The Planner April 2019 by The Planner

APRIL 2019 HOUSING DELIVERY TEST RESULTS // p.6 • MERGING COUNCIL PLANNING DEPARTMENTS // p.22 • MICRO LIVING: IS SMALL BEAUTIFUL? // p.26 • TECH LANDSCAPE: FREEING PLANNERS TO PLAN // p.31 • NATIONS & REGIONS: IRELAND // p.34

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

Water’s edge THE RISE AND RISE OF THE URBAN WATERSIDE

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CONTENTS

APRIL

09 NEWS 4 Hills calls for strong political leadership 6 More than 100 councils are under-delivering on housing 8 Consultation under way for revised Lisburn masterplan 9 Development funding boost for south-west Wales 10 Emissions reduction held back by construction skills gap

20 19

“FRAGMENTED OWNERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT OF WATERWAYS PRESENTS GOVERNANCE AND DELIVERY CHALLENGES”

OPINION

14 Louise BrookeSmith: Conséquences imprévues 16 Robin Hutchinson: SHEDx is ready? Go! 16 Robin Hambleton: Can ‘One City Planning’ break new ground? 17 Nissa Shahid: How better handling of data can drive innovation in planning 17 Emma Walker: The NI planning system ends its infancy: so what have we learnt?

COV E R I M AG E | GA I L A R M ST RON G

18 Our urban waterways are attractive sites for development – but how do we retain their value for all? Amanda Robinson reports

31 Tech landscape: Fragmented ownership and management of waterways presents governance and delivery challenges

22 This month sees several mergers between council planning departments. Mark Smulian asks why

38 Cases & decisions: Development decisions, round-up and analysis

26 ‘Micro-living’ is becoming popular – from self-build right up to large projects. Serena Ralston thinks outside the box 34 Nations & Regions: Ireland

QUOTE UNQUOTE

“OUR JOB IS TO USE OUR LAND, OUR FUNDING, OUR POWERS AND OUR INFLUENCE TO CHAMPION GOOD DESIGN” STEPHEN KINSELLA, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, LAND, AT HOMES ENGLAND, AT THE BETTER DESIGN FOR BETTER PLACES CONFERENCE

INSIGHT

FEATURES

42 Legal Landscape: Opinions, blogs and news from the legal side of planning 44 RTPI round-up: News and interviews from the institute 50 Plan B: When is a pub not a pub?

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NEWS

Report { Architectural guru George Clarke pointed to the “staggering aﬀordability problem” in the nation’s housing sector

DESIGN QUALITY

Hills calls for strong political leadership By Laura Edgar

The chief executive of the RTPI used the recent Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s (MHCLG) ‘Better Design for Better Places’ conference, held in Birmingham, to call for strong political leadership and more resources for planning authorities. During a panel discussion on the role of policy and guidance in placemaking, Victoria Hills cited the National Audit Office (NAO) report, published in February, which found that just 44 per cent of local authorities have an up-todate local plan less than five years old. The reason why so many local plans are not up to date, suggested Hills, is because “those that have a plan have the people there. It requires resourcing.” The example of good design and leadership coming together in Stromness, the 2018 winner of the Silver Jubilee Cup at the RTPI Awards for Planning Excellence. She pointed out that Orkney Islands Council has a planner at the top table. Sharing the panel with Hills was Christine Thorby, group manager, planning, at the Planning Inspectorate. Thorby said that the inspectorate has had design champions for 10 years. She asked local planning authorities to focus on what it is they want regarding

Speakers at the conference (l-r) Victoria Hills, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, Kit Malthouse and George Clarke

design and the local plan as a whole. person “is not holding the ring on this”. Put a clear vision in the local plan and They are having to speak to multiple everything you expect to be part of people in councils and not getting that – sustainability, climate change anywhere. and highways, for example. The skills can be there, Hills “What do you want the inspector to continued, but we need people coming understand and link back to guidance. into the profession for the profession Tell us how you have arrived at your to be more diverse, and for planning to decision; put yourself in the inspector’s have “strong political leadership”. shoes.” She also questioned Hills echoed this, why there are no design “TELL US HOW YOU explaining how champions in local HAVE ARRIVED AT developers have government. YOUR DECISION; PUT told her they are “You need someone to YOURSELF IN THE frustrated that one articulate that.” INSPECTOR’S SHOES”

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PLAN UPFRONT

What the government said Stephen Kinsella, executive director, Opening the conference, communities land, at Homes England, acknowledged minister Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth that it isn’t all about the numbers. Its discussed the built environment. Places mission is to intervene in the housing – where we work, live, play, worship – “at market to create one that is more the deepest level tap into our sense of sustainable and resilient. This, he said, identity [and] our pride”, he stated. This is involves improving design, the quality of why the way the built environment looks places and construction productivity. and feels is “so important”. Unable to be there in person, housing Bourne said that government is “pulling minister Kit Malthouse told the audience every lever” to get Britain building more in a pre-recorded message that as housing homes. He is mindful, though, that in ﬁve output increases, “I am seeing more and years the government would be judged more resistance to on how many have been development from a delivered, but “in 50 years’ “I AM SEEING MORE design point of view”. time, we’ll be judged on AND MORE RESISTANCE “People are starting how beautiful”. TO DEVELOPMENT to feel that what the Dr Jenny Thomas, head FROM A DESIGN industry is producing… of built environment at POINT OF VIEW” has become ubiquitous MHCLG and its design and isn’t enhancing… team leader, pointed out their communities.” that her team works to He told the audience ensure that design quality to take pride in what is embedded in guidance, they are producing, adding that other including the revised National Planning people needed to recognise that what Policy Framework (NPPF). The ministry is the industry creates is “worthy” of that working with Homes England and other pride. He said he hoped that when he is departments to make sure “we are leading in his nineties what is now being built by example in terms of what is being won’t have been bulldozed as “so many” done” on design quality. estates from the 1960s and 1970s have The design team, Thomas continued, been. “You need to acknowledge the need is trying to cover all areas of the country for beauty, the need for good design, and to talk to people about design as well as to make space for it in your development looking at tools and processes that are appraisals. I’m urging local authority used for developing and assessing design partners to do the same.” quality and community engagement.

