the London context, which, after all, is the only context which most politicians and most of the media know or care about. (There are equally compelling arguments in the North, far from assuaged by the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s haphazard pre-election promise of HS3 across The Pennines after most of us are dead). I guess all we can do is to keep on making this case until we get a minister who has a few strategic brain cells to rub together and a bit of an open mind.
Chris Shepley is the principal of Chris Shepley Planning and former Chief Planning Inspector
I L L U S T R AT I O N | O I V I N D H O V L A N D
26/08/2014 09:58
Quote unquote FROM THE WEB AND THE RTPI
“A pub is an entirely different proposition to a convenience al store, estate agent or funeral director’s” TOM STAINER, CAMRA’S HEAD OF COMMUNICATIONS, ARGUES FOR PLANNING PERMISSION TO CHANGE THE USE OF PUBS
“What frustrates me is the amount wasted on the mayor’s vanity projects such as the Garden Bridge, the Emirates cable car and the R Routemaster buses”
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“DO YOU WONDER WHY SOUTH-EAST ENGLAND IS FULL OF NIMBYS? IT’S BECAUSE NO SANE PERSON WOULD EVER WANT TO LOOK OUT AT WHAT IS BEING BUILT”
A CONTRIBUTOR TO A GUARDIAN DISCUSSION ON THE OLYMPIC PARK, FEATURED IN LAST MONTH’S ISSUE OF THE PLANNER
£50 I M AG E S | A L A M Y/G E T T Y
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“One thing I’ve learnt from London is that you can have growth, but you can have beautiful growth” LONDON MAYOR BORIS JOHNSON TALKS TO THE SUNDAY TIMES
“The Punch and Judy politics of house building has gone”
THE LATE SIR PETER HALL, IN HIS FINAL BOOK CHAPTER: THE STRANGE DEATH OF BRITISH PLANNING
“THIS IS E17, NOT PARK LANE”
BARKING AND DAGENHAM CO COUNCILLOR ROCKY GILL THINKS HOUSES SHOULD COME FIRST
NEW HOUSING AND PLANNING MINISTER BRANDON LEWIS CLAIMS THE PLANNING SYSTEM IS FIXED
“If we fail to act in a joined-up way then future re generations will pay the price for our mistakes” EMYR ROBERTS, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF NATURAL RESOURCES WALES, ARGUES FOR BETTER ENVIRONMENTAL PLANNING
bn
“IF THE NORTH’S ECONOMIC GDP GREW W AT THE RATE OF THE AVERAGE GDP OF THE UK WE WOULD ADD OVER £50 BILLION TO OUR ECONOMY BY 2030” 30” CHANCELLOR GEORGE OSBORNE ON A £15 BILLION ON REGENERATION PLAN FOR THE NORTH OF ENGLAND AND
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CORRESPONDENCE
I Inbox
YOUR NEWS, VIEWS AND QUESTIONS F E E D B ACK
Kay Powell Welsh housing minister Carl Sargeant is seeking a new approach to deliver his ‘positive planning' agenda alongside the Wales Planning Reform Bill. He is looking for a more proactive approach from planners in the public, private and voluntary sectors to enable “appropriate development in the right place”. This initiative could be an exemplar of good practice for the next UK government. The minister’s aspiration is not new. The Labour
government led a drive to change behaviours in the English planning system to coincide with the Planning and Compensation Act and introduction of spatial planning in 2004. A distinctive approach has been taken in Scotland by a succession of ministers who believe working through issues with local government, business and the third sector is the best recipe for success. Planning in other parts of Europe is consensual and long term in outloook, but experience in England and Wales is often the opposite.
ON TH E W E B @ThePlanner_RTPI
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We shouldn’t be surprised that the planning system is adversarial as it’s based on a legal system that operates that way. The culture of planning is as much about the balance of power among the players as policy and law. Decisions are rarely clear-cut. But often there’s room to manoeuvre if only we had the incentive and resources to take our eye off the ticking clock. If there is a magic bullet why hasn’t it been used yet? There is a remarkable resistance to new ways of working. Of course, not every case suits mediation.
Sometimes parties are so entrenched they won’t even agree to talk. But when a mediator has been involved in a planning dispute, the parties have agreed that it helped not only to find a better solution, but to build trust and understanding. It is hoped that the Welsh government will incorporate a mediation clause in its Bill. Meanwhile, anyone interested in an overview of the idea should look up “A Short Guide to Mediation in Planning” on www.natplanforum.org.uk Kay S Powell MRTPI
WE NEED! YOU Contribute to The Planner Next month we’re celebrating the centenary of the RTPI with a special issue looking at the past 100 years of planning – and the next 50 years. We’d love your thoughts and comments on: 100 years of planning decisions – which have had the biggest impact (for good or bad) over the last century?
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Future Britain: Britain has changed radically since 1964. But how and where will we be living, working and travelling in another 50 years’ time? The new colossus: Is it possible for figures like Ebenezer Howard, Nathaniel Lichfield and Peter Hall to emerge from within the modern planning system? Send your thoughts to editorial@theplanner.co.uk
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B E S T O F T H E B LO G S
O Opinion
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Adam Sheppard is a senior lecturer and director of the Joint Distance Learning MA planning programme in the Department of Geography & Environmental Management, University of the West of England, Bristol
Bruce McVean is an associate director of Beyond Green and founder of Movement for Liveable London
If you’re not creating walkable places you’re not really trying
Permitted disorder
The coalition coal identified regulation ma management as a priority and intended in to simplify the complexity in the system. But from the perspective of development management a paradox has emerged. The more the government tries to simplify decision-making and facilitate development, the more complex the system becomes. This is evident in the way in which permitted development rights have been revised and the application of decision-making mechanisms have been extended. New permitted development rights have been created, existing rights extended (some permanently some temporarily), the prior approval process has increased in prominence and use, and local development orders have been presented as a possible solution to the planning ‘barriers’ associated with everything from minor work to comprehensive brownfield land redevelopment. This has been undertaken through a variety of amendments to existing law and policy initiatives to encourage the use of existing tools. Regulation density and complexity are real issues, with the General Permitted Development Order (GPDO)becoming almost unusable, such is the scale of additions and amendments that exist.
The nature and intentions off the changes are not themselves necessarily all problematic, but the continuous and piecemeal manner in which these changes are being introduced makes for a cumbersome, complex and confusing system which, conceptually, should be none of these things. In addition, the nature of some of these changes is potentially disrupting the basic principle of proportionality and justified local planning authority intervention in the public interest. Recent adjustments to changes of use limit the potential for state intervention to manage impact and spatial planning where this is potentially vital. The need to consolidate the GPDO is now more pressing than ever. The use of decision-making tools in different circumstances also needs strategic review. George Osborne recently stated intentions for a “refreshed approach” to planning based on a three-tier system models around permitted development rights, prior approval and express permission. We don’t need a ‘refreshed approach’, we need consolidation of legislation, stability, and a comprehensively planned decision mechanism framework underpinned by appropriate state intervention in circumstances modelled upon the principle of proportionality.
“THE CONTINUOUS AND PIECEMEAL MANNER IN WHICH THESE CHANGES ARE BEING INTRODUCED MAKES FOR A CUMBERSOME, COMPLEX AND CONFUSING SYSTEM”
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2 BLOG
I doubt tthere is a core strategy or design a and access statement in lan that doesn’t claim to the land foster walking and cycling. But often fine words are lost in a reality of ‘local distributors’ and estate roads that, while technically walkable, fail to create a place where travelling by foot (or bike) is a natural and pleasurable way to get around. c For a host of social, economic and environmental reasons we urgently need to shift people out of cars and onto their feet and bikes. So what are some of the essential ingredients of walkable/cyclable places? c Walkable neighbourhoods are the building blocks of good urbanism. If the nearest shop is a couple of miles away surrounded by a sea of car parking you’ve fallen at the first hurdle. c The quality of streets in many new residential developments is woeful. The cheapest materials unimaginatively applied and the meanest pavements. They’re most definitely not places where you can imagine kids playing while neighbours gossip. c A permeable street network allows pedestrians and cyclists to choose the most direct route or vary their route when they fancy a change of scene. Filtered permeability closes streets to through movements by vehicles without resorting to cul-de-sacs and restricting the movement of those on foot and bike. c A sensible approach to park-
ing: streets should be fronted by windows and doors, not garages and drives. As a rule cars should be parked on-street or at the rear in secure courts or at the back of the plot. Cycle parking should be by the front door, not in a shed round the back. c 20 mph speed limits reduce the risks of collisions and the severity of injury if a collision does occur. Making new developments 20 mph throughout is a no-brainer, but the speed limit is just the start; residential streets should have design speeds of 10-15 mph (a good street designer knows how to achieve this). c Cyclists should be using streets not a separate network of paths. If those streets carry significant amounts of traffic they may need proper cycle lanes – no shared path nonsense. But most streets should have traffic speeds and volumes low enough for cyclists of all abilities to feel comfortable using them without the need for dedicated infrastructure. This may all seem obvious and such an approach to development should be the norm but, sadly, it isn’t. Some people drive, but everybody walks, and failure to create walkable places and provide genuine transport choice, especially in new residential areas, is a symptom of the broader gap between planning rhetoric and development reality that characterises much of the way our contemporary built environment is shaped.
“MAKING NEW DEVELOPMENTS 20 MPH THROUGHOUT IS A NOBRAINER”
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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
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Liz Shiel, economist and town planner, is on Shelter Scotland’s committee and is a freelance consultant on urban policy
Daniel Scharf, planning adviser at Morgan Cole
Putting the ‘country’ back into town planning
Affordable housing and the revamped SPP – what will the impact be?
In June th the Scottish Government issued th the revised Scottish Planning Policy. Po The part on affordable housing was amended thus: c In relation to market housing, the level of affordable housing required as a contribution within a market site should “generally be no more than 25 per cent of the total number of houses.” c Where a development is for specialist housing – housing for older or disabled people – a contribution to affordable housing may not always be required. Previously, policy said 25 per cent was a benchmark figure, with the possibility for local flexibility and there was no exemption set for specialist housing. In its April report, Planning To Meet The Need: Delivering Affordable Housing Through The Planning System, Shelter Scotland feared these changes could cut the number of affordable homes. Our research suggested that policies that demanded more than 25 per cent were rare, and those councils that had them generally applied them only to certain areas – generally the highest value, most pressured part of their area, where there was a need for affordable housing. It was common for authorities in lower house price areas to have policies that required less than 25 per cent affordable housing and some councils did not state a requirement for a quota to be applied to mainstream private
4 BLOG
BLOG
housing. Many councils had set their policy at 25 per cent and in many high-value areas delivery of 25 per cent affordable housing was often achieved. We felt government policy should emphasise the potential to achieve 25 per cent in such areas. Our worry was that setting a maximum figure would cause developers to push for lower ratios. The new policy addresses some concerns about the first draft, particularly that all specialist homes would be exempt from affordable housing requirements. It may be desirable to exempt some specialist housing for older and disabled people. But a big sector of specialist housing is highvalue, open-market homes for sale to older people. In places attractive to older people this type of housing can make up a large part of new development. A policy that exempts all specialist housing from affordable housing requirements, including high-value housing for older people, affects the market for development sites, so less mainstream housing with affordable homes is built. Councils should decide on this depending on their priorities. Shelter Scotland wants to see a new statistical bulletin to replace the Affordable Housing Securing Planning Consent, and has offered to support a roundtable with planning officers to discuss their experiences.
“SHELTER SCOTLAND FEARED THESE CHANGES COULD CUT THE NUMBER OF AFFORDABLE HOMES”
Given the public interest being shown in ‘local food’, now is the time to do a bit of country planning. A need has been identified for about a million new farmers to make good the retirement of existing farmers and to increase the labour content of sustainable food production. The estimates of the global carbon footprint attributed to the food supply chain from ‘plough to plate’ (between 30 per cent and 50 per cent) should be justification for adopting food and farming policies without which no development plan could reasonably claim to meet the statutory need to contribute to sustainable development. With carbon reductions come job creation, soil health and increased biodiversity, such that promotion of local food should be seen as an indispensible strand of both the NPPF’s golden thread and the presumption in favour of sustainable development. ‘Local food’ implies a reconnection between the use of land around towns and villages with the local population. Development policies should enable new smallholdings to be established through securing suitable and affordable land and associated housing, as well as supporting proposals for food processing and distribution. The planning system only embraced the idea of affordable housing in
the 1990s, when a judge found affordability to be a legitimate consideration. If the development of ‘local food’ is in the public interest, then it is the job of planners to learn how to bring it about. Plans could designate land around settlements as being suitable for crops, woodland, forest gardens and orchards. The chances to develop local food production, processing and distribution are most likely to arise through planning obligations securing suitable land, housing and financial contributions on the back of new housing. The work that must be done to formulate policies acceptable to local and neighbourhood planning authorities and effective in securing affordable land and housing is justified by the large number of people who want to be involved in producing local food. But this important new direction for the planning system should not be an alternative to, or at the expense of, constructive community engagement with farmers and landowners who might also see the advantages of embracing village farms, permaculture, agro-ecology and community-supported agriculture. It is encouraging to see the desirability of supporting more local food production in the recent RTPI publication Planning Horizons no.2 Future-Proofing Society.