I M A G E S | A L A M Y / S H U T T E R S T O C K / C H R I S M c A N D R E W U K PA R L I A M E N T / I S T O C K

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MHCLG CONFERENCE: THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX

Andy Street, Mayor of the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA), noted that the region faces challenges on town centre design. “We’ve got to do something that will set the standard for the next 30 years.” He spoke about the region’s “wonderful opportunities” to help here, including the Commonwealth Games and Coventry being the City of Culture in 2021. While it is not a planning authority, Street said the WMCA intends to set a design charter that all authorities buy into. George Clarke, architect and TV presenter, highlighted that the housing crisis is not new. When he was 16, 29 years ago, and beginning his architecture apprenticeship, there was talk about a housing crisis. Launching the housing white paper two years ago, Prime Minister Theresa May said the housing market is broken. “As a democratic society,” Clarke said, “we made that happen.” “We’ve had multiple governments that haven’t managed to solve the housing crisis and for me it is a genuine national crisis. And there is a staggering affordability problem. “A million more young people living with their parents than before is unsustainable. To create better, beautiful and truly affordable houses we need to think differently.” Clarke went on to say that the planning system is an “antiquated mess”, explaining that his public realm suggestions are often removed from schemes because of the cost of maintenance. The architect set up charity MOBIE (Ministry of Building Innovation and Education) in 2017. It aims to encourage young people into built environment professions and provide vocational and technical support. It’s the most important thing he has been part of, he said, because we need a generation of new thinkers who think outside the box. AP R IL 2 01 9 / THE PLA NNER

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NEWS

Analysis {

HOUSING DELIVERY TEST 2018 CONSEQUENCES Number of Councils 27% (86)

HOUSING DELIVERY TEST

66% (211)

More than 100 councils are underdelivering By Laura Edgar Following months of delays, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) published the results of the ﬁrst Housing Delivery Test. According to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), it should have been published in November 2018, and every November thereafter. The Housing Delivery Test is calculated by dividing the total number of net homes delivered over a three-year period by the total number of homes required over a three-year period. The 2018 test considers 2015/16, 2016/17 and 2017/18. MHCLG has decreed that councils must deliver 95 per cent of assessed need to pass. Councils that deliver

7% (21)

HOUSING DELIVERY TEST 2019 CONSEQUENCES Number of Councils 2% (7) 25% (79) 66% (211)

between 85 per cent and 95 per cent must develop an action plan in line with national planning guidance to assess the causes of under-delivery and address how to increase it. Councils that deliver between 25 per cent and 85 per cent of their assessed need must identify a buﬀer of 20 per cent more land “to improve the prospect of achieving the planned supply”. If delivery had fallen below 25 per cent in 2018, the presumption in favour of sustainable development would have kicked in. This rises to 45 per cent in November 2019 and 65 per cent in November 2020. Here, The Planner has broken down the results.

7% (21)

HOUSING DELIVERY TEST 2020 CONSEQUENCES Number of Councils

10% (33)

17% (53) 66% (211)

7% (21)

Consequence None Action plan Buﬀer Presumption in favour of sustainable development Table 1: Councils that will not meet the 45% threshold in the 2019 Housing Delivery Test: Adur Barking & Dagenham Calderdale City of London New Forest Redbridge Thanet

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PLAN UPFRONT

RTPI regions When looking at the results in the RTPI England regions, all passed the test: seven delivered more than 100 per cent while the

East of England and London delivered 99 per cent and 96 per cent respectively. If current delivery levels are maintained,

North West B 13 P 0

North West B7 P6 Yorkshire and the Humber B3 P1

East Midlands B6 P0

West Midlands B3 P0

East Midlands B5 P1

East of England B 20 P 0

West Midlands B1 P2

London B 10 P 3 South West B6 P1

KEY B - Buﬀer P - Presumption in favour of sustainable development

North East B0 P1

Number of councils facing consequences in 2020 by region

Yorkshire and the Humber B3 P1

authority that failed the test, but the North West (6), East of England (7), London (6) and the South East (8) have the most.

when the threshold for the presumption in favour of sustainable development rises to 65 per cent, every RTPI region would have an

KEY B - Buﬀer P - Presumption in favour of sustainable development

North East B1 P0

Number of councils facing consequences in 2019 by region

the seven councils (see Table 1) fall under four of the nine regions – Yorkshire, South West, London and the South East. In 2020,

East of England B 13 P 7

London B7 P6

South East B 17 P 2

South East B 11 P 8

South West B6 P1

Council responses The New Forest …delivered the least amount of housing (35 per cent) against its target. Claire UptonBrown, chief planning officer at New Forest District Council noted that the test “takes no account of the housing targets we have been working to deliver in accordance with our current local plan, which has a significantly lower figure than the target used in this measure”. The figure in the current local plan “is lower as it is based on the growth figure identified through the South East plan which recognised the need for very restricted growth,

albeit doubling what we have delivered in the past, which was supported by a government appointed inspector”. A new local plan will be subject to examination in the summer, promoting “an appropriate level of housing growth for the area”. Adur District “The council is taking all necessary steps to increase housing delivery to avoid any future government sanctions,” said a council spokesperson. Its local plan was adopted late in 2017. A government inspector

accepted that there was a lack of available land in the district that “severely restricted” its ability to meet its objectively assessed future housing needs. It was found sound, despite a shortfall of 2,500 homes. Since adoption of the plan, Adur has approved two strategic housing sites in excess of 1,100 dwellings. One, for 600 homes, has been referred to the housing secretary. The council has secured over £15 million of government funding for infrastructure to assist in delivering these sites. “It is frustrating when the council is seeking to deliver much-needed new housing that we are

prevented from doing so, waiting months for a decision from the secretary of state.” Calderdale “We are aware of the implications of the housing delivery test and are taking a number of actions to step up our delivery”, said Daniel Sutherland, Calderdale’s cabinet member for planning, housing and environment. “Most signiﬁcantly, we submitted our local plan for examination on 11 January 2019. As we pass the various local plan milestones we are conﬁdent that delivery will increase and the test will be met.”

Barking & Dagenham The level of new housebuilding in the area "has been too low for a long time”, said a spokesperson, “which is why the council set up Be First as a wholly owned regeneration company charged with accelerating the pace and scale of inclusive growth across the borough”. Be First is on track to deliver about 2,700 new homes over the next four years – a dramatic increase in delivery. “This is being supported and facilitated by the planning service, including through stronger monitoring to ensure that sites which have planning consent are built out.”