“IF THE DEVELOPMENT OF ‘LOCAL FOOD’ IS IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST, IT IS THE JOB OF PLANNERS… TO BRING IT ABOUT”
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I N T E R V I E W FI O N A M c C A N D LE S S
NORTH
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t’s a good job that Fiona McCandless is such a keen long-distance runner – the next six months will certainly be an endurance test. For a start, Northern Ireland’s chief planner has to oversee the biggest reform of the province’s highly centralised planning system in nearly half a century. On top of that, she is shepherding the introduction of a new policy-planning framework for Northern Ireland, while keeping the existing system on track. McCandless, 47, has only been in the post since April this year, before which she headed Northern Ireland’s local planning division within the department of the environment. Growing up in a conservation area close to Derry’s 17th century City Walls has equipped the mother of two teenage boys with a powerful appreciation of the local environment. But the flipside of a 1970s Derry childhood was exposure to a hotbed of The Troubles. “You don’t realise when you are growing up in the middle of it at the time, but when you look back you realise that Northern Ireland has changed enormously,” she says, “It’s really important to make sure that we secure the economic growth so that my kids are never in the position of dealing with that very, very difficult political environment.” McCandless went straight into her chosen discipline, taking an undergraduate course in planning at Queen’s University Belfast, where she met her graphic designer husband John. But after completing her post-graduate diploma, she found that planning jobs in early 1990s Northern Ireland were scarce, prompting a move to the Republic. For seven years she worked in a number of councils, ranging from rural Donegal and Roscommon to the bright lights of urban Dublin. But the call of home was too strong and in 1998 she moved back to Northern Ireland to take a job in the Department of the Environment (DoE). The
SOUTH
With seven years of experience south of the border and twice that at the Northern Ireland DoE, Fiona McCandless has taken the province’s top planning job – in time to oversee fundamental changes to the system
P H O T O G R A P H Y | R I C H A R D WA T S O N
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day of her interview coincided with the signing of the Good Friday agreement. The policy differences north and south were not major, she says. Instead, the key difference between the Republic and Northern Ireland centred on the different structures governing the two planning systems. South of the border, much like the bulk of the United Kingdom, control of land use is a responsibility of local councils. However, since the early 1970s, Northern Irish planning has been centralised in the DoE. This means that while on one side of the border planning policies are tailored to local circumstances, she explains, a ‘one-size-fits-all’ regime operates in Northern Ireland. She says: “Your relationship with elected members was completely different. In Northern {
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I N T E R V I E W FI O N A M c C A N D LE S S
Ireland you take the decision and consult the council rather than the council being the decision-maker.” Remedying this democratic deficit is now McCandless’s big task. Planning is the most “IN NORTHERN important of a number of functions being IRELAND YOU handed back to local government next April TAKE THE as part of a wider overhaul, which will see DECISION AND the number of councils reduce from 26 to 11. CONSULT THE Even though she has been a loyal servant COUNCIL RATHER of the province’s centralised system, McCanTHAN THE dless clearly believes it is right to return COUNCIL BEING planning powers to the local level. THE DECISION “Local decisions should be made by local MAKER” decision-makers,” she says, explaining that it will help councils with their community planning of wider services. “Local communities should have a strong say over the communities they live in. It’s like trying to work with one hand tied behind your back – planning is one of the most powerful functions that we have for delivering for our communities in terms of place shaping.” The new regime will also enable planning to be better integrated with related services, like tourism and regeneration, which until now have been dispersed across central and local government. “People have had different agendas because they have been working for different departments and for different political masters, so it hasn’t gelled; we can’t afford inefficiencies like that.” Under the new system the shaping of development plans and the vast majority of planning decisions will be handed down to councils. The Department of Environment will keep responsibility for regionally
C V
HIG HL IG HT S
FI ONA McC A NDLE S S Born: Derry
significant applications, the scope of which are currently out for consultation. McCandless’s slimmed-down planning service will also retain responsibility for setting fees, the scrutiny of local development plans, and overseeing the performance of council planning departments. In addition, like her chief planner counterparts in the UK’s other nations, McCandless will be head of the Northern Ireland profession. McCandless’s job is to ensure that this overhaul is accomplished as smoothly as possible. Staff in the DoE’s six local planning offices will be transferred to the new councils, each of which will have its own head of planning. As she acknowledges, there is a “lot for staff to absorb”, but the bigger challenge will be equipping the councils’ new planning committees with the skills for exercising their new responsibilities. Instead of being critics of the development process, councillors will now be in the hot seat themselves. McCandless says she has “every confidence that they (councillors) will have the necessary skills and confidence to make the right judgements, which they do in many other areas.” But she acknowledges that her department has its work cut out to build up the capacity of elected members. “We are working very closely with local government to see what they need in terms of skills. This isn’t about the department telling local government what they need; this is a two-way engagement.” Given the democratic deficit, a particularly sensitive issue will be how many applications committees should delegate to officers. Although councils will be required to ensure that decision-making is streamlined, the extent of this delegation will be up to councils themselves.
Timeline: 1991
2014
1991 1993 1997 1998 2008 2011 2014 Appointed planning assistant at Roscommon County Council – a very rural midland council in the Irish Republic.
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Joins Dublin County Council as planning assistant, working mainly in development management. Involved in Northern Motorway proposal linking Dublin Airport to Balbriggan.
Becomes executive planner for another rural county – Donegal – working on development management.
Takes first planning post in the northern division Department of Environment (DOE).
Divisional planning manager at the DOE. Operational planning activities in the district Councils of Ballymena, Larne, Carrickfergus, Antrim and Magherafelt.
Director of the local planning division at the DoE, Responsible for overall management of all planning offices across Northern Ireland.
Appointed chief planner and assumes her position in April.
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“We are very keen to ensure that we have “WE ARE WORKING a level of delegation to ensure that commitVERY CLOSELY tees are focusing on what they need to be WITH LOCAL focusing on,” says McCandless, who personGOVERNMENT TO ally promoted pilot schemes to introduce SEE WHAT THEY more streamlined decision-making in her NEED IN TERMS previous role at the DoE. OF SKILLS. THIS However, while she puts the right proporIS A TWOWAY tion for delegation at 90 per cent, the ENGAGEMENT” executive will adopt a ‘softly, softly’ approach on the issue. She says: “We have to understand that local government has had 40 years of planning powers being taken away from them, I don’t think the first thing they want to do is to hand them back. There are huge cost savings, but that will be a matter for local government of how they interpret their own scheme of delegation.” In addition, as she stresses, a key element of the reforms is securing greater community input at pre-application and in the shaping of local plans. It has been a long haul to get this far though, with the reforms first mooted in 2007. The biggest hitch, of course, was last autumn’s decision by planning minister Mark H Durkan to scrap the Northern Irish Planning Bill following concerns that one of its provisions ran counter to the European Convention on Human Rights. The axing of the bill, described by constitutional commentators as near unprecedented for the United Kingdom as a whole, was a moment for red faces at Stormont. McCandless wasn’t in her current post at the time, but is nevertheless keen to play down the bill’s withdrawal. “It wasn’t the end of the world,” she says, explaining that the bill was designed to enable elements of the province’s new planning system to be
implemented that could not otherwise be introduced ahead of the wider local government reforms. “We were just trying to introduce some of the elements in advance.” And although the delay might be frustrating, a bill is no longer pressing, she argues, as the necessary provisions will be introduced through subordinate legislation. “I strongly believe that we are going in the right direction. There’s been a lot of uncertainty over transfer of powers and it has taken a long time to get there, but it’s brilliant that we are now moving into the implementation stage.” Alongside structural reforms, the other big item in McCandless’s in-tray is the introduction of the new Northern Irish Strategic Planning Policy Statement (SPPS). Akin to England’s National Planning Policy Framework, the SPPS wraps up Northern Ireland’s myriad planning policy statements into a single document that is designed to guide councils with their new local plan preparation duties. She cites the key advantage of the SPPS as the strategic direction it provides. Key policy issues include onshore wind farm developments and the introduction of a sequential test for new outof-town retailing, a move that reflects Durkan’s focus on strong town centres. McCandless says: “The minister’s taken view that we need to deliver for the economy, but we also need to protect our environment.” Meanwhile, for McCandless and her team, all of this upheaval doesn’t mean that the day job has gone away. While shepherding Northern Irish planning through its biggest change in several generations, she remains under pressure from Durkan to continue to improve the speed and quality of planning decisions. McCandless proudly reports that her department has exceeded Durkan’s new target of processing 90 per cent of large-scale applications within six months. Despite this workload, she clearly has no regrets about taking on such a demanding role, Alongside being chief planner, she also finds time for running and looking after two teenage boys. “I am a planner and I plan and organise my time,” she says. Getting this balance right will be helped by some of the DoE’s remaining central planning functions being transferred to new offices in McCandless’s home city of Derry. There the Peace Bridge, which connects its Catholic and Protestant communities, shows how planning has the power to make a difference to people’s lives. “That’s what planning can do, it can change things. Things like that make you value the work you do.”
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S I R P ET E R H A LL
THE MASTER PLANNER
Planning, said Sir Peter Hall, should be grounded in an understanding of the real world, informed by a knowledge of history and a sense of cultural possibilities – but, above all, it should improve lives and make places where people actually want to live. Simons Wicks remembers a visionary
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He influenced Margaret Thatcher in advocating a London orbital motorway. The M25 was officially opened on 29 October 1986
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t was, he wrote in his final book chapter, “the high water mark of a belief in a total, centralised, top-down, expertly based but also benign planning system. The inspirations were many…” It was 1967. Some would argue that 1967 – the year of Sergeant Pepper – was also a high water mark of postwar popular culture in the UK, and London in particular – the city considered itself the world centre for fashion, music, art, design and ideas. More mundanely, it was also the peak year for housing completions in England. It was an era of demotic idealism, and Hall – a left-wing thinker operating under a Labour government – was revelling in the relative freedom planners had to rethink the warscarred capital and its surrounds as a region fit for the future. The campaigning author of London 2000 (1963) and The World Cities (1966) was something of a guru, arguing for 28 new towns within 70 miles of the capital. “I remember conversations in 1966 when I was working
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“HE WAS INTERESTED IN TRANSPORT AND SAW THE CITY OF THE FUTURE AS BEING A PLACE THAT WAS CONNECTED IN MANY DIFFERENT WAYS”
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Prof Sir Peter Hall FBA Died 30 July 2014
Born 19 March Hampstead, London
1960-79: Member of South East Regional Economic and Planning Council
Family moves to Blackpool
1963:
1957-65: Lecturer in geography at Birkbeck College, University of London
London 2000
1965:
1966:
1966: Sets up the Regional and Urban Planning Studies Programme at LSE
1966-67: Reader in geography at London School of Economics
1967: Founder and editor of Regional Studies journal (still published)
1968-89: Professor of geography and Dean of Faculty of Urban and Regional Studies at University of Reading (remained Dean until 1980. Emeritus professor from 1989)
1980: Great Planning Disasters
1988: Cities Of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History Of Urban Planning And Design In Ihe Twentieth Century
1970: Theory And Practice Of Regional Planning
1971-1986: Chair of University of Reading Planning School for nine separate year
1970s/1980s: Adviser on planning to Margaret Thatcher, influencing development of Canary Wharf, M25, Stansted Airport
1973: The Containment Of Urban England (with Ray Thomas, Harry Gracey, Roy Drewett)
1975: Urban And Regional Planning
1980-1992: Professor in Department of City and Regional Planning, University of Berkeley, California (Emeritus professor from 1993)
1983: Fellow of the British Academy
1989:
1989:
London 2001
Chair of Planning at The Bartlett, University College, London
1998:
1998:
1998:
Knighted for services to the Town and Country Planning Association
Cities In Civilisation: Culture, Technology And Urban Order
Sociable Cities: Legacy Of Ebenezer Howard (with Colin Ward)
1991-94: Special adviser on strategic planning to environment secretary Michael Heseltine, influencing vision of Thames Gateway and HS1
1998-99:
2001:
2004-08: Chair of ReBlackpool, Blackpool’s regeneration company
2007: London Voices, London Lives: Tales From A Working Capital
2009:
2003:
Awarded the Royal Town Planning Institute Gold Medal
Awarded Founder’s Medal of the Royal Geographical Society
2005: Awarded the Balzan Prize (outstanding achievements in humanities, natural sciences, culture) for Social And Cultural History Of Cities Since The Beginning Of The 16th Century
2013:
2006: Member of expert advisory panel to review planning system
2007:
2008:
2008:
Regional Studies Prize for Overall Contribution to the Field of Regional Studies
Awarded Sir Patrick Abercrombie Prize by International Union of Architects
London Voices, London Lives: Tales from a Working Capital
Good Cities, Better Lives: How Europe Discovered the Lost Art of Urbanism
10's 20's
Co-authors report on future train stations for the transport secretary and launches Sintropher
2003:
90's 00's
Sits on Richard Rogers’ Urban Task Awarded the Force Vautrin Lud International Geography Prize
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with Sir Hugh Wilson, saying ‘If I do this well, I’ll become a mini Peter Hall’,” recalls Alan Townsend, geography professor at the University of Durham and a member of the TCPA’s policy council, alongside Hall. “He was a major figure already, and it was a period when a lot of government planners were prominent in the development of the second wave of new towns.” The notion of the celebrity planner may seem peculiar now. But 1960s London was a city of dynamic possibility, in parts a freewheeling melting pot of artists, photographers, writers, geographers, politicians, architects, musicians, designers, engineers, builders, poets, critics, broadcasters, filmmakers, entrepreneurs and activists who were remaking the postwar world with an intensity of purpose. Among them was Peter Hall, making his mark. The mood was already changing, of course, and from 1967 on the cultural centre of gravity shifted westward to California (where Hall himself later followed). But for the next half-century or so, he took that busy, optimistic spirit of possibility with him everywhere. “He was a young man,” recalls former chief planning inspector Chris Shepley, who knew Hall as a reader at the London School of Economics in the mid-1960s. “But he was inspirational even then. Everyone was inspired by him.” By 1968, Hall – still just 36 – was professor of geography and head of department at the University of Reading. He held multiple positions through his long academic career, often simultaneously and sometimes in different countries. He was awarded 14 honorary doctorates, founded the international Regional Studies Association, sat on the TCPA’s policy council, chaired Blackpool’s regeneration company, assumed various advisory roles to the UK government and was awarded a gold medal by the RTPI, as well as being honoured by the Queen.