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NEWS

News { Consultation under way for revised Lisburn masterplan Lisburn & Castlereagh City Council has begun consulting on a revised masterplan for the city centre. The blueprint has identified a development framework for regeneration in key locations including the Laganbank Quarter, Smithfield Square and Jordan’s Mill. The aim of the masterplan is to improve the evening economy, encourage commercial office development and city centre residential schemes, as well as to reinforce the centre’s retail role. Alderman Allan Ewart MBE, vice-chair of the council’s development committee, said: “The private sector has emphasised the importance of bringing opportunities to the market site by site.

“Taking this approach, the revised masterplan allows ﬂexibility for sites to be delivered individually. There are several key areas that, when regenerated, will have a real impact on Lisburn city centre. It is proposed to improve, where possible, the streets and public realm that connect these opportunity sites, so that the areas of change read as a coherent whole.”

Revised proposals would give Lisburn city centre a facelift

The council has recently signalled that it is seeking interest from developers for the redevelopment of a former car park in the city centre’s Historic Quarter with an 80-bedroom hotel. This move follows the news that the Beannchor Group, owner of Belfast’s Merchant Hotel, has obtained planning permission for a 52-bedroom hotel in Lisburn Square.

Scottish planning bill is ‘unworkable’ The Planning (Scotland) Bill is unrecognisable from its original purpose and is an “unworkable tangle”, the chairman of the Scottish Property Federation has said. At its annual conference, Millier Mathieson called on all political parties to work with the industry to “ﬁx” the bill. Many amendments have been made to the bill since it was originally introduced in December 2017. Those amendments mean “it is no longer ﬁt for purpose”, said Mathieson. He claimed it places 66 additional and uncosted burdens on planning departments, which are already

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underfunded and badly resourced. “Our planning system is broken and is in severe danger of being made worse,” said Mathieson. “The latest assessment is that the bill adds a further 91 additional burdens. The resourcing is already at breaking point and this cannot make it better. Let’s step back from the brink. In the words of Henry Ford, ‘Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently’.”

RTPI Scotland has also highlighted the extra burdens local authorities and the government would face due to the bill. Craig McLaren, director of RTPI Scotland, told The Planner: “We agree that the 91 new and unfunded duties in the current version of the bill could have a calamitous impact on the planning service. These come on top of an already diﬃcult time for planning departments which have had the most severe cuts of all local government services with a 25 per cent cut in staﬀ and 40 per cent loss in budget since 2009.” I M AG E S | A L A M Y / G E T T Y / S H U T T E RSTO C K

12/03/2019 10:08

PLAN UPFRONT

Biodiversity requires ‘bespoke’ policies says RTPI

Dublin deploys emergency measures for first modular newbuild project Dublin City Council has confirmed to The Planner that it is using emergency powers contained in Irish planning legislation to deliver the capital’s first development of prefabricated modular housing. A complex of six ‘rapid build’ blocks of flats, up to five storeys high, is to be built beside the Phoenix Park in Chapelizod on the site of community allotments at Springvale, opposite the 19th-century Church of the Nativity in Dublin 20. The council is using emergency powers introduced by the government to deal with the housing and homelessness crises. Under these provisions the council does not have to go through the normal planning process for local authority developments if the council chief executive determines that there is a need to deal urgently with “an emergency situation calling for immediate action”. A council spokesperson said that the city council was making use of the emergency powers “in order to speed up the delivery of much-needed social housing in the current housing crisis situation in Dublin.” The council is now using the same legislation to build social housing at Bonham Street and Cork Street in Dublin 8 and Bunratty Road in Coolock, Dublin 17.

Government proposals that require all developments to leave biodiversity in a better state than before are not suitable for everywhere in England, the RTPI has said. Instead, the institute believes that ‘bespoke’ policies and tools, like the draft London Plan’s Urban Greening Factor, would be more appropriate. Biodiversity net gain is not suitable, it said, for dense urban areas where development mostly takes place on previously developed land with little biodiversity value. Responding to a consultation by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Aﬀairs (Defra), the institute noted that proposals for measuring biodiversity net gain “should inform but not replace the professional judgement of planners and ecologists as they respond to speciﬁc local circumstances and enforce the mitigation hierarchy”. The RTPI suggests that local authorities should, alongside their local plan, “work collaboratively to develop strategic spatial plans for the environment, setting out objectives for biodiversity, green and blue infrastructure, natural capital, accessibility, and other priorities at a landscape level”. James Harris, RTPI policy and networks manager, warned that the way Defra proposes to measure biodiversity net gain does not appear to be suitable for sites with zero or little existing biodiversity value.

Development funding boost for south-west Wales A regeneration plan that is set to pump £27 million into development across southwest Wales is being rolled out. The cash should revitalise commercial ﬂoor space across the Swansea Bay City Region and boost several key projects. Funding for the blueprint, the South West Wales Regional Plan for Regeneration, is coming from the Welsh Government’s Targeted Regeneration Investment (TRI) programme. This initiative builds on regeneration activities delivered through the government’s Vibrant and Viable Places funding programme.

The plan ties in with the wider economic regeneration ambitions of the Swansea Bay City Region. Target areas for TRI include Swansea city centre, its riverside corridor and Morriston conservation area, the Neath Port Talbot valleys and town centres, Llanelli town centre and Station Road, Ammanford town centre, and Pembroke and Haverfordwest. It will aid projects such as the Neath Port Talbot valleys, retail and leisure projects in Swansea and Haverfordwest as well as Swansea’s Hafod Morfa Copperworks. Grants include the Property Enhancement Development Grant (PEDG)

and the Sustainable Living Grant (SLG). These grants are being managed by Swansea Council on behalf of four local authorities – Swansea, Neath Port Talbot, Carmarthenshire, and Pembrokeshire. The PEDG aims to bring vacant commercial ﬂoor space back into business use. The SLG will support the conversion of vacant commercial ﬂoor space into homes. Robert Francis-Davies, Swansea council’s cabinet member for investment, regeneration and tourism, said: “The key focus will be on areas most in need to ensure that prosperity is spread to all parts of south-west Wales.”

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NEWS

News { Emissions reduction held back by construction skills gap Advances in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions have been held back by the skills gap in construction, housing design and the installation of new technologies. The Committee on Climate Change says this is the result of the UK Government “chopping and changing” policy. In its report, UK Housing: Fit for the Future, the committee recommends that the government should use initiatives under the Construction Sector Deal to tackle the low-carbon skills gap, with new support to train designers, builders and installers to ensure that homes have low-carbon heating, are energy and water efficient and are flood resilient. The report highlights that there are plans for 1.5 million new UK homes by 2022: it insists that these homes must be low-carbon and energy efficient.

The costs of making homes lowcarbon, energy and water efficient, and climate resilient “are not prohibitive, and getting design right from the outset is vastly cheaper than forcing retrofit later”. The committee says that from 2025 at the latest, no new homes should be connected to the gas grid. Instead, they should be heated through lowcarbon sources “have ultra-high levels of energy efficiency alongside appropriate ventilation and, where possible, be timber-framed”. There are also increasing requirements for green space and sustainable transport in planning and guidance. The committee found that reducing emissions from UK homes has stalled, while energy use in homes, accounting for 14 per cent of UK emissions,

increased between 2016 and 2017. It warns that the UK’s legally binding climatechange targets would not be met without the nearcomplete elimination of greenhouse gas emissions from UK buildings. Eﬀorts to adapt are “lagging” behind what is needed to keep the population safe and comfortable. Baroness Brown of Cambridge, chair of the organisation’s adaptation committee, noted that the report conﬁrms “what we have long-suspected – UK homes are largely unprepared for climate change”. n The Planner’s full report can be found on our website: bit.ly/planner0419-gap

GLOBAL COMMUTER STATS

Source: Kadence International

43%

42%

1 in 4

83%

of Londoners drive their own car to work at least three times a week

of Londoners are not satisﬁed with their commute on public transport

New Yorkers say they refuse to consider public transport as a viable commuting method

of London cyclists are satisﬁed with their commute

of Los Angeles commuters drive to work

HOUSING SUITABILITY

Source: YouGov poll of 4,000 UK adults commissioned by the Centre for Ageing Better

72%

45%

32%

61%

felt building homes so they are suitable for people of all ages and abilities should be the standard for new housing

of over-65s worry about themselves struggling with everyday activities, such as cooking and bathing

worry about someone else in their household struggling with the same tasks

don’t think their home is suitable for a person with a disability or an older relative to move around

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I M AG E | G E T T Y

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LEADER COMMENT

Opinion onn The Apprentice = Inspired – Two key messages came out clearly from the RTPI event arranged to celebrate the introduction of the Chartered Town Planner Degree Apprenticeship towards the end of March. The first was that “the hard work starts now”, with the apprenticeship – its launch marked with elation by the institute and an invited audience of employers and apprentices – now needing to be ‘sold in’ to universities and colleges so that enough are on board to see the course made as widely available as possible come this autumn. The second was that the launch, marking the completion of the apprenticeship route into planning practice, offered genuinely exciting potential to promote the profession to a wider and more diverse audience of students. Almost everybody I spoke to mentioned some aspect of the improved social mobility now on offer: the

Martin Read greater visibility of planning as a career of choice; the possibility for those outside of the established university education pipeline to use this new way to get into planning; the possibility that future planners entering the profession through an apprenticeship might stay local and grow their careers closer to the areas they ﬁrst felt a kinship with; and a route into planning that did not involve students being saddled with debt. The direct connection to

the world of work oﬀered by apprenticeships could indeed change the nature of the planners of tomorrow, and each of the reasons cited above is cause for excitement. There are many people with pride in the place they live who would never previously have found a path into the profession. There exists for certain a signiﬁcant number of people in their early to mid-twenties who will have embarked on what they belatedly realise is not the job for them but retain an enduring interest in the protection and development of their local area. Similarly, there will be those with an innate interest in space and community whose circumstances may have

“ALMOST EVERYBODY I SPOKE TO MENTIONED SOME ASPECT OF THE IMPROVED SOCIAL MOBILITY NOW ON OFFER”

prevented them from taking the traditional university route and who will now have a fresh option available to them. Little wonder that the Chartered Town Planner Degree Apprenticeship’s introduction was described by many as “momentous”. A note on our naked mailing For some months now we’ve distributed The Planner via ‘naked mailing’, i.e. free from plastic wrap. It’s been a resounding success. This month we’ve returned to a poly wrap because we’re jointly distributing the magazine with our 2019 Planning Law guide and the programme for the 2019 RTPI Planning Convention. Please be reassured that we are returning to naked mailing next month, and will only ever use a (recyclable) poly wrap when distributing the magazine with a supplement. We are acutely aware of your requirement for us to distribute the magazine in the most environmentally responsible fashion possible.

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£120 – UK £175 – Overseas Average net circulation 18,373 (January-December 2016) (A further 5,700 members receive the magazine in digital form) © The Planner is published on behalf of the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) by Redactive Publishing Ltd (RPL), 78 Chamber Street, London E1 8BL 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 part 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 PCP Ltd.

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CORRESPONDENCE

Inbox

YOUR NEWS, VIEWS AND QUESTIONS

F E E D B A C K

Graham Mitchell – It was good to see the March edition of The Planner largely devoted to diversity issues. In respect of disability and the built environment there is evidence that, while good progress was being made prior to 2010, the current regulatory framework influencing planning, building regulation and the licensing of food, drink and leisure facilities needs improvement. This was identified in the 2017 Women’s and Equality Committee report, which also identified a need for government to bring the full range of work in improving access and inclusion to the built environment into a coherent strategy. While the MHCLG response lists some good current initiatives, problem areas remain. There’s a change in the requirements for design and access statements (DAS) for planning applications. This has meant that inclusive access and facilities for disabled people are ignored either because a DAS is not required by regulation, or because a component is simply not included in the document. The largest residential planning application recently submitted to Birmingham City Council has a DAS that makes almost no reference to the topic. Often where a DAS is included they are copyand-paste types with bland universal comments and no site-specific details, often referring to the superseded Disability Discrimination Act 1995.