Master’s and doctorate in geography from St Catharine’s, Cambridge. Doctoral thesis: Location of Industry in London 1851-1939
Founder member of the Regional Studies Association
The World Cities
Sir Peter wrote and edited 50 books, some of which were translated into several languages
1940:
1957:
60's 70's
Hall was also awarded 14 honorary doctorates from universities worldwide, was an honorary fellow of the RTPI and RIBA, a fellow of the British Academy, a member of the Academia Europaea, and was on the Board of Trustees of the Architecture Foundation and the policy council of the TCPA.
1932:
30's 50's
Timeline:
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S I R P ET E R H A LL
By his own estimation, he authored or edited 50 books, more than 2,000 articles (including years of regular columns in Planning and Town and Country Planning) and participated in countless research studies. Earlier this year he told The Guardian that he had travelled 70,000 miles a year for 40 years studying cities and advising policymakers around the world. “God knows how he did it,” says Shepley. “He had more energy than anyone I’ve ever known.”
covered The Lost Art Of Urbanism. “People involved in planning saw him as a planner. For the TCPA, he was an emissary of Ebenezer Howard. But he was much more than either.” Hall was both a serious academic and a popular journalist. He was a member of the Fabian Society and co-wrote a book (Sociable Cities) about the garden city movement with an anarchist – yet worked as a special adviser to both the Thatcher and Major governments. He was a teacher whose Theory And Practice Of Regional Planning and Urban And Regional Planning influenced generations of students. But he was also a practitioner whose greatest physical legacies may well be the major infrastructure projects he helped to shape with successive Conservative gov-
ernments in the 1980s and 1990s – including the M25, Stansted Airport, London Docklands and the Thames Gateway. “But you can’t actually measure his impact on physical change,” says Falk, who observes that Hall was “above all, eloquent”. His effect on the world was arguably driven more by the circulation of ideas, by influence. “I think the first notion was the ‘polycentric’ city,” Falk continues. “He was interested in transport and saw the city of the future as being a place that was connected in many different ways. He did a project looking at international connections between cities – connections of all kinds. He had a belief that this would improve the quality of life and wellbeing. “He was also interested in places that people ignore – second and third-level cities. Not great places, if you like, but places that work for ordinary people.” Though noted for his masterful Cities In Civilisation, Hall ended his career looking at the modest yet beautifully functional cities in Europe typifying an approach to ‘urbanism’ that he felt the British had lost. Good Cities, Better Lives considered cities such as Freiburg and Malmo, where enlightened planning underpins places that ‘work for ordinary people’. It was the overriding theme of his final substantial published works – Good Cities itself, a re-edited version of Sociable Cities, a submission to the Wolfson Economics Prize on garden cities, and that contributed chapter in Jonathan Manns’ Kaleidoscope City baldly titled ‘The Strange Death of British Planning’. In his final works he was turning to the past to imagine a possible future – yet he still managed to sound “I WOULD SAY like a radical. Though, as Falk THAT HE WAS THE notes, his promotion of ARTICULATE VISION garden cities had less to do OF THE SCALING OF with an attachment to PLANNING NEEDED BY “building houses with garA PERIOD OF MUCH dens” and far more to do GREATER MOBILITY” with “getting control of land value and earned increments. It was about how you control land use”. Ever the spatial planner, he was concerned with the underlying mechanisms that allow nations to plan regionally and strategically. Somehow the sheer scale of his vision and the unceasing drive to make things happen enabled Hall to straddle such
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A polycentric polymath “Each person tended to see him from their particular perspective,” says Nicholas Falk, founder of Urbed and co-author of Hall’s final book Good Cities, Better Lives: How Europe Dis-
The Channel Tunnel Link, now known as HS1
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seeming contradictions. By working with governments of different shades, for example, he tempered his radicalism with pragmatism. Falk describes him as a “Libertarian who believed in “libertarian who believed in devolving power down to devolving power down to people but at the same time people but at the same time was impressed by people who was impressed by people get things done” who get things done”. Hence, NICHOLAS FALK perhaps, his early appreciation of “top-down” but “benign” planning, and also his cordial relationship with Michael Heseltine, a man of a different political hue. Not all of his projects turned to gold, of course. Hall’s involvement in the attempted regeneration of his beloved Blackpool produced mixed results. He turned away from Labour’s Richard “I can’t think of anyone else Rogers task force because he who has that sort of portfolio. disagreed with the density of It’s a reading list for an entire developments proposed, and university course. I don’t he proposed a Thames estuknow whether there was ary airport that was later something in that postwar mocked as ‘Boris Island’. period that gave people with serious capability the capacity But he continued to chamto rise to the top, and whether pion Crossrail, HS2 (with our process-driven system growing reservations) and nowadays doesn’t let that improved transport links happen.” between northern cities – not CATH RANSON least because of his concern for the growing divide between the South East and the rest of the UK. To the end, transport infrastructure was wedded to economic growth and he was a director of Sintropher, the five-year scheme to improve connectivity in peripheral regions in north-west Europe.
Encyclopaedic enthusiast If he was a man of breadth, he was also a man of depth – and Hall’s capacity to absorb detail was legendary. In speech, as in writing, he could be encyclopaedic. “His grasp was incredible. He remembered it all,” notes Falk. His work, supported at times by his wife Magda (credited as co-author of Cities In Civilisation) and guided by editor Ann Rudkin, had serious academic rigour. Yet it was still immensely readable. His grasp of technical detail was evident in his love of trains, too. “He was still so enthusiastic. I remember a Tube journey from a TCPA meeting,” says Townsend. “In a crowded standing area, he was going into enormous detail over the possibilities of different alignments of HS2 stations. “He also knew which way round sidings should be at the
Leeds HS2 terminus. He would spot it and point network rail engineers in the right direction.” According to Townsend, he was compiling a “giant” study on the stock of Network Rail’s existing stations and analysing commuter journeys into London. To the end, he was arguing for the realisation of something akin to the vision first outlined in London 2000 in 1963. When asked what Hall’s legacy would be, Townsend pauses. “I would almost say the whole of the strategic planning agenda,” he states, quite simply. “Obviously people have turned their back on it for the current period but I’m sure they will be quoting him like mad when the pendulum swings back again.” But it was also nothing short of the transformation of the practice of planning itself. Townsend calls it an “upscaling”. “This was a period when geographers could walk into planning without doing the RTPI qualification,” he says. “He brought social science and geography to a big role in planning alongside the architects, engineers and surveyors. “I would say that he was the articulate vision of the scaling of planning needed by a period of much greater mobility.” Falk agrees, noting that Hall’s legacy might be described as “a way of thinking about planning”. His crossing borders approach to theory and practice helped to transform the profession and make it “respectable” and professional. Says RTPI president Cath Ranson: “I can’t think of anyone else who has that sort of portfolio. It’s a reading list for an entire university course.”
A league of his own “It’s difficult to imagine how somebody like that could emerge these days,” Ranson continues. “I don’t know whether there was something in that postwar period that gave people with serious capability the capacity to rise to the top, and whether our process-driven system nowadays doesn’t let that happen. There was a huge appetite to make the world a better place.” Ranson, like everyone, notes Hall’s prodigious energy and expresses amazement at his ability to deliver a talk on Abercrombie’s legacy earlier this year despite arriving at the last second having just travelled back from a meeting on the continent – via the Channel Tunnel, of course. “He walked in fresh as a daisy,” she marvels. Falk, astounded, recalls how Hall spoke for an hour without notes at the launch of Good Cities, Better Lives. “It’s like there was one league for Peter Hall and another for the rest of us,” says Ranson. She likens Hall to Nathaniel Lichfield and to his hero Ebenezer Howard. Falk finds another point of reference: “If I were making a comparison, it would be someone like William Morris, of whom it was said in his obituary that he died of being William Morris. I just do not know how anyone could have done so many things.” Perhaps this, finally, is his true legacy: Peter Hall, the postwar urbanist who remained relevant to the end and showed the rest of us what is possible. The full title of that final chapter in Kaleidoscope City is ‘The Strange Death of British Planning: And How to Bring About a Miraculous Revival’. “We need,” Hall stressed, “not less planning but more; positive planning by well-equipped, multi-skilled teams, making masterplans which are then implemented by private developers or cooperatives.” “We knew how once,” he concluded. “We can do it again.” S E PTEMB E R 2 0 14 / THE PLA NNER
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COMMUNITY RAIL
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The drive to get us off roads and on to more eco-friendly communal trains is fraught with difficulty not only because of Beeching’s legacy, but also because of the disconnect between planner and rail authorities, says Mark Smulian
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ir Winston Churchill once described Russia as “A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”, and many planners may feel that description suits the rail industry. Housing schemes and economic development can turn on the retention or construction of lines and stations, yet this requires engagement with a baffling array of bodies, including Network Rail, the Department for Transport (DfT), one or more train operators and possibly the Office of the Rail Regulator. These all have different priorities and requirements that may not coincide. They exist because of the way rail was privatised. Essentially, the DfT invites bids to run services on lines, or combinations of them, and operators bid for these long-term franchises, by indicating how much subsidy they expect, or how much they estimate they could return to the government, while the regulator oversees safety and competition issues. But for local authorities successful engagement with rail can bring rewards – for example, a new service that opens an area for
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development, reduces social exclusion or attracts investors by making a place easier to reach. There are plenty of examples of councils involved in rail, but mostly with branch lines; direct powers over franchises seem a way off. With London Overground and Merseyrail, Transport for London and the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority are the respective franchising bodies, able to specify services and fares. Their success in taking this role from the DfT has led other conurbation authorities to try to do the same. Overground and Merseyrail are, though, almost self-contained urban networks and the DfT has proved reluctant to see local authorities involved in setting the service standards in franchises for main rail lines. TfL has been awarded three further suburban lines, but the DfT rejected an ambitious plan for it to collaborate with neighbouring counties to take over commuter rail services that originate outside London. Similarly, the Rail North grouping of some 40 local authorities across northern England has entered a partnership with the DfT for the renewal of the Northern and TransPennine rail franchises. This, though, gives it only a formal consultative role, rather removed from the service-setting powers originally sought.
Multiple stakeholders In April, transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin rejected a proposal from West Midlands councils
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COMMUNITY RAIL
“EVEN IF NETWORK RAIL AGREES TO SOMETHING, BECAUSE THE SYSTEM IS SO CRAZILY FRAGMENTED YOU HAVE TO SEE WHETHER AN OPERATOR IS WILLING TO STOP THEIR TRAINS AT A NEW STATION OR RUN DOWN A BRANCH LINE”
to take full control of the region’s rail franchise, replacing the bulk of the London Midland franchise. He said: “We consider that a phased approach to handing over responsibility to a devolved body is preferable to a West Midlands body taking full responsibility from day one.” As Christian Wolmar, author of many books on the rail industry, says: “The problem with doing anything with rail is that there are a lot of stakeholders involved. “Even if Network Rail agrees to something, because the system is so crazily fragmented you then have to see whether an operator is willing to stop their trains at a new station or run down a branch line. It also depends on whether train paths are available, so it’s immensely complicated.” Many of the 39 local growth deals agreed with local enterprise partnerships in June contain references to rail projects and may prove a potential source of financial support. The business case for rail ought to be easy to make, not least as the government continually draws attention to the increases in passenger numbers on the network. But it looks as if ministers have little sympathy with attempts by local authorities to take over parts of franchising for main lines. There are, however, opportunities for reopening or extending branch lines and for councils to support existing lines so that services are maintained or increased. Engaging with rail is not easy, but there can be light at the end of the tunnel – and so much the better if it is an oncoming train.
Reopening a line
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LONG AGO, a railway line linked the rural towns of the Scottish Borders to Edinburgh and Carlisle. Then came the Beeching axe, and it closed in 1969. It is now being rebuilt in a £294 million project financed largely by the Scottish Government, but also with an element from planning gain. Autumn 2015 should see trains running
from Edinburgh to Tweedbank, although any further extension back to Carlisle remains uncertain. Scottish Borders has the obscure distinction of being the only mainland UK council area with no station, and indeed no motorway, says its head of economic development and regeneration Bryan McGrath.
He explains: “The line is a way to open up development of the area. We see it as an essential initiative with a major impact on our economy. “It’s more than a transport project. In planning terms it’s about how Scottish Borders plays its role in the Edinburgh city region and takes advantage of the opportunities there.”
He sees four main benefits: an initial surge in construction jobs, followed by opening up employment through commuting to Edinburgh, easier attraction of tourism and business investment to the area and then a ‘clustering’ effect from these new businesses generating further growth. Part of the local development plan for
south-east Scotland is for housing at locations along the line, from which developers will make planning gain contributions to help repay the project’s cost. The line is relatively easy to reinstate in engineering terms, as its track bed remained intact and its bridges proved to be in good condition despite 45 years with no maintenance.
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Diverting a line
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BEFORE THE recession developer Kilbride came up with the idea of paying to reinstate a branch line to Tavistock from the Plymouth-Gunnislake line from the proceeds of a large housing scheme it proposed in the town. The company’s interest has since lapsed and Devon County Council has taken over the idea. Bruce Thompson, its head of transport co-ordination services, says an urban extension of some 700 houses will raise section 106 money towards reopening the line, which was closed after the Beeching cuts in the mid-1960s. “The reason for reopening the line is that the main A386 from Tavistock to Plymouth is already highly congested and if Tavistock grows that will become even worse, so rail is seen as a good option for extra capacity,” he says. “The county has put in a funding bid to the LEP and we’re confident that the projections for the line are realistic.”
Both First Great Western and Network Rail have shown enthusiasm and the present plan is for an hourly Plymouth to Tavistock service, with a connecting train serving the existing section from Bere Alston to Gunnislake. “There are lots of other rail possibilities, but it’s very important that the local authority is focused on those where it can be sure it is possible to run trains and not spending time on those that do not stack up,” says Thompson. “There are growth opportunities in Devon and we do not want to see them choked off by lack of rail capacity.” The council also hopes to increase services on the lightly used branch line to Okehampton, possibly as part of an inland alternative to the main South-West line through Dawlish, which was badly damaged by floods last winter.