Access Birmingham, my local disability access pressure group, would like to see better DAS to enable it to better undertake its consultation role in the planning process. A well-prepared DAS encourages a process of constructive and coordinated inclusive planning and can also later assist in complying with access requirements in Part M of the building regulations. Encouragement by local planning authorities to developers to improve DAS would also help to add value to the planning process. Graham Mitchell MRTPI (Rtd), Birmingham

Dereck Wade – I read with some concern the article in The Planner’s March edition entitled ‘Tool launched to address postpermission delays’. I feel the current practice of imposing conditions is at odds with the objective of enabling developments to proceed as seamlessly as possible; it oﬀers developers yet another excuse for not implementing their approved schemes, continuing their myth that it is all the planners' fault, etc. The statement in the article that “issues that not have been resolved before approval can be listed at the planning conditions stage” is addressing the problem from the wrong end. Surely if such issues cannot be resolved, planning permission should not be granted at all. Much of the information required via these post-permission conditions refers to key

elements of proposals which should be included within the planning application at the outset, as ‘material planning considerations’, to assist the assessment of the proposals themselves. I know there are pressures to determine applications within given timescales, but a permission which has most if not all of its issues resolved before permission is granted must be better than a ‘halfway house’ permission which may take months or years before implementation takes place. On a similar point, as the only language developers seem to understand is finance, then should not measures be introduced to financially penalise them – possibly on an upwards sliding-scale basis – for unwarranted delays in implementation? This may also prove a disincentive for the unsavoury practice of sitting on (predominantly residential) permissions to maximise land values, rather than getting on with building the approved houses. Finally, on a related point, the post-permission requirements for percentages of ‘affordable housing’ are often subsequently overturned by applicants claiming the ‘impact on viability’ argument. Again, if viability is an issue, this should be set out as part of the application process itself before permission is granted. The NPPF itself requires certain applications to be accompanied by financial

viability assessments to ascertain from the outset whether the developer’s claims are supported by evidence. Otherwise we will continue to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted. Dereck Wade, BSc(Econ), MCD, MRTPI (Rtd)

Peter Geraghty – ADEPT – the association of directors of environment, economy, planning & transport – welcomes the House of Commons report on High Streets and Town Centres in 2030 as a timely contribution to the discussion about how best to support and develop our town centres. There is much of value in the findings. We welcome its recognition that permitted development rights risk undermining the strategic vision a community has developed for its high street or town centre. Increasing use of PDRs runs the risk of undermining the planning system and the ability of local authorities to help steward and deliver sustainable development. Achieving the large-scale structural change needed will require interventions led by local authorities using all of their powers and backed by cross-sector collaboration. Given the financial pressure local authorities face, central government funding will be needed, as well as significant private sector investment. Peter Geraghty, chair, ADEPT’s Housing, Planning and Regeneration Board

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LO U I S E B R O O K E S M I T H

O Opinion

Conséquences imprévues How many times have planning professionals call out: “Hoorah, another government tweak to the system – but has anyone thought through the unintended consequences”? It seems that this is not only the domain of the built environment. Thinking you are initiating change through consultation on new policy or legislation on the assumption that you can control the process, only to find reality taking you in a different direction seems to be the order of the day. Who’d have thought that calling a referendum on EU membership in 2016 would lead to where we are today? The unintended consequences of not really thinking things through and facing the debacle that exists as I write this piece is shocking. But we can live in hope. By the time you read this, someone might have called out the obvious and we could be back on track with an acceptable deal. Or we have woken up, in true Dallas-style (for those of you old enough to remember 1980s soap operas), to find it has all been a dream and “Bobby didn’t really vote to leave after all”. Perhaps we will have hit a no-deal Brexit and are preparing to live with the consequences. So what will it mean to the planning world? Will investment dwindle to a slow trickle? Will development take a nosedive and all those cashstrapped planning authorities find that staffing levels are actually about right? Given the Bank of England’s recent announcements and its sanguine approach to growth, we might find that

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home-grown needs are more than suﬃcient to keep the development industry – and the planning fraternity – busy. After all, we still have a serious housing challenge on our hands and infrastructure doesn’t build itself. If necessity is the mother of invention, the likes of Homes England will be making the most of its expanded workforce, and HS2 might turn into the Hoover Dam of its age and have the same impact here as Herbert Hoover’s economic star turn did for the US in the 1930s. Some feel that the UK’s housing and infrastructure programme might be our saving grace. Economically, they could be the unintended positive consequences of a troublesome Brexit. And let’s not forget that planning is all about economics. It is land use economics in its purest form,

“LET’S NOT FORGET THAT PLANNING IS ALL ABOUT ECONOMICS. IT IS LAND USE ECONOMICS IN ITS PUREST FORM” whether we are working in the public or private sectors, advising developers on the best use of land or applying policy or planning regulations to proposals that no one promotes unless there is an element of commercial return. Few schemes are entirely philanthropic, even those heavily subsidised by grants and government funding. So when the planning system is tweaked, or the subject of yet another well-meaning review, the consequences can be

surprising and in sharp contrast to the original goal. As the RTPI and various others recently called out, while the office to residential permitted development (PD) rights had laudable goals when first mooted, the consequences have meant that about 10,000 affordable units have not come forward, housing schemes have emerged where infrastructure or local services are poor, and statutory fees to local planning authorities have been dramatically curtailed. Perhaps the authors of the PD changes weighed up those consequences and felt that the potential extent of additional housing that would emerge was worth it. Perhaps the unintended consequences weren’t considered at all. Who knows? But we have to live with those consequences, just as we have to live with the decision of the majority of the UK’s voting population to leave the EU. Perhaps the unintended consequences will surprise us all. Or perhaps we will all wake up and find it’s a dream as Bobby Ewing steps out of the shower. Speaking French.

Dr Louise Brooke-Smith is a partner at Arcadis LLP and UK Head of Development and Strategy Planning I L L U S T R AT I O N | Z A R A P I C K E N

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Quote unquote FROM THE RTPI AND THE WEB

“Our job is to use our land, our funding, our powers and inﬂuence to champion good design” STEPHEN KINSELLA, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, LAND, AT HOMES ENGLAND, AT THE BETTER DESIGN FOR BETTER PLACES CONFERENCE

“We need a revised deﬁnition of ‘operational land’ so it better reﬂects the modern major ports business” POINT 1 OF THE UK MAJOR PORTS GROUP’S TEN POINT PLAN 'TO TURBOCHARGE OUR PORTS POST BREXIT'

“Design is not purely about aesthetics. It’s about problemsolving, protecting and enhancing the natural environment.”

I M AG E S | I STO C K / G E T T Y

KAY HUGHES, DIRECTOR AT KHAA AND DESIGN ADVISER TO THE NIC, AT THE BETTER DESIGN FOR BETTER PLACES CONFERENCE

“I will generally reference myself as the communities secretary” JAMES BROKENSHIRE, SECRETARY OF STATE FOR HOUSING, COMMUNITIES AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT, ON THE PART OF HIS JOB TITLE THAT HE AND OTHERS OFTEN END UP REFERRING TO THE MOST

“You don’t have to be beautiful to be loved. You can be characterful, quirky, you can have history. The conversation needs to be more about quality than beauty.” PAUL WATSON, BOARD MEMBER AT MADE, AT THE BETTER DESIGN FOR BETTER PLACES CONFERENCE

“Doing something practical for their area gives them a sense of local pride; and they’re not people that the profession has particularly tapped into until now” PHILIP RIDLEY OF EAST SUFFOLK COUNCIL ON THE CHARTERED TOWN PLANNING APPRENTICESHIP’S POTENTIAL TO BOOST LOCAL DIVERSITY IN PLANNING TEAMS

“60% of people say they will never buy a new home” KIT MALTHOUSE, HOUSING MINISTER, AT THE BETTER DESIGN FOR BETTER PLACES CONFERENCE

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B E S T O F T H E B LO G S

O Opinion

Robin Hutchinson is a director of The Community Brain, a social enterprise that works with communities to engage with the places in which they live

SHEDx is ready? Go!

Ah, the buzz that the phrase ‘commu ‘community engagement’ creates. It’s a must-have for new developments and regeneration projects – and that has to be a good thing, surely? In January, the 2019 London Planning Award for Community Engagement in the Planning Process went to SHEDx – Growing Ideas in Tolworth, a project led by a partnership of The Community Brain, Kingston Council, the Greater London Authority and the Heritage Lottery Fund. We were thrilled, particularly as our approach is based on positive partnerships, – not just with project partners but also with the businesses, organisations and communities we work with. But what creates these strong community partnerships that underpin positive engagement? Be honest with people about your ambitions. If you have already formulated your ideas and are really seeking aﬃrmation or minor changes, let people know at the outset. If your consultation is based on a misunderstanding then participants can get upset that there are areas not up for discussion. The earlier you start engaging with people the better. We begin when there is a real chance for people to contribute ideas and ambitions, and to register concerns. It is amazing what you

can discover at this point – and how many problems you avoid. People need to know that their contributions matter. It doesn’t mean everything they want can happen but they need to know that it will be taken seriously. The best engagement you will get is when people feel relaxed and open. The key is to create an atmosphere that is goodhumoured and forward-looking. Find an unusual venue – council rooms and public halls often carry the ghosts of previous behaviours and discussions. Look for creative ways for people to engage but make sure your approach is relevant. You can feel energy leaving a room when participants are asked to play a ‘game’ or perform a task that seems to limit their chance to contribute. Keep in touch and keep letting them contribute. Even people or groups that begin from a negative standpoint will often join in later as they realise that others want to see something happen. Community engagement is a good thing? It is when you avoid the ‘oﬀ-the-shelf’ approaches adopted by many companies, engage early, make the process and opportunities relevant to the project and treat everyone as potentially having the best idea – because sometimes they do! Find out more about SHEDx at: bit.ly/planner0419-shedx

“THE EARLIER YOU START ENGAGING WITH PEOPLE THE BETTER. WE BEGIN WHEN THERE IS A REAL CHANCE FOR PEOPLE TO CONTRIBUTE IDEAS AND AMBITIONS”

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Robin Hambleton is emeritus professor of city leadership at the University of the West of England, Bristol, and director of Urban Answers. Leading the Inclusive City is available from Policy Press: bit.ly/planner0419-city

Can ‘One City Planning’ break new ground?

How many ma plans have you seen where ““Ending period poverty for girls and women in the city” is one of the top three priorities for the first year of the plan? In January, at a ‘city gathering’ in Bristol, more than 200 civic leaders, activists and citizens from a wide range of backgrounds, shared ideas on how to develop and deliver a new One City Plan. The other two top priorities for 2019 agreed at the gathering provide an indication of what local leaders are most concerned about: preventing gang violence and knife crime, and developing a fford able childcare in three neighbourhoods. Its imaginative approach to ‘one city planning’ has three distinctive features. First, the plan covers the period to 2050, setting a long-term vision that goes well beyond electoral cycles and medium-term planning horizons. It outlines a strategy for each of the three coming decades and specifies the actions that will need to be taken to create “a fair healthy and sustainable city – a city of hope and aspiration, where everyone can share in its success”. Second, the plan has been cocreated by politicians, community leaders, businesses, trade unions, planners, academics and others. They have shared experiences, explored new ideas, disagreed with each other and, finally, arrived at new strategies.

Third, a new collaborative governance system for the city has been created to deliver the plan. Leaders of 16 public, private and not-for-proﬁt organisations will serve on a new City Leaders Group to oversee the work of six thematic boards working to implement strategies set out in the plan. The Bristol One City Plan, while not statutory, provides a solid strategy for delivering sustainable and people-friendly economic growth for the city. What works in Bristol might not be appropriate for other localities. But here are three pointers drawn from the experience. 1. At a time when authoritarian forces are gathering in many nations, including our own, it is important to stand up for progressive thinking on social, environmental and economic justice. 2. Planning is an imaginative local activity that cannot be constrained by misguided guidance from distant oﬃcials in Whitehall. Sure, successful planners take notice of legal requirements, but they know that there is always space to create new possibilities in their locality. 3. ‘One city planning’ can work. The New York City One City Plan should be recognised as worldleading in breaking new ground on collective public planning driven by social purpose. But many cities and localities are now developing their own variations. Read about Bristol’s One City plan at www.bristolonecity.com

“THE PLAN COVERS THE PERIOD TO 2050, SETTING A LONGTERM VISION THAT GOES WELL BEYOND ELECTORAL CYCLES”

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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