Promoting branch lines
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THE ASSOCIATION of Community Rail Partnerships lists 45 local bodies established to promote the use of branch lines, or groups of them. Community rail involves local volunteers, amenity groups and councils collaborating to improve lines and increase patronage. One example is the Devon and Cornwall Community Rail Partnership, which works with all Cornwall’s branch lines and the Barnstaple to Exmouth line in Devon. Development officer Rebecca Catterall says: “Our core activity is engaging the
public with using the service through marketing. “We do leaflets for each line, timetables, guides to eating, drinking and walking along them, and work with groups that maintain station gardens.” Funding comes from the two county councils, the University of Plymouth and operator First Great Western. Catterall says: “The patronage on each line is different. For example, Looe is very tourist-based and busy in the summer while the line from Barnstaple is a vital link for commuters working in Exeter and people going to education.”
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FOR HISTORICAL reasons, parts of Transport for London’s underground railway run into Hertfordshire, and in Watford the Metropolitan line finishes at an inconveniently sited suburban station. Hertfordshire County Council has led a partnership to divert this line using the alignment of a defunct branch line to bring the Metropolitan to the town’s hospital, centre and the main line Watford Junction station. The £116.8 million Croxley Link line has been financed by central and local governmental and is due for completion in 2017. Trevor Mason, Hertfordshire’s safe and sustainable journeys manager, says: “The Croxley Link opens up large parts of west Watford for development and by having a rail link it relieves congestion in Watford, while linking to the junction allows for connections from elsewhere in Hertfordshire. “The biggest problem has been getting all the partners together so
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that all can contribute at the same time. It’s needed TfL, the DfT, the landowners and the LEP all lined up.” Hertfordshire is also working with Network Rail to try to double to four tracks the line from London to Stansted and is examining how additional capacity on the West Coast Main Line could be used once freed up by the planned HS2 line. And the county is tangling with the franchise system by lobbying to keep intercity services stopping at Stevenage on the East Coast Main Line. Mason explains: “The new franchise sets a lower minimum of intercity trains stopping there. “We want to keep links to the North and Midlands and there is potential risk of losing them, as Stevenage is so near London stopping trains there is an issue. “We also want to see if Midland Mainline trains could call at St Albans, which has six million passengers a year but no intercity link.”
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CASE ST UDY
FROM THE ONCE HOME TO A POWERHOUSE OF THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION, THE METROPOLITAN BOROUGH OF SANDWELL HAS BEEN RESCUED FROM ITS FALL INTO DESUETUDE BY ITS AWARD足WINNING PLANNING TEAM. MARK SMULIAN REPORTS
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The Grot Spots programme
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Sandwell’s submission to the RTPI did not seek the award on the basis of regeneration or its development control record alone. It highlighted some unusual initiatives taken by planners to improve the local environment. The Grot Spots programme aims to tackle buildings that have been left to dereliction, so becoming eyesores. Since 2013 the team has identified 168 such sites, of which 124 have been improved and five ‘tidy-up’ notices have been served. In a testimonial, local property owner Day Gill said: “Sandwell Council planning and building control staff have provided me with an excellent service throughout the planning and refurbishment works.” He had bought a derelict property in Wednesbury for renovation and says: “Close working and engagement with council officers has delivered a high-quality building which not only improves the local area, but also provides much-needed residential accommodation.” A Corporate Environmental Tasking Group has been created to handle issues that overlap council departments, for example, planning, environmental health, and housing.
ome towns have developers beating a path to their door, but for others it can be a long slog to assemble sites, money and engage the property industry’s interest to get a project completed. Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council’s main regeneration project in West Bromwich took 14 years from its conception to completion. But the success of the New Square shopping centre was a key factor in its winning the 2014 RTPI Award for Local Authority Planning Team of the Year, although Sandwell also scored highly on its performance for taking decisions within time limits. Judges said Sandwell was an excellent planning service from which others had much to learn. Sandwell’s core strategy commits it to 21,400 new homes and 1,000 hectares of employment land by 2026. Finding Sandwell on a map can be difficult. The name was borrowed from a local priory in 1974, when the council was created to cover the towns of Oldbury, Rowley Regis, Smethwick, Tipton, Wednesbury and West Bromwich in the Black Country. The Black Country’s legacy of heavy industry has left the area with a serious contaminated land problem and as these industries faded, so too did the local economy. This has meant that in addition to the conventional challenges of attracting developers to an area with relatively low and Smethwick. disposable incomes and job opportunities, most projects also “The legacy of the industrial revolution has left us some really faced a long and costly period of site remediation before anydifficult ground conditions from mining and foundries with thing could be done. heavy metals in the ground, which have to be taken away at huge But councillors were determined to tackle the area’s probcost before sites can be developed. It is therefore quite difficult lems, and the planning service was integral to this. to find sites that can be made viable.” Sandwell’s planning service employs 43 staff split into spaSandwell’s main concern is the regeneration of West Bromtial policy and development and development management wich town centre, where the council has both contributed land sections. and compulsorily purchased sites. Developers, investors and landowners had to have high “It’s not going to be a centre to rival Birmingham or Wolverconfidence in the service before any projects would come the hampton, but it is hugely important locally and is now bringing in borough’s way, councillors decided, and so set out to have its different people who would not previously have shopped there,” planners work closely with them, while also maintaining a says Smith. good day-to-day service. “There had always been a shopping centre, but it had gone In 2013, planners decided 86 per cent of major applications downhill, particularly after the Merry Hill centre opened, which within 13 weeks and also 81 per cent of minor ones – 91 per cent of other applications were determined within eight weeks.
The legacy factor Philippa Smith, spatial planning and development manager, explains: “We may not be so different from the way other planning services are run, but we have an unusual area to plan for because Sandwell contains some of the most deprived areas in the country, centred on West Bromwich
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Among the testimonials offered to Sandwell planners were these: KEITH FENWICK, director, Alliance Planning “Alliance Planning has a long track record of successful working with Sandwell’s planning regeneration team. “They have taken a proactive approach in discussions, positively encouraging development as a driver to the local economy. Officers are accessible and responsive to our client’s needs, working as an integral part of the development team in helping to shape viable and vibrant places for the future.” PETER KIRKHAM, development director, DC Leisure “DC Leisure has recently worked closely with Sandwell’s planning regeneration team on the West Bromwich Leisure Centre scheme. “Officers were an integral part of the development team and provided valuable guidance and advice which ensured smooth and timely progression through the planning system. Officers were accessible, proactive, and responsive to our needs – and we would be delighted to work with Sandwell again.”
drew custom away.” New Square is anchored by a Tesco superstore – “when there wasn’t even a major supermarket there before”, Smith says – and there is also a cinema and chain retailers such as Primark and River Island. Money from Tesco and other developers has been used with European Union funding to improve the public realm. Overall, more than £500 million has been invested in West Bromwich’s centre in pursuit of the council’s objective of making it a ‘top town’ – a destination for those living in the surrounding area. Other projects delivered have included the college campus – Sandwell College has taken over the controversial former arts centre The Public, with its distinctive randomly shaped, pink-framed windows. The £80 million Providence Place office development has been successfully pursued, as has the £25 million underpass for the A41. Plans for the next few years include completion of the £11 million West Bromwich Leisure Centre, the £20 million Urban 180 town centre housing scheme, which will bring 69 homes to the town centre, and the Lyng housing scheme for 450 homes. Sandwell’s other main regeneration project is around the Midlands Metro Hospital at Smethwick, construction of which is out to tender, and Smith says its expected to generate jobs and encourage
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“WE HAVE A LARGE NUMBER OF BROWNFIELD SITES WHERE YOU CAN BE LOOKING AT £1415 MILLION IN RECLAMATION COSTS BEFORE YOU LAY A BRICK”
development in the town. “It has taken up 15 years to complete regeneration in West Bromwich and Smethwick is the next priority,” she says. “But there is other development based around the Black Country Core Strategy, which has employment and housing corridors running through the borough. “We work within that on our local plan and to refine our figures so we can allow for housing in line with government objectives.” Smith explains that Sandwell offers major developers “a single planner who will work alongside them from conception to completion stages, so our planners learn about development as they do that and can apply their skills to future projects and the developers have one point of contact”. This puts planners in a consultancy role and they work to a ‘Sandwell Pledge’, which sets out the service developers will receive. Those who register with Sandwell’s Developer Forum are e-mailed news of available sites as soon as these become available. Development prospectuses, issued free of charge, detail site conditions and options worked up by urban designers. Urban design advice is available to developers throughout the process, organised by their planning officer.
Homegrown talent Sandwell has recruited very few planners over recent years, but is about to add a transport planner. It seeks to ‘grow its own’ by in-house training “so each of our teams trains others and while people specialise they have a grasp of what others in the department do,” says Smith. “We seek to grow our own talent as a number of officers are coming up to retirement and we want to bring the junior ones along. There is a lot of sharing of knowledge and we have 12-month internal attachments to other teams so, for example, policy planners get to know about transport.” The political head of planning is Ian Jones, cabinet member for jobs and economy. “I’ve always said Sandwell is open for business and welcomes developers and will treat them with respect and our planning service will work with them,” he says. “Our offer to work with developers goes beyond the normal one. We spend time understanding what they want and how we can help them with planning to draw investment into the borough.” Although the council has improved the centre of West Bromwich, including its older shopping centres and street market, and invested heavily in parks and leisure centres, the area’s industrial heritage is against it. “We have a large number of brownfield sites where you can be looking at £14-15 million in reclamation costs before you lay a brick,” Jones says. He has, however, a novel potential solution to this, which is to use large and robust mobile homes for housing – initially mainly for older people who may be under-occupying homes. “Mobile homes do not need the foundations that a conventional building does,” he points out. Accommodating these may be the next challenge that Sandwell’s planners will face.
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DECISIONS IN FOCUS
Decisions in Focus is where we put the spotlight on some of the more significant planning appeals and court cases of the last month – alongside your comments. If you’d like to contribute your insights and analyses to future issues of The Planner, email DiF at editorial@theplanner.co.uk Grade 1 listed Wymondham Abbey has been saved from redevelopment
HOUSING
of Wymondham Abbey, in particular its pastoral setting, ‘significantly and demonstrably’ outweighed any benefits. The Secretary of State also concluded that the scheme would conflict with various Development Plan policies relating to protecting the setting of Wymondham Abbey and the surrounding countryside and with the Framework. Having weighed up all relevant considerations, the Secretary of State concluded that there were no material considerations of sufficient weight that would justify allowing the appeal.
Wymondham Abbey saved from development (1 SUMMARY The Grade 1 listed Wymondham Abbey has been saved from development in spite of the five-year housing land supply shortfall in the area. (2 CASE DETAILS A s.78 appeal was made by Mr Steven Biart of the Fairfield Partnership against South Norfolk District Council’s failure to give notice within the prescribed period on an application for outline permission for redevelopment comprising up to 70 dwellings and associated works at Chapel Lane, Wymondham, Norfolk. (3 CONCLUSION REACHED The secretary of state agreed with the recommendations of his inspector, JP Sargent. He concluded that, under paragraph 134 of the framework, the benefits of the scheme, including the provision of additional housing in the absence of a five-year housing land supply, did not outweigh
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APPEAL REFERENCE: APP/ L2630/A/13/2196884
the less than substantial harm it would cause to the setting of Wymondham Abbey. He further found, in respect of paragraph 49 of the Framework, that
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relevant policies for the supply of housing were out of date, but that, in respect of paragraph 14 of the Framework, the harm that would be caused to the setting
(4 ANALYSIS [1] DAVID LINTOTT This case contains a useful analysis of the way in which the secretary of state considers applications affecting the setting of a listed building and causing less than substantial harm should be considered post Barnwell Manor Wind Energy Ltd v E Northants DC [2014] EWCA Civ 137. DAVID LINTOTT Cornerstone Barristers
I M AG E | G E T T Y
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A plan for a 24 MW solar farm at Ellough Airfield in Suffolk is still to be decided
ENERGY
Court win could represent boost for renewables (1 SUMMARY In June the High Court overruled the decision of communities secretary Eric Pickles to block planning permission on a 24 MW solar farm at Ellough Airfield, Suffolk. DLA Piper advised the developer, Lark Energy (alongside their planning consultants, DLP) in this test case for the sector, which has seen many projects stalled by the government’s preference for nuclear power. (2 CASE DETAILS Lark Energy applied for a 100,000 panel solar farm but the planning authority, Waveney District Council, refused permission despite having previously given the green light for a smaller solar farm on the same site. Lark Energy appealed against the decision and an inspector recommended the scheme be approved, as the benefits of the vast renewable energy source far outweighed the limited detriment caused to the landscape. Pickles intervened, going against his own inspector’s recommendations, and
planning permission was refused citing the landscape harm and minor local opposition as the reasons. (3 CONCLUSION REACHED Andrew Newcombe QC for Lark Energy argued that this decision was perverse and the High Court judge found that Pickles showed “substantial prejudice” when blocking the application. The judge reviewed Waveney’s planning policies, which promote the development of sites for renewable energy and seek to protect areas with distinctive characteristics. According to s38(6) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, the secretary of state is under a duty to make a determination in accordance with a development plan unless material considerations indicate otherwise. The judge found that Pickles’ reasons left “genuine doubt” as to compliance with s38(6), by failing to consider or explain adequately which of the opposing policies were to be dominant in this case, and the secretary of state’s decision was quashed. Pickles is seeking to appeal against the judgment despite the judge refusing leave to appeal. The matter was referred back to the I M AG E | A L A M Y
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(4 ANALYSIS [1] JIM McAVAN This was a good blow for fairness in the planning system. The coalition’s promise of green targets and subsidies for renewables seems in stark contrast to a campaign by the communities secretary to refuse as many renewable schemes as possible. Since last October he has called in 39 plans. Of 13 rulings to date, the secretary of state has blocked 11 wind farms (in five cases against the advice of planning inspectors). This is a reversal of trends between 2010 and 2013, when approval rates hovered at 60 to 70 per cent for renewable schemes. In the Lark Energy case the secretary of state’s refusal was based on reasons that the court found to be inadequate.