Nissa Shahid MRTPI is urbanist at Future Cities Catapult

How better handling of data can drive innovation in planning

Every day, cities process phenom phenomenal amounts of data. Its volume and variety is fuelling a technology revolution across sectors and industries that have managed to incorporate digital data into their daily business. Yet, despite the planning process itself generating vast amounts of data (directly and indirectly), technological innovation in the profession continues to lag behind. This lag might be because of the long legacy of planning’s approach to filing, holding, and sharing its knowledge. Planning’s greatest obstacle to digital innovation with data is just how much information is hard to access within a painfully analogue system. Future Cities C a t a p u l t’ s Digital Planning programme shows how new technologies that have revolutionised finance, medicine and education industries might also benefit planning. Take decision notices: Richly detailed, the information these documents hold – critical pieces of data that are relevant for the lifespan of developments – is too frequently lost to non-machine readable PDF filing. Decision notices should be, and still are, the go-to source for information when subsequently trying to assess the potential for further development, and understand the planning history

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of a place. But the means by which they’ve been ﬁled leaves planners wading through historical decision notices, hoping to illuminate the context of existing developments and how future development might be impacted. Imagine if we could extract just the relevant data needed – like simply the planning conditions on restrictions of use that may need to be removed or amended. When we created PlantraQ,, a prototype showing how technology and innovation could solve issues in the post-permission stage, we realised how this aﬀected any solution we tried to come up with. One of the underlying hurdles to innovation lies in how new data sets created by planning decisions, and those gathered from previous ones, are collected and stored. Solve data quality and storage, and you could innovate faster and better. So suppose every decision notice were geo-located and the conditions documented as associated ‘metadata’. This would make the data easy to access and process, facilitating quicker and more reliable analysis – not just of historical conditions associated with developments, but also of overarching conditions for larger developments. This would also allow us to store this data for later use. Fixing the issues with how we handle and store data is key to innovation in the planning system.

“ONE OF THE UNDERLYING HURDLES TO INNOVATION LIES IN HOW NEW DATASETS CREATED BY PLANNING DECISIONS ARE STORED”

Emma Walker is associate director at Turley

The NI planning system ends its infancy: so what have we learnt?

April mar marks the fourth anniversary of the pl planning and local government reform in Northern Ireland which, barring regeneration, saw all planning powers transferred to newly established councils. Four years in and I am not sure we can say we are still in the infancy of change. So as the system reaches pre-school age, are we moving forward? The Department for Infrastructure’s figures relating to development management performance provide a good baseline. For example, 3,188 applications were received by councils in Q1 2015/16. In Q1 2018/19, that figure is similar at 3,254. There were 94 major planning applications received in Q1 2015/16; in Q1 2018/19 the figure was just 37. However, the average determination period for a major planning application has doubled from 37.6 weeks (Q1 2015/16) to 68 weeks (Q1 2018/19). The approval rate across the same period has been maintained and in some locations increased. In the absence of an Executive, the ability of local councils to determine the majority of planning applications is beneficial, enabling delivery of key projects. However, the time frame for securing an approval has increased, causing concern in the development sector. It was hoped that new measures such as pre-application discussions and proposals of notice would streamline the application process. However, statistics suggest that this

has had varied success. As the new legislative regime beds in, a series of judicial reviews on aspects of the development planning process are generating a library of case law that will assist in guiding the profession. Resourcing within planning teams remains a bone of contention. When the new councils took on development management, they also took on the task of preparing local development plans for the new council areas. Turley estimates that the time to prepare a new development plan has almost doubled since 2015, to around 8.5 years. Councils have begun preparation of their plans and we are starting to see publication of draft plan strategies, so momentum around LDPs is growing. In development management, planning committees are becoming more comfortable with the decisionmaking process with key approvals being made. Engagement with planning oﬃcers is also improving. The private sector is also learning with a renewed focus on preapplication discussions for major projects, meaningful engagement, and preparation of front-loaded applications. The new system has demanded more from both public and private sectors. Moving forward, adequate resourcing of planning will be key to ensuring that the people and skills are available to deliver on councils’ growth ambitions.

"THE ABILITY OF LOCAL COUNCILS TO DETERMINE THE MAJORITY OF PLANNING APPLICATIONS IS BENEFICIAL"

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WE SEEM TO BE REDISCOVERING OUR URBAN WATERWAYS AS ATTRACTIVE SITES FOR DEVELOPMENT – BUT HOW DO WE RETAIN THEIR VALUE FOR EVERYONE? AMANDA ROBINSON OUTLINES A LONDON BASED PROJECT THAT COULD SEND RIPPLES ACROSS THE UK I L L U S T R AT I O N | G A I L A R M S T RO N G

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W AT E R S I D E R EG E N E R AT I O N

WATER WORKS

Across the UK, development along urban waterways – canals, rivers, docklands and reservoirs – is surging. From Liverpool to Leicester and Dover to Dundee, local authorities are grappling with a perfect storm of circumstances: higher housing targets; ex-industrial waterfronts ripe for reuse; public health agendas to improve mental and physical well-being; port authorities wanting to increase waterborne freight; and a desire from developers to offer lucrative waterside living. At the same time, climate change, sustainability, and biodiversity – issues closely linked to water – are more pressing than ever. Improving waterways can bring numerous benefits, with clear links to local and national planning ambitions. For example, waterways: • Are often heritage assets that foster tourism; • Support well-being, providing calm walking routes and leisure opportunities; • Increase biodiversity and flood-risk mitigation; • Serve as transport links for commuters and freight, taking vehicles off roads; and • Create jobs, through the above and / or all kinds of maintenance. There are now ways to quantify these benefits, through natural capital accounting and other methods, and the research is proving that waterways can help create successful places (see box Waterways and well-being). But it’s not all smooth sailing. Waterways are contested spaces with multiple demands and stakeholders – and many potential functions. The early research in Future of London’s Water Works programme has uncovered several recurring challenges to creating new waterside places. First, there’s the question of appropriate scale. Before getting swept up in large-scale waterside redevelopment, planners should review local context and assess whether intensive development or a lighter-touch approach is best for an area. From there, tools like local plans, supplementary planning documents, area action plans and other frameworks can guide positive change. On large or small schemes, access is critical for waterways to work as places and yield well-being benefits; patchy footpaths often undermine this. Examples abound of older developments with their backs to the water, without access, having poor wayfinding or lighting, or being private developments barring public access. A recent Waterside Spaces study for the London Borough of Tower Hamlets identified