(4 ANALYSIS [2] SIMON JAMES Eric Pickles recently wrote to Wellingborough Borough Council saying he will call in an application for a solar farm at Mears Ashby, Northampton, if the council consents it. The reason given was that the secretary of state had “received a number of letters asking him to call in the application”. The council has responded, pointing out that it had not received any comments from the public about the application. The impact of this callin will be to delay the project and probably make it unviable as the 31 March subsidy deadline would almost certainly pass before this is resolved. This follows the project at Ellough, where there was also little opposition, and which was also called in by Pickles. But here his decision was successfully challenged through Judicial Review. It raises the question as to why Pickles is doing this. Is it politically motivated ahead of the general election next year, or does his department have some antisolar agenda?
JIM MCAVAN is an associate at DLA Piper
SIMON JAMES Managing director, DLA Piper
communities secretary and could still be refused when reviewed for a second time.
Case reference: Lark Energy Limited v Secretary of State for Communities & Local Government (2) Waveney District Council [2014] EWHC 2006 (Admin)
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Demolition may not implement planning permission (1 SUMMARY The High Court has handed down a decision that should act as a warning to those seeking to implement a planning permission merely by carrying out demolition works. The court held that, if the subsequent development is sufficiently materially different from that permitted, the demolition may not implement the planning permission. This is the case even if the subsequent development is carried out some time after the elapse of the requisite time period in which work was required to begin. (2 CASE DETAILS Silver v SSGLC [2014] EWHC 2729 (Admin) concerned a planning permission permitting demolition of an existing single-storey rear extension and erection of a
DECISIONS IN FOCUS two-storey rear extension at basement and ground floor level. The claimant carried out the demolition works and some of the basement excavation works just before the permission expired. Thereafter, the works undertaken differed in a number of ways from the permitted scheme, including in the roof form, the ground floor footprint, the window arrangement, and their proximity to the boundary of the property. A planning inspector decided that the works were sufficiently materially different that the planning permission had not been implemented. The dlaimant argued that it was impermissible for the inspector to look so far forward in time beyond the date of implementation, and to assess whether the planning permission had been implemented by reference to the entire development rather than a set of material operations that could comprise the development.
(3 CONCLUSION REACHED Mr Justice Supperstone rejected those contentions. He held that the inspector’s conclusion that there was a sufficiently substantial difference between the as-built scheme and the permitted scheme could not be characterised as irrational, and that the inspector’s determination that the planning permission had not been implemented was a permissible exercise of his planning judgment. He held further that the inspector correctly considered and relied on the judgment of Ouseley J in Commercial Land Limited v SSCLG [2002] EWHC 1264 (Admin).
APPEAL REFERENCE: APP/ B1930/A/09/2109433
MIXEDUSE DEVELOPMENT
Student home appeal dismissed (1 SUMMARY An appeal against plans for the demolition of a former boot and shoe factory (known as Bective Works) and the erection of new student accommodation, with new vehicular and pedestrian accesses and associated landscaping, together with the alteration and restoration of the circa-1902 part of a listed building – and its change of use for student community use – has been dismissed.
for a scheme involving the demolition of Bective Works and Jebez House in Northampton to build student accommodation, with a shop, lower ground-floor parking and servicing space, new vehicle and pedestrian access and associated landscaping, plus alteration and restoration of part of listed Enterprise House building and change of use for student community use. Planning permission had previously been granted on the site for the demolition of Bective Works and Jebez House and for the erection of residential apartments. The council had also granted Listed Building Consent for alterations and restoration of the circa-1902 part of Enterprise House and its change of use to student community use. Key issues in the case were deemed to be the effect of the use of the building upon the living conditions of local residents; and the effect of the proposed scheme on the character and appearance of the area, having particular regard to the building’s intended use and its scale and design. (3 CONCLUSION REACHED In dismissing the appeal, inspector RC Kirby said that issues arising included the effect of the use of the building on the living conditions of local residents, having particular regard to noise and disturbance. The effect of the proposed scheme on the character and appearance of the area, having particular regard to the building’s intended use and its scale and design.
(2 CASE DETAILS Permission was sought
Demolishing an existing structure doesn’t imply planning permission
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Appeal reference: APP/ E0915/A/14/2213261
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+ We’d like to incorporate your comment, insight and analysis into Decisions in Focus each month. Whether you can offer a brief obversation on a matter of interest within an inspector’s judgement or an informed interpretation of a decision, please let us know by emailing DiF at editorial@theplanner.co.uk
ROUNDUP Here are nine more decisions that we think are worth a look this month. All the details and inspector’s letters can be found on the Planning Portal website: www.pcs.planningportal.gov.uk APPEAL DECISIONS
Appeal reference: APP/ D0121/A/13/2208198
HOUSING NEW BUILD
COMMERCIAL
(5) Application: Appeal (1) Application: Appeal against failure to give notice within prescribed period on proposals to demolish buildings and redevelop into flexible starter commercial space for Class A1, A2, B1 and A3 uses, with flats and live/ work units in Wanstead. Decision: Appeal dismissed. Main issues: The effect of the development on the retail hierarchy in the area, the impact on the historic environment, having regard to whether the development would preserve the character of the Wanstead Village Conservation Area, its effect on neighbours, its effect on highway safety owing to the parking and servicing arrangements, its impact on provision of affordable housing, and whether harm to heritage assets is outweighed by other benefits. Appeal reference: APP/ W5780/A/14/2212561
ENERGY
(3) Application: Appeal against refusal of permission for three wind turbine generators up to 126.5m high, with associated access roads, crane pads, electrical and communication cables, electrical switch room and ancillary works at Bedlinog Farm in Merthyr Tydfil. Decision: Appeal dismissed. Main issues: The effects of the proposed wind turbines on the landscape, especially the setting of the Gelligaer Common Landscape of Special Historic Interest, the visual impact on the users of the Gelligaer Common and nearby public footpaths, the benefits in terms of generation of renewable energy, and the involvement of the local community. Appeal reference: APP/ U6925/A/13/2209535
HOUSING CONVERSION ENERGY
(4) Application: Appeal (2) Application: Appeal against refusal of proposed development of solar photovoltaic array and ancillary development in Bleadon, Somerset. Decision: Appeal dismissed. Main issues: Impact of proposals on the character and appearance of the surrounding landscape, living conditions of local residents, and whether any negative impacts are outweighed by the benefits of the proposals. A slightly revised scheme was submitted at appeal stage, but the appeal was considered on the basis of the original plans.
against refusal for outline permission for demolition of two-storey buildings containing houses and flats at Merton, south-west London, to build an eightstorey “aparthotel” of 31 flats providing short-term accommodation and nine residential flats. Decision: Appeal dismissed. Main issues: The effect of the proposal on the character of the surrounding area, the living conditions of the residents of local properties with particular regard to outlook. Appeal reference: APP/ T5720/A/14/2216963
against refusal of permission for developing 41 retirement living flats with communal facilities and associated car parking and landscaping at Pinhoe in Exeter. Decision: Appeal dismissed. Main issues: whether the requirement for a planning obligation in relation to a financial contribution towards affordable housing provision would result in the development being unviable. Appeal reference: APP/ Y1110/A/14/2217494
HOUSING NEW BUILD
(6) Application: appeal against refusal of permission for the erection of 11, twostorey detached homes on land to the east of Wesley College with vehicle access off Ridgeway Court, following the demolition of a single garage, retention and enhancement of woodland, landscaping and associated infrastructure, in Henbury, Bristol. Decision: Appeal dismissed. Main issues: Whether the appeal proposal would preserve or enhance the character or appearance of the Brentry Conservation Area, having regard to factors including the loss of open space, the impact on the setting of Wesley College, density, layout and form of the new houses. Appeal reference: APP/ Z0116/A/14/2215660
HOUSING CONVERSION
(7) Application: Appeal against refusal of
permission for change of use of redundant B1 office accommodation to a new development of 80 residential apartments above an existing car park in Horsham, West Sussex. Decision: Appeal dismissed. Main issues: The effect of the proposed development on the character and appearance of the area. Appeal reference: APP/ Z3825/A/14/2216603
INDUSTRIAL
(8) Application: Appeal against refusal of permission for construction of five buildings including 12 light industrial units and associated access parking and refuse areas in Tamworth, Staffordshire. Decision: Appeal dismissed. Main issues: The effect of the development proposed on protected wildlife species, specifically bats and badgers. Appeal reference: APP/ Z3445/A/14/2214456
LEISURE AND TOURISM
(9) Application: Appeal against refusal of permission for redevelopment of the former Lionville Brickworks and construction of a fishing lake, 10 luxury log cabins and café/clubhouse in Scalford, Leicestershire Decision: Appeal dismissed. Main issues: Whether the development would constitute sustainable rural tourism, taking into account its particular location and existing condition, and its likely impact on highway safety. Appeal reference: APP/ Y2430/A/14/2213683
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LLegal landscape LEARNING WHICH WAY THE WIND BLOWS Large wind farms generate strong emotions as well as electricity. Careful examination and strategic consideration of several large applications in one inquiry is now a rare event. Probably the UK’s largest onshore wind farm inquiry, the Mid-Wales (Powys) conjoined wind farms public inquiry closed on 30 May 2014. It considered applications for five large (in excess of 50MW each) wind farms, together with a related grid connection. Because of their vintage the proposals fell to be considered under provisions in the Electricity Act 1989, rather than the 2008 Planning Act regime for nationally significant energy infrastructure. The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change decided to combine consideration of the applications into one large inquiry so that the strategic implications could all be examined in one go. In many ways it was an extraordinary undertaking, and one that may not be seen again any time soon. That will turn, no doubt, on whether politically it is felt in the future that there is real benefit in assessing the potential cumulative impacts of energy developments
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Clare Parry Thomas Cosgrove at a public inquiry. The applications spanned a large area of Mid-Wales. There were, of course, familiar wind farm planning issues that fell to be considered. Matters concerning landscape and visual impacts, cultural heritage, ecology, tourism and the economy, transport impacts, and energy policy, to name but a few, were examined. Unlike normal
“AT TIMES THERE WERE AS MANY AS NINE PARTIES IN ATTENDANCE AT THE INQUIRY WITH LEGAL REPRESENTATION AND EXPERT WITNESSES”
inquiries, however, the conjoined format allowed for and encouraged strategic assessment. At times there were as many as nine parties in attendance at the inquiry with legal representation and expert witnesses. This inevitably meant substantial expert evidence and complicated but important alternative scenarios being examined. The format involved several intensive sessions of evidence based on a mixture of geographic areas and planning topics with a final cumulative session considering overall impacts for the region. The inquiry spanned almost exactly a year. Evidence was tested by experienced counsel and members of the public alike. Evening sessions attracted hundreds of attendees. The inspectors appointed will submit reports to the secretary of state for his determination later in 2014.
Unsurprisingly, the inquiry engendered huge public and political interest, with many representations being delivered. The interrelationship between UK, Welsh and local energy and planning policy was examined in detail. Unlike England, Wales has for several years pursued a policy identifying broad strategic search areas for wind farm development and it will be interesting to see in due course how the decisionmaker grapples with the mass of policy and competing submissions he has been provided with in that regard. Looking forward, it remains to be seen how practical it will ever again be to hold such in-depth combined inquiries in Wales or elsewhere, and whether the ultimate decisions should in fact be taken in Wales or by the UK government. Whether these kinds of matters should be considered in a format that allows for a combined and strategic deliberation to happen with public involvement and oral evidence is also a matter for debate. Decision-making in a way that encourages the public as well as professional involvement is one way of tackling these proposals and allowing all to have their say.
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THOMAS COSGROVE Thomas Cosgrove of Cornerstone Barristers specialises in the fields of planning and public/regulatory law. His practice comprises a significant number of appearances in planning inquiries, regulatory hearings, and related High Court appeals
– CLARE PARRY Clare Parry, also of Cornerstones, specialises in planning and compensation, housing, licensing, administrative, regulatory and property law. She regularly acts for and against local authorities and other public bodies
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LATEST POSTS FROM THEPLANNER.CO.UK/BLOGS
B LO G S This month… What a ruling of “totally without merit” on applications for permission to bring a claim for judicial review might mean to planners, and a thorny case that is testing the High Hedges (Scotland)Act 2013
L E G I S L AT I O N S H O R T S The meaning of “totally without merit” Polly Reynolds In June, the Court of Appeal ruled in the case of R (Grace) v Secretary of State for the Home Department. The Court, considering the meaning of totally without merit (TWM), held that “in this context, TWM means no more and no less than ‘bound to fail’”. Under CPR 54.12(7), when an application has been considered without a hearing, that is, on papers alone, and the judge refuses permission to proceed on the basis that the application is TWM, the claimant’s only remedy is by way of an application to the Court of Appeal. The Court of Appeal then decides whether, on the basis of the papers alone, the claimant should have permission to appeal or apply for judicial review. The facts of the case were that Pamela Grace entered the country on a temporary basis, remaining without leave to do so until 2012 when she applied for permanent leave to remain. Her application was refused by the secretary of state with no right of appeal. Grace issued a claim form and the application was considered by Kenneth Parker J, who refused permission for Grace to apply for judicial review, stating the “case is considered to be
totally without merit”. Subsequently, Grace applied to the Court of Appeal for permission to appeal and requested clarification by the Court on the “TWM test”. When her application was considered by Longmore LJ, however, he granted permission only for the court to clarify the TWM test. (The aim of the TWM test was to relieve the strain of applicants bringing abusive or hopeless claims on the court system.) In his majority judgement Maurice Kay LJ set out clearly what he held the purpose of CPR 54.12(7) and the TWM test to be: “It is to confront the fact, for such it is, that the exponential growth in judicial review applications in recent years has given rise to a significant number of hopeless applications which cause trouble to public authorities, who have to acknowledge service and file written grounds of resistance prior to the first judicial consideration of the application, and place an unjustified burden on the resources of the Administrative Court and the Upper Tribunal.” So what does this mean for planning? It is hoped that one of the results of the TWM test being so clearly set out will be to reduce the number of the more tactical claims being brought. However, the only way this will take real effect is if lawyers and others advise their clients carefully on the
merits of their case and in doing so to consider whether they have a … chance of success. Polly Reynolds is a planning solicitor at Veale Wasbrough Vizards
Hedging bets Victoria Smith Since 1 April the High Hedges (Scotland) Act 2013 has been in force to resolve disputes over hedges in an unsuitable area or allowed to grow to an unreasonable size. It applies to hedges defined as a row of two or more trees or shrubs over 2m in height that block out light. An occupier of a domestic property can apply to a local authority for a high hedge notice if their enjoyment of a property is adversely affected. Councils can enforce such notices if neighbours fail to comply with its terms. A right to appeal a council’s decision to the Scottish ministers regarding the grant or refusal of a notice is also provided for. The first appeal under the act has been lodged with the Directorate for Planning & Environmental Appeals on Edinburgh council’s decision not to grant a high hedge notice for a hedge of 5m high and 17.3m long. It will be interesting to watch its progress as an indicator of the act’s effectiveness. Victoria Smith is a planning lawyer at Brodies www.brodies.com/blog
Hillingdon anti-HS2 campaigners vow to fight on Anti-HS2 activists and the London Borough of Hillingdon have lost a joint court challenge to the high-speed train line’s construction. Hillingdon and HS2 Action Alliance (HS2AA) had argued that safeguarding directions for the line’s construction were unlawful because there had been no strategic environmental assessment. Council leader Ray Puddifoot accused the government of riding “roughshod over long-standing laws that protect the environment” and the court itself of “turning a blind eye” to the alleged infraction. The litigants will seek permission to appeal and said they would “be considering what other options are available to them”.
Design compromise ends Exeter cricket pavilion challenge A legal challenge over plans to replace Exeter cricket pavilion with blocks of student flats has been dropped. Exeter St James Neighbourhood Forum has instead reached an agreement with developer Yelverton Properties that will see the appearance of the multistorey blocks and replacement pavilion changed to be more in keeping with the building’s prominent size and position in a conservation area. The forum stressed that it was not opposed to development, but to inappropriate or insensitive development. Steering group representative Jo Hawkins said: “It was disappointing, after two years of preparing the Neighbourhood Plan, to find our policies on the cricket club, heritage and design, brushed aside by Exeter City Council.”
Unauthorised listed building conversion earns injunction and fine The owners and site manager of a Grade II listed property in Stockton in the north-east of England have been fined a total of £5,240 after admitting carrying out building works without listed building consent. Dennis Harley Developments and site manager James Harley were charged with one offence each under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation areas) Act 1990 after a planning officer had noticed work happening at the 170-year-old property in December 2013. A site inspection determined that the building was being turned into flats, but the work continued despite orders to cease. Finally, an injunction was issued. A solicitor representing the defendants said most of the damage had occurred before the company acquired the property and their work was simply to minimise damage from break-ins and leaks. Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council cabinet member Mike Smith said: “The laws regarding listed building consent are there for a reason – to protect the historical significance of relevant properties.”
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Career { D E V E L O P M E N T C I N T E R P R E T I N G A C O N S U LT A T I O N
The last issue of The Planner explored the skills and resources needed to carry out consultations. Here, Helen Bird finds out how you should go about interpreting the results
O
nce a consultation has been carried out (see the last issue of The Planner for guidance), the key to its effectiveness lies in the thorough and correct interpretation of its results. Because information is often gathered from a range of sources and in a variety of formats, the task can seem like a daunting one. But, with an effective processing system, sufficient resources and a methodical approach, it needn’t be.
how do you do it?
Where to find help?
what skills do you need?
(1) First steps Planning consultant Nathaniel Lichfield & Partners has optimised its data interpretation process with the help of an in-house ‘consultation tracker’. The system collates, analyses and manages consultation feedback, and can even capture electronic responses (such as iPad surveys) directly. Planning director Pauline Roberts says it brings simplicity and efficiency to the process. “We log everything electronically, identify key issues relating to a project, and identify what response is required, by whom, by when and what the outcome of this is.”
(2) Who should be heard? It is important to remember that all responses in a consultation are of value to the person or organisation that made them. “Our handling of them should always respect that,” says Roberts. “Most responses from the public are often quite short and to the point, and 40
normally quite easy to interpret. Often, issues are repeated and clear themes emerge. Representative groups and amenity societies often make longer submissions and raise more technical points, but it’s easier to follow them up to clarify points and subsequently respond,” she adds. Ranking the importance of participants’ responses won’t necessarily be straightforward, but should always reflect the core of the issue. “Those who participate in the planning system more know what represents a justifiable planning objection and what doesn’t,” says Roberts. “This means the representative groups and amenity societies can often raise more substantive issues, but that isn’t always
the case. A local historian, for example, might have a unique insight on heritage matters.”
(3) Delivering results Entering into a consultation means committing to sharing the results in a timely and well-considered way, says Roberts. “Good developers want to do this as a matter of course as they see the value in consultation and therefore do it willingly,” she adds. Setting the parameters of a consultation before it begins is crucial to managing expectations after the event. Roberts believes that timely feedback is essential in explaining what has and hasn’t been taken on board, and the reasons why.
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l “Reasoned argument and feedback builds trust and respect – even if the answers aren’t always what a consultee wants to hear,” she says.
(4) Turning results to plans With feedback gathered, processed and shared, how does it then translate to workable policies and plans? According to Roberts, a workshop environment is effective for discussing the key issues raised by the consultation and formulating a response. It might be that options are tested and costed before a solution is presented back to the community and to planning officers. “If no changes are possible then this needs to be explained,” Roberts adds. Indeed, before action should come communication, as well as clear timescales that set out what will be done and when. Above all, says Roberts, “consultees should know where they stand and what is required of them”.
l A multimedia approach Stuart Mearns is forward planning manager of Our Live Park, a local plan consultation by Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park that set out to discover how planning can help improve the area “from housing to jobs, and everything in-between”. The project took a modern, multimedia approach in a bid to capture as much information from as many different sources as possible, which made for an interesting interpretation process, says Mearns. “We were encouraged by the Scottish government to use innovative and different ways to gain a whole range of views. Using social media is not particularly labour-intensive, but if you’re using the tool in the right way it’s very helpful. “We had over 40 per cent of responses submitted formally via our website, which was quite good for us to process because we don’t need to have somebody typing out the comments. We also received about 80 comments via the comment box on the website. The first step is the checking process and the key thing here is to have your systems in place and enough resources – i.e. people. We did the consultation over 11 weeks and, for a small team of four, that’s quite a big undertaking. But to move quickly to analyse the responses, you need to get
your procedures in place in advance. “We’ve done a first blog piece on our website, which is giving a taste of the responses that came in – volume and type – at a broad level. We’re in the process of checking the detail of the responses and once all of the information has been entered, we’ll publish a report, which will be upfront and transparent. “I’m conscious that this is a journey that we’re going through as an organisation, but I’m trying to bring our audience with us. We’ve found that Twitter is successful for engaging with our peers and businesses, but Facebook is much better from a community and public point of view. We’ll tailor what we say according to the audience. The content will be the same, but it’s how we’ll present it. “I think [by using a multimedia approach] we’ve got a more diverse range of comments. We also held public meetings and went along to events, so people left comments in lots of different ways. “It’s about bringing them all together and looking at their substance. Community organisations will want to know what people are saying and I’ve already been to one of our bigger towns and given them a summary. “It’s key to keep that relationship with the community.” n Find out more about the Our Live Park consultation at: http://www.ourlivepark.com
Sharing results The RTPI’s guidelines for the publication of results include:
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“Making best use of new technology by posting relevant publications on the internet, while also providing a facility for non-digital organisations and individuals to obtain equivalent information.”
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A good example is provided by Rother Local Strategic Partnership, which conducted a series of consultations with the residents of Bexhill to find out how they thought the town could be improved.
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The group’s dedicated website (www.bexhilllocalactionplan.co.uk) is sharing the process and the results of these consultations with the community that created them.
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Importantly, the information is presented in a highly accessible and digestible way. It breaks down results into summaries and categories, and presents feedback as bullet points. The site even includes photos taken throughout the consultation process.
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A true community collaboration should involve participants as much after the event as during, and a simple but an effective bespoke website such as this one is an excellent way to achieve this.
l Effective interpretation means:
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Being thorough. Whatever your system of data input and analysis, a thorough and methodical approach is key. At NLP Planning, Roberts confirms, once all the data is logged electronically, the team identifies the key issues and the response that’s needed.
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Identifying clear themes. Key issues are often repeated among responses and themes are likely to emerge as a result, so it’s important to note what they are.
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Giving weight according to issue, rather than respondent. It may sound obvious, but it’s not necessarily those who shout loudest that should be heard.
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Validating the information you receive. When responses are unclear or seemingly refer to non-planning matters, it’s important to – where feasible – follow up with the respondent(s) to clarify what they mean. This is something that the Our Live Park team found was needed, says Stuart Mearns.
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Having a well-briefed team. The consultation process is intense, so for a small team it is a big undertaking. Ensure that you have sufficient resources and that the team is clear on the aims is imperative to timely interpretation.
Resources – learn about consultation in detail
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n The RTPI’s Guidelines on Effective Community Involvement and Consultation are available at: rtpi.org.uk/media/6313/Guidlelines-on-effectivecommunity-involvement.pdf
Setting clear timescales for implementing changes. This allows all participants to know where they stand and what is required of them.
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INSIGHT
Plan ahead P
Send feedback to editorial@theplanner.co.uk Tweet us @The Planner_RTPI
Living on the edge Many of our seaside towns seem to be in a state of inexorable decay. Can planners arrest the decline? by Simon Wicks Far beyond their 1950s kissme-quick heyday, many of Britain’s seaside towns are in decline, conditioned by ageing populations and visibly decaying infrastructure. The Miss Havishams of the urban world, they may bravely put on rouge for the annual visit by the hopeful and the curious, but there’s no hiding the cobwebs in the corner. For decades they have avoided the gaze of national policymakers, for whom all investment pathways lead to London – or, at a pinch, Birmingham or Manchester. Except for when the sun shines on Bank Holiday Monday, we barely give our coastal communities a second thought. Ironically, many of the residents are happy with this state of affairs, observes Chris Balch, chair of the RTPI South West and professor of planning at Plymouth University. “In places like these, you tend to have a resident population who live here for a reason and want it to stay the same,” he says. “But very often there’s a
"PLYMOUTH IS BRANDING ITSELF AS ‘BRITAIN’S OCEAN CITY’ AND IS TRYING TO BUILD ON ITS MARINE ENGINEERING TRADITION"
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Chris Baulch: “Very often there’s a young population that feels disconnected”
young population that feels disconnected. How do you manage social regeneration in communities that have that kind of composition? How do you make the change – socially, physically, economically?” The challenges thrown up by our coastal towns could hardly have been better illustrated than by the storms that assaulted Britain earlier this year. “Plymouth, the largest city on the South Coast, was left hanging by a thread when the Dawlish line went down,” recalls Balch. It’s 2014, not 1852. So. Climate change and collapsing infrastructure. Ageing populations and fitful employment. Dissatisfied youth that flees for a life less boring elsewhere. Official indifference. Economic isolation. It is no wonder that Cornwall has a Gross Added Value of just 61 per cent of the UK average. It’s not looking good for our coastline. But this is precisely why planners need to understand the challenges faced by coastal communities, so that they can make a difference. Decline is not inevitable, Balch insists, and there are plenty of
“bright spots” showing the way. There’s Falmouth, for example, where heavy investment in the university is bringing young people to the area. In this respect, the town is following the example set by Bournemouth. “Bournemouth is interesting,” notes Balch. “Through the university it has been able to attract financial services companies. It’s tried to be different. Plymouth, too, now brands itself as ‘Britain’s ocean city’ and is trying to build on its marine engineering tradition.” These, and other, examples will doubtless provide a focus
for discussion on 19 September, when RTPI South West hosts ‘Planning At The Edge: Managing Change In Coastal Communities’ in Newquay. A one-day conference, it will feature speakers from local communities, as well as planners, local authority representatives and climate experts. “We won’t be giving people a book of answers,” Balch concludes. “But we will get them thinking about the challenges and sharing experiences from successful coastal communities about how planning can help find the solutions.”
P L A N N I N G AT T H E E D G E : M A N A G I N G C H A N G E I N C O A S TA L C O M M U N I T I E S Where? Headland Hotel, Newquay, Cornwall When? 19 September 2014, 9.30am-4pm Theme: Regenerating seaside towns Find out more and book at: http://bit.ly/1g5Act0
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LISTINGS Talks, conferences, training, master classes – everything you need to keep on top of the latest thinking and developments in the planning world.
YORKSHIRE 3 October – South Yorkshire Coalfield Back in Business Greatest planning achievements: the 1980s. Approaches to regeneration in Yorkshire coalfield. This includes large-scale public/ private sector investment and compares this to the community ethos of the regeneration of coalfield communities. Site visits will be to Waverley Advanced Manufacturing Plant in Rotherham and Brodsworth in Doncaster. Venue: Harworth Estates, Rotherham S60 5WG Details: www.bit. ly/19RT1Pt
WEST MIDLANDS 7 October – Planning law update A seminar led by planning lawyers on topical legal issues, new and emerging legislation and guidance, recent case law and appeal decisions plus their significance and impact. Venue: DLA Piper, Birmingham B2 4DL Details: www.bit. ly/19RTWzm
NORTH WEST 18 September – Environment and Climate Change Emerging trends in environmental assessment and wider issues of sustainability. Plus an appraisal of how nonspatial agendas such as the low-carbon economy and climate change adaptation can influence planning decisions at a local level. Venue: Eversheds, Manchester Details: www.bit. ly/1i1qHwn 24 September – Housing, Regeneration & Growth The changing context in planning for housing, including meeting the requirements of emerging revised planning guidance.
We will consider the state of the housing market, as well as the Help To Buy scheme. Venue: Eversheds, Manchester Details: www.bit. ly/1lEFPQd 11 November – Leading with Impact A two-day workshop for managers/team leaders on how to develop leadership style and people management techniques to effectively deal with the challenges of improving performance. Venue: Arup, 3 Piccadilly Place, Manchester Details: www.bit. ly/1pwpbYz
SOUTH WEST 10 October – Planning for Sustainable Urban Neighbourhoods and New Settlements This session will provide an update on current best practice in the planning, design and delivery of urban neighbourhoods and new settlements such as Cranbrook, focusing on the management of transport, energy, waste and ecological resources. Venue: Exeter, Devon EX2 7NN Details: www.bit. ly/19RTWzm
EAST OF ENGLAND 25 September - The Changing Face of the East of England (part 1) Changes in the landscape, changing farming practices and coastal erosion, social and demographic changes, the demographic imbalance in the new towns, and the demographic ‘time bomb’ of an ageing population, economic change, food production, tourism and the effect of the capital on travel patterns. Planning has helped shape and influence where and how these changes have taken
DON’T MISS Applied Arboriculture: Healthy Trees, Healthy People The 2014 Arboricultural Association adds the finishing touches to its three-day Amenity Conference in September. The event takes place at the Royal Holloway in Surrey and focuses on some of the key issues associated with the benefits of healthy trees and healthy people. Baroness Fookes of Plymouth will deliver the opening address. The health perspective is represented by Sir Richard Thompson (recent past president of Royal College of Physicians) and Prof Nicola Spence (chief plant officer, DEFRA). International speakers from as far afield as Australia and the Czech Republic will provide new insights into tree health and human wellbeing. Key themes will be: • • • • •
Tree populations: climate change and biodiversity; Managing tree health; Trees and human health; Challenging established practices; and Delivering health and wellbeing with trees.
Date: 14-17 September, Venue: Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey. Details: www.bit.ly/1sMwj28
place and the impact of these changes on the built and natural environment. The region presents two linked conferences in association with the Royal Geographical Society (East Anglia) on the changing landscape of the region. Venue: Hughes Hall College, Cambs CB1 2EW Details: www.bit. ly/1kCMM4i 3 October – East of England gala dinner and awards presentation evening A drinks reception in the Fellows’ Dining Room is followed by a three-course dinner. The winning entry into the RTPI East of England 2014 Regional Planning Achievement Award will be announced. Venue: Girton College Cambridge CB3 0JG Details: www.bit.ly/1nj1BPf
LONDON 14 September – Planning in the pub A joint Stickyworld and Planning in the Pub event to road test Neighbourhood Stickers, a social tech project to design, build and test tools and processes that enable young people to engage with the planning and design of the environment around them. Starting and finishing at the pub, participants will be encouraged to tweet pictures or make Instagram
posts en route. Venue: Dalston Roof Park, London E8 Details: www.bit. ly/1sy70nK 20-21 September – Open House London Open House London 2014 will see some 800 historic and interesting buildings open to the public, including 10 Downing Street (by ballot only), the Anthony Gormley Room at the Beaumont and the Leadenhall Building (‘the Cheesegrater’). Venue: Multiple Details: http://www. openhouselondon.org.uk/ 1 October – Using a site appraisal model Wonder what an appraisal model does? Or do you believe what the developer, land agent or your client sometimes says about land value? This course might help. Venue: The Hatton (etc Venues), 51-53 Hatton Garden, London Details: www.bit. ly/1cMYlF9 2 October – Planning issues for the housing agenda Experts present latest thinking on the form that housing will take to accommodate families and the elderly and look at the challenges being raised by the renewed interest in higher density housing, referencing some
of the lessons that could be learnt from international precedents. Venue: The Hatton (etc Venues), 51-53 Hatton Garden, London Details: www.bit. ly/1oR3lyX 19-20 November – PAS viability training Two-day session for local authority managers and planning officers looking at viability in detail – its relevance, the evidence required and how to improve procurement outcomes for authorities. Venue: CCTvenues Smithfield, London, EC1A 9PT Details: www.bit.ly/VfDIMt
SOUTH EAST 9 October – Planning and development in the countryside – making the connection The annual BIAC national rural planning conference is the key event to learn more about the connections between our ever-changing planning system and the future of the countryside. Speakers include the government's chief planner, top legal authorities and the star of BBC TV’s Permission Impossible. Venue: Williams Conference Centre, Wantage OX12 0DQ Details: www.biac.co.uk/ events
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RTPI {
Expectations on planners for housing delivery are high as we get to grips with the need to redress several generations of under-delivery of housing and public sector housing, with the problem compounded by an unprecedented recession and – at its worst – with virtual shut-down of private sector house building and of mortgage finance. A year on from the RTPI paper Delivering Large Scale Housing Development and in light of recent comments by Kate Barker, paying tribute to Labour and Coalition policies seeking to stimulate the housing market, but acknowledging the credit crisis as the main problem, it’s perhaps timely to reflect on both historic and recent achievements in delivering housing. I can draw on some of my recent meetings and visits with planners around the regions and nations. I have seen some excellent examples of significant interventions in the housing market to address need, from the early garden suburbs at Hampstead and Letchworth, through to mature new towns such as Cumbernauld and Redditch, and to schemes still on the drawing board. I have visited urban extensions, regeneration schemes and new settlements at Shenley (Bournville), Ashford, Brighton and Derwenthorpe and seen the phoenix rising from the ashes at the impressive 300-hectare brownfield mixeduse development of Waverley, on the site of the former Orgreave Colliery. High-quality design, innovative use of public space to incorporate resilience to climate change, walkable streets and, in Ashford, live work units around a village square to enable its development at pace with the community’s needs.
I have also seen plans taking shape for urban extensions of varying scale at Cwmbran and Lewes and encountered the complexities of Joint Plan preparation at Broadland and Norwich. At the heart of such schemes, providing leadership, are planners in local government, government agencies, consultancies, house builders and the third sector – establishing ‘objectively assessed housing need’, identifying five-year land banks, shaping policies, preparing plans, negotiating consents and securing delivery of schemes. Collectively, planners are engaged, from the strategic to the very local, to bring forward much-needed housing land, to secure the physical and social infrastructure to address unmet need and the details that matter, to ensure that houses become homes within communities with strong local identities in harmony with their environment. Such schemes do not simply happen overnight. They rely on the expertise, commitment, tenacity and resilience of planners to shape new places, to develop homes in communities with a heart and soul and on governance skills factored in to strong political leadership. Waverley provides an interesting case in point. Rotherham Council has worked with Harworth Estates (and predecessors) over an extended period to turn around Orgreave’s legacy of spoil tips and contamination, with development land value underpinning reclamation. A decade on from colliery closure, the site was reworked over 13 years by opencast and tip washing, with blasting, dust, air quality, protection of listed buildings and river diversion to address, to deliver a development envelope with development platforms. The scale and complexity of the scheme resulted in the involvement of Atlas and the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) from 2008/09. The masterplan for this 300-hectare site – comprising an Advanced Manufacturing Plant providing space for high-quality science and technology jobs, 4,000 homes, schools and community facilities in a parkland setting – has been improved by Design Review. Support for skills development, sharing of knowledge and expertise and multi-disciplinary problem-solving from agencies such as Atlas and the HCA and the Planning Advisory Service (PAS) has proved essential. One of the privileges of the presidency is the opportunity to meet planners, to see some of your excellent work. On location I may not always get the chance to communicate how impressed I am with the expertise, commitment, tenacity and resilience of our members. I’d like to place on record how impressed I am with the seriously good work that planners deliver and how proud I am of planners and proud of planning.
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I M AG E | PE T E R S E A R L E
Visits across country reveal housing challenge CATH RANSON, RTPI PRESIDENT, ON WHY WE CANNOT SOLVE THE PROBLEM OF A HOUSING SHORTAGE OF SO MANY YEARS’ STANDING OVERNIGHT
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RTPI news pages are edited by Tino Hernandez at the RTPI, 41 Botolph Lane, London EC3R 8DL
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Editorial E: rtpi.news@rtpi.org.uk
RTPI (switchboard) T: 020 7929 9494 F: 020 7929 9490
Registered charity in England no. 262865 Registered charity in Scotland SCO37841
RTPI SHORTS
Ian Stevens Senior Planner, Savills BRISTOL OFFICE
(1) What do you currently do? I recently joined Savills as a senior planner in the Bristol office. My role involves working on a diverse range of development projects throughout the South-West and nationally. Recent work has included research into and the preparation of representations on Community Infrastructure Levy consultations, strategic site promotions and planning appraisals. I have contributed to regional RTPI policy forum and network events and have also been volunteering for Planning Aid Wales.
(2) What has been your biggest career challenge to date? My recent move from Conwy Council to Savills in Bristol, both in terms of going from public to private sector and in moving location to a new city, has been a challenge. I felt that it was the right time to make the change, having worked as part of a council planning policy team for six years in taking a local plan through examination to adoption. I was eager to develop my skills in the profession and believe I have a fantastic opportunity to do this in my new role.
(3) What attracted you to the profession? As a human geography graduate, I have long had an interest in people and places. During my undergraduate degree I took a planning module and this developed my awareness of planning as both an academic path and a profession.
(4) How are you contributing to the RTPI’s centenary projects and celebrations? Earlier this year I was fortunate to win the RTPI Cymru North Wales Chapter Centenary Travel Award. The prize was a place at the American Planning Association’s annual conference, held this year in Atlanta from 26-30 April. It was a fascinating and inspiring opportunity to represent the UK planning profession and the RTPI on an international stage, as well as meeting planners from other countries and learning from others’ experiences in different contexts. I delivered a joint presentation with fellow RTPI delegates, which reflected on the key challenges for the planning profession over the next 100 years, referencing the RTPI’s Planning Horizons papers. (5) If you could change one thing about the planning profession, what would it be? I would like to see a culture change from the anti-development agenda that so often dominates the media and that seems to put the RTPI in a defensive position. We need greater emphasis on the benefits of development and planning. The RTPI’s ‘Proud of Planners’ campaign was an encouraging start, but more needs to be done. We must all be advocates and there are strong economic arguments to extol that have positive social and environmental consequences as well.
PUBLIC SECTOR LEADERSHIP IS KEY TO PRIVATE SECTOR GROWTH New research published by the RTPI demonstrates the critical role that a strong, committed and appropriately resourced public sector has in encouraging private sector growth. Examining three public-private partnerships in the south-east of England – the Partnership for Urban South Hampshire (PUSH), the GatwickDiamond Initiative (GDI), and Southcentral Oxfordshire/ Science Vale UK (SVUK) – researchers at Oxford Brookes University and University College London concluded that the fundamental factors are the identity
and image of an area, the clarity and detail of development strategies, the ability to prioritise development and investment, stakeholder engagement, wider political influence, and resources. The research was conducted for the RTPI by Dr Dave Valler, of Oxford Brookes University, and Professor Nick Phelps, of University College London. The research was commissioned through the RTPI’s Small Project Impact Research (SPIRe) Scheme, which encourages high-quality research projects that have the potential to affect policy and practice.
n For more information about the research please visit http://bit.ly/Spireproject
BARTON PUPILS ENCOURAGED TO CONSIDER PLANNING Pupils from the Barton Peveril College learnt about planning when they had a visit from a ‘Future Planner’ ambassador from the RTPI. The students studying for their A-levels found out about the challenges planners seek to address and the career opportunities available in the profession. Dawn Errington, an RTPI Future Planner ambassador and principal planning officer at Eastleigh Borough Council, said: “It was a pleasure to return to the college where I took the career choice to become a planner and talk with students about this possibility as their career option.” Dawn spoke to students about the impact of planning on their everyday lives and explained how planners are helping with the design of their new college facilities. Future Planners is a project launched by the RTPI to mark its centenary year. More than 100 ambassadors have been recruited to visit schools up and down the country to raise awareness and foster an interest in planning with students aged 11 to 18.
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21%
What does population growth mean for house building? JOE KILROY, RTPI POLICY OFFICER, ASKS WHAT THE UK POPULATION GROWING BY 400,000 IN THE LAST YEAR MEANS FOR HOUSING
The ONS statistics present a good opportunity to dig down into the data on household formation in England and Wales between 2001 and 2011 and consider what it means for planners and housing. Overall, the data shows an increased variation in terms of the size of households with a 25 per cent increase in households with six or more people, while single-person households now make up 30 per cent of total household composition. There has also been an increased variation in tenure types, with a 6 per cent increase in privately rented household spaces – the largest increase of all housing tenure types. The owner-occupied category declined from 69 per cent to 64 per cent over the same period. If we are really about to embark on a new era of house-building as the three main political parties claim, this variation in sizes of households and tenure types needs to be borne in mind. Local authorities need to consider their own specific situation carefully in the light of this data and decide what it means for their areas in terms of housing development. They should ensure that their local plan is robust to the range of housing needs that exist in their areas and review that plan regularly to see if changes are needed. Local authorities should also be wary of being overly influenced by national data when assessing local housing needs. Recent research commissioned by the RTPI suggests that due to the influence on the 2011 census of a number of exceptional factors such as increased international migration, the economic downturn and the effects
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Q
-> In 2011 there were 1.1 million household spaces unoccupied by usual residents, up from 0.9 million in 2001 (a 21 per cent rise)
of a long period of poor housing affordability, planning based on census data could lead to an under-provision of housing. Similarly, the data on household formation should be given local context. In 2011 there were 1.1 million household spaces unoccupied by usual residents, up from 0.9 million in 2001 (a 21 per cent rise). The issue of underoccupancy, having more bedrooms than people in an accommodation, has in some quarters been used to fuel the argument against building more homes. According to advocates of this position, if we made better use of existing stock then we would not need to increase house building. Are there policy measures that could bring these free spaces in existing stock into use? In a civilised society there is no fail-safe way of moving people out of their homes to ensure best use of existing stock. Government can support developments for older people but, ultimately, it comes down to individual choice, and understandably many people want to stay in their home regardless of whether they are using all the bedrooms or not. There are those who disagree, arguing that few residents actually want to stay in large underoccupied homes. The real problem, they argue, is that there is a dearth of one and two-bed houses to cater for the changing needs of ageing residents. If more suitably sized houses were available, the argument goes, occupiers of large homes would make civically minded, rational choices about their accommodation preferences, and swap their large under-occupied home for a modestly sized one or two-bed. Apart from the inconsistency of lamenting the lack of one and two-bed homes while disagreeing with the need to build more homes, research suggests most owner-occupiers do not want to move. Furthermore, the ‘existing stock/underoccupancy’ position disregards the fact that a lot of under-occupied homes are not in areas where the greatest demand for homes exists. The different composition of households and the variation in types of tenure is significant for house building. It means that variety is needed and that local authorities need to be given the resources to gauge what kinds of needs exist within their jurisdiction. Details about the types of houses needed, while important, should not distract from the more fundamental issue – the housing sector is not building enough homes of any type. n Households and Household Composition in England and Wales, 2001-11 http://www.ons.gov.uk/ ons/dcp171776_361923.pdf
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STEP CHANGE
D AWAR DERWENTHORPE SCOOPS RTPI YORKSHIRE PLANNING EXCELLENCE AWARD Combining inspiration from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s model village New Earswick with the latest in modern design and construction, the Derwenthorpe Phase 1 housing project in York won the RTPI Yorkshire Planning Excellence Award 2014 at its Centenary Reception at the National Railway Museum in York on 9 July 2014. The judges were impressed by Derwenthorpe’s careful choice of materials, and detailing of large steeply pitched roofs, painted brickwork and striking dormer windows that create a distinctive ‘sense of place’. Within the development, priority is given to pedestrians and the extensive public landscape is integral to the scheme to create an attractive, liveable new community. The RTPI Yorkshire Planning Excellence Award celebrates and recognises the high-quality planning work done in the Yorkshire Region. A special award of ‘Highly Commended Finalist’ was made to Sheffield City Council for Nursery Street and Edward Street Breathing Spaces (a strategy of developing a network of high-quality neighbourhood open spaces as a setting for development around the edge of Sheffield city centre).
RTPI ELECTS NEW FELLOW The institute has elected a new Fellow, with Keith Thomas joining just 110 others who have demonstrated a contribution to planning and the RTPI above and beyond that expected as an ‘ordinary competent professional planner’. Fellowship of the RTPI is one of the highest professional attainments possible. Thomas runs PER Consulting in Cardiff and is a director of Planning Aid Wales. He said: “I originally joined the RTPI through Special Entry route to help define a rather eclectic career. To be elected a Fellow in the centenary year is a truly proud achievement and demonstrates the importance of a multi-disciplinary approach to effective planning. Hopefully, I can inspire others to follow suit and continue to demonstrate the diverse experience that contributes to good planning.” Andrew Taylor, chair of the RTPI’s board, said: “I’m extremely pleased Keith has been elected to Fellowship. He has an impressive 30-year career spanning the private and public sector which has distinguished his involvement in innovative practice.” n For more information on how to become a Fellow please visit http://bit.ly/Rtpifellows
RTPI members discuss their big career-changing decisions “IT IS BENEFICIAL TO BE A MEMBER OF THE RTPI BECAUSE IT ENDORSES MY PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCY”
Lydia Voyias Principal Planner, Pegasus Group AN RTPI 2013 APC OUTSTANDING ACHIEVER I am a principal planner at Pegasus Group, working on a range of projects for residential, employment and mixed-use development. I have worked there for just over three years. My career-changing decision took place when I decided to take the APC (Assessment of Professional Competence). I did this to illustrate my professional development throughout my employment and to demonstrate my professional competency to become a member of the RTPI. Although I found the process time-consuming and the log book a bit of a chore, at the end of the two-year process it was clear to see how much I had progressed professionally. When I received my acceptance letter I felt a great sense of achievement. I was delighted to find out I had been selected as a 2013 APC Outstanding Achiever, as the time and effort I put into my APC had been recognised. I believe it is beneficial to be a member of the RTPI because it endorses my professional competency to colleagues and clients, and demonstrates the range of experience I have acquired. It also enables my future career progression as I can then be an expert witness at appeals and Examinations in Public in due course. During the APC process I particularly found the log book to be a useful tool to identify areas of work experience I needed to develop prior to the submission of my APC. I then remedied the area through discussion with my line managers. My top tips to other candidates are: c Keep up to date with the APC guidance; c Start early and keep on top of your log book. c With the essays, ensure that you fulfil the marking requirements and provide the evidence to demonstrate how you have fulfilled each of the competencies. This is difficult given the word limit, so choose your case studies in good time in discussion with your mentor and allow sufficient time to perfect the written submission.
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ADVERTISEMENTS
Recruitment { Enjoy work, enjoy life Planner/Senior Planner – Joint Strategic Development Plan Team Salary: £25327 - £37168. Ref ABS025314 Base location: Woodhill House, Aberdeen The Aberdeen City and Shire Strategic Development Planning Authority is a partnership of Aberdeen City Council and Aberdeenshire Council tasked with preparing and monitoring a strategic development plan and associated action programme.The Aberdeen City and Shire Strategic Development Plan was approved by Scottish Ministers in March 2014 and the preparation of the next plan will start soon. We are currently looking for an enthusiastic Planner/Senior Planner to join the team. Applicants should have a sound knowledge of development planning and preferably have previous strategic planning experience. An ability to produce work of a high quality and effective communication skills are required, as is a high level of computer literacy. An ability to travel throughout Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire is also expected. An RTPI recognised degree in Town & Country Planning and corporate membership of the RTPI are preferred but applicants who are working towards a degree or diploma in Town & Country Planning or equivalent and are eligible for membership of the RTPI will be considered. The successful candidate will be an Aberdeenshire Council employee and their salary will reflect their experience, qualifications and knowledge. More information on the work of the team can be found on the SPDA website www.aberdeencityandshire-sdpa.gov.uk
Planning Officer GRADE: HOURS: LOCATION: REF:
Band F, SCP 32-37 (£27,323 - £31,160) (£14.16 - £16.15 per hour) 37 hours per week Oldbury SAND000000735
Based in the Strategic Policy Team in the Council’s Jobs & Economy Directorate, you will be part of a team developing the Borough’s spatial planning and integrated transport policies, developing and taking forward schemes and programmes and the preparation of reports of both a technical and policy nature. You should hold an appropriate qualification, preferably to degree level, have knowledge of spatial planning and transportation issues, be computer literate and have an ability to work with a wide range of software packages. For an informal discussion please contact Andy Miller, Strategic Policy Manager on 0121 569 4249.
Closing date: 28 September 2014 If you’d thrive on the chance to enjoy work, enjoy life with us please visit www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/.
Closing date: 12 September 2014. Metropolitan Borough Council, Sandwell Council House, Freeth Street, Oldbury B69 3DE.
www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/enjoy
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ADVERTISEMENTS
Pembrokeshire County Council Cyngor Sir Penfro
Head of Planning To £79,000 plus car
Pembrokeshire is a very special place. The County Council is committed to ensuring that it remains so, whilst also working hard to maintain its prosperity and vibrancy. The planning service is critical to that purpose. The role: • act as principal adviser on all planning matters; • ensure planning makes a full contribution to the economic, social and environmental well-being of Pembrokeshire; • cultivate strong strategic partnerships with other agencies, and effective engagement with stakeholders; • effectively manage the service. Requirements: • Chartered Town Planner with extensive, broad-based experience; • intimate knowledge of planning policy and systems; • managerial aptitude; • an insight into local planning challenges and opportunities; • credible and persuasive communicator / negotiator. This is a superb opportunity to lead the planning function in a well-managed Council, serving a uniquely attractive county. For full information on this vacancy, and to apply online, please visit www.pembrokeshire.gov.uk. Alternatively, call our Contact Centre on 01437 775710 or e-mail recruit@pembrokeshire.gov.uk Closing date for applications: 26 September 2014 We welcome applications from all sections of the community.
www.pembrokeshire.gov.uk Stroud’s famous industrial heritage and beautiful countryside featured in the BBC TV series, The Planners. It is a challenging blend of urban and rural and managing the district’s development, from the steep-sided valleys to the expanse of the Severn Vale, and demands a balance between the needs of advancing technology for a growing population and our obligations to future generations, the environment and local heritage.
Principal Planning Officer
Enforcement & Appeals Officer
£33,998 pa | 37hrs per week | Permanent
£23,945 pa | 37 hrs per week | Permanent
Development Management works with all developers as an enabler of progress and guardian of our district’s high standards. The new Principal Planning Officer will lead and evolve the team in cooperation, innovation and excellence. MRPTI with a degree in planning or equivalent qualification, you will ideally have a postgraduate qualification in management and experience leading a specialist team.
We are also seeking an Appeals & Enforcement Officer to investigate alleged breaches of planning and building regulations. Organised, disciplined and confident, you will have a degree in planning or equivalent and experience in an enforcement role. Experience of appeals desirable.
For more information about the role, and for an application form visit www.stroud.gov.uk/jobs/ or contact Phillip Skill (Head of Panning) on 01453 754345. Closing Date: 5 October 2014. Interview Dates: 21 October 2014 (Appeals & Enforcement Officer) and 24 October 2014 (Principal Planning Officer) We are committed to equality of opportunity and welcome applications from all sections of the community.
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INSIGHT
Plan B P
PETER HALL, GREAT VICTORIAN
VI ER ALLE CYKLISTS NU Plan B has spent years telling anyone who would listen that the cycling mafia is taking over. Nowadays, everywhere you look it’s bike this, Bradley Wiggins that and fancy-schmancy desks that allow you to pedal away in your toocool-for-school design studio while sipping artisan lattes crafted by Carl from Basingstoke, who wears a beard and calls himself Carlo. Urbanists love bikes, and love particularly to say that cities giving g equal priority to walking ing and cycling are more ‘liveable’ than those built around cars. Bikes are the solution to everything, they would have you believe. They can charge your phone, solve your relationship p difficulties and probably bly even do the washing up. In Copenhagen there’s re’s a sperm bank that uses es bike couriers to transport port sperm from place to place on a specially designed refrigerated bicycle shaped – you guessed it – like a
sperm. For the curious, the sperm bike is here: http://bit.ly/Yofmll Plan B knows about the sperm bike because car builder Skoda has launched a series of short films about bicyclefriendly cities, which begins with Copenhagen. Bike Friendly Cities: Copenhagen is here: http://bit.ly/1teYo2k This prompts a question: why would a car company promote cycle-friendly cities? Well,, as it happens, pp , Skoda started life as a bicycle
WALKING THE LINE
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manufacturer. As did Peugeot, Rover, Morris, Triumph, Fiat, Puch and others too numerous to mention. Indeed, Skoda has started making bikes again. Does this mean the wheel has turned full circle? That the answer to the challenge of shifting people around urban environments lies not in smarter technology but in something that has been there all along? g
We have the legs we were born with. We have sperm bikes. What more could a 21st century urbanist possibly need?
GEN ENHA IN COP S A SPERM ’ THERE HAT USES T K N A S TO B URIER O C E K I B PORT TRANS M SPER
We may have been a tad unkind in visually comparing new planning minister Brandon Lewis and boss Eric Pickles to a pair of bowlerhatted comedians last month. In fact, the minister has been swift to action and barely a day has passed in which he hasn’t announced a policy or otherwise commented prominently on housing and planning. Mr Lewis has been supporting bungalows (not literally), ending nimbyism, promoting house building, enabling brownfield development, praising offsite construction, announcing that the planning system is finally fit for purpose, backing Help to Buy, penning firm rhetoric for
The Telegraph and – the list goes on. If we were cynical (we’re not, obviously), we might say the election countdown has begun and housing is seen by the Tories as a critical battleground. We might also observe that the government is rampantly currying favour with both shire (traditional support) and city (bit less keen on Tories, by and large). It’s a bit like walking a tightrope while people on both sides have rocks in hand, ready to hurl. Does politicking matter if the houses get built? Not if new homes are in decent places, of decent quality and decently priced for everyday folk. Brandon Lewis has started like he means it. Let’s hope, sincerely, that he doesn’t slip and fall.
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Interviewees for our appreciation of the excellent Sir Peter Hall compared him to influential figures of the past – in particular William Morris and Ebenezer Howard.
Certainly, there was something of the Great Victorian about the Cities In Civilisation author – in the scope and certainty of his vision, his energetic pursuit of social good and his disregard for boundaries between disciplines. Being of a literary bent, Plan B thinks another monumental character might make a better point of reference. Like Charles Dickens, Peter Hall was a prolific journalist, author, speaker and social activist. Like Dickens, he was boyishly enthused by urban environments and fascinated by the way they tell the tale of social justice and communal aspiration. Like Dickens, he was drawn to the United States, where he held a professorship at Berkeley. Sir Peter also had a profoundly public sense of himself. The RTPI’s president Cath Ranson wonders whether a figure of his ilk could emerge today. We hope so – the world needs men and women of concept, conscience and capacity.
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Celebrate with the RTPI in 2014 To mark the occasion of our Centenary a number of projects and events are taking place throughout the year. Check out the RTPI Centenary 2014 page on our ZHEVLWH WR À QG RXW ZKDW \RXU UHJLRQ LV GRLQJ DQG KRZ \RX FDQ JHW LQYROYHG 2XU &HQWHQDU\ LV D WUHPHQGRXV RSSRUWXQLW\ WR UDLVH WKH SUR¿ OH RI SODQQLQJ the Institute and its membership and the profession as a whole. It gives us a unique chance to look forward to the future of planning whilst at the same time celebrating our rich history and past experience.
rtpi.org.uk
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Are you proud of planning and proud of planners? Share it with the world. Post or tweet a great initiative, award, project or plan. facebook.com/ProudofPlanning #proudofplanning #proudofplanners
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