“Urban waterways are critical,” says Lisa Taylor, chief executive of Future of London. “They balance some of our most fragile and treasured ecological systems with some of the most proﬁtable real estate going. As city populations grow, we need to temper the urge to build right to water’s edge with recognition of the holistic value of these places. The most successful world cities

“DEVELOPMENT DEMANDS AND ASSORTED ACTIVITIES ALSO NEED TO BE SQUARED WITH LOCAL ECOSYSTEMS AND BIODIVERSITY”

thrive thanks to these blue-and-green ribbons, and smart boroughs, developers and communities should take advantage of what’s likely to be a slower pace of investment to really consider these places.” Future of London’s Water Works project is running through 2019, sharing examples of policies, strategies and partnerships to better manage competing demands and ensure

sustainable growth along waterways. Amanda Robinson writes: “As an independent, not-forproﬁt network for London’s built environment practitioners, and with support from Arup, Pollard Thomas Edwards, Avison Young and other partners, FoL is wellplaced to showcase eﬀective approaches.” Get involved at bit.ly/ planner0419-water

many areas suffering such afflictions. To make sure future development avoids or repairs past mistakes, the council’s forthcoming local plan prescribes remedies like restoring river walls and embankments, using setbacks to mitigate flood risk and provide paths or habitats, building bridges across the River Lea, and enhancing links to the rivers Lea and Thames. Linked to physical access is inclusion – often the key to successful places. Where waterways are accessible, do users represent local people? Are those who would be most positively affected by the well-being aspects of water actually benefiting? As water sports gain popularity, are clubs attracting diverse participants and trying to include people who suffer barriers to entry? Active Row, a youth programme supported by Sport England and Tideway, has been making waves in this regard. It has encouraged children from some of London’s poorest neighbourhoods to try rowing, with 60 per cent of participants from BAME backgrounds. By comparison, fewer than 5 per cent of British rowing members are from BAME backgrounds.

Back to life Access and inclusion are important, but swelling numbers of waterside uses (water sports and leisure, commuting, freight, houseboat living) put pressure on limited space and sensitive ecosystems. As with any public space, careful management and continuing engagement with diﬀerent user groups can help to reduce conﬂict.

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W AT E R S I D E R EG E N E R AT I O N

By designating its section of Regent’s Canal as a conservation area, the London Borough of Camden can manage canalside activity in line with diﬀerent character areas. For example, Granary Square and Camden Lock, focal points for activity at King’s Cross and Camden Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park Town, oﬀer access to bustling waterside areas. A quiet canal path connects the two, with carefully designed access at either end to minimise footfall and retain the tranquil nature of the route. Development demands and assorted activities also need to be squared with local ecosystems and biodiversity. This should be seen as an opportunity: enhancing the environment creates more resilient, attractive and valuable places. Before 2012, rivers throughout London’s Olympic Park had been rendered biologically dead and unnavigable by decades of intensive industrial use and associated pollution. The Olympic Park landscape strategy reclaimed the rivers and The River Clyde Regeneration surrounded them with extensive new green space, providing critical assets for area-wide SUDS (sustainable urban drainage systems), biodiversity targets, and the 42km ‘green chain’ through the Lea Valley. Finally, fragmented ownership and management of waterways presents governance and delivery challenges. The Environment Agency, Canal & River Trust, Scottish Canals, local authorities, port authorities and riparian owners are just a few potential managers. In some areas ownership and management are ambiguous, and there’s no Land Registry equivalent to clarify matters. Many waterways form local authority boundaries, demanding crossborder consultation. Organisations like the Lea Valley Regional Park Authority or Wandle Valley Regional Park Trust, which oversee cross-border

“THE MOST SUCCESSFUL WORLD CITIES THRIVE THANKS TO THESE BLUE ANDGREEN RIBBONS”

Granary Square, King’s Cross

River Roch, Rochdale

development and conservation of waterways, could play a role in coordinating eﬀorts. Policy and planning tools are indispensable for good waterside development, but councils are not the only ones with a role in highquality schemes: the private sector, national government, trusts and community groups are also key actors. As cities grow, it is critical that these stakeholders create joined-up, sustainable approaches to waterside schemes – and that we share best practice as widely as possible. n Amanda Robinson is head of knowledge

at Future of London

TURNING THE TIDE IN THAMESMEAD

Constructed in the late 1960s on low-lying marshland crisscrossed by decommissioned military canals, south-east London’s Thamesmead estate was designed around water as a key asset. The Greater London Council (GLC), which led the development, built lakes and more canals to collect excess surface water and discourage antisocial behaviour. For later phases, the GLC envisioned a water-oriented neighbourhood

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where residents would travel by canal and join boating clubs on the Thames. Although the proto-SUDS was ahead of its time, the vision of Venice-onThames never materialised and the presence of water failed to dampen antisocial behaviour. Development

turned its back on the canal network, which remained largely inaccessible, and public waterside areas suﬀered from neglect. Since taking ownership of Thamesmead in 2014 – along with its 7km of canals and 32 hectares of lakes – housing association Peabody has put water at the centre of its regeneration plans. In

addition to planning for 20,000 new homes along the Thames and local lakes, Peabody invests in upkeep and outreach. A canals manager and three staﬀ maintain the waterways and work on reopening canals, while outreach oﬃcers teach children about biodiversity. Local anglers have built a reed bed along Southmere Lake and the charity Thames21 is leading a community project to build more reed beds and train locals to tend them.

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WATERWAYS AND WELLBEING

£500m

Annual nationwide value of public beneﬁts from waterways1

6:1

Ratio of economic beneﬁt to public spend on inland waterways 2

7:1

Ratio of health beneﬁts to investment in canal towpath network3

£3.8bn

Estimated well-being per annum for all waterways usage in England and Wales4

£132m I M A G E S | I S T O C K / A L A M Y / G E T T Y / PA U A P I C S

Value of sport and recreation on the River Thames each year5

£500,000 Indicative annual NHS savings associated with the Thames5

A W E A LT H O F W A T E R

Water is at the heart of some of the biggest, most ambitious and forward-thinking developments in the UK, writes Simon Wicks, The Planner’s deputy editor. Liverpool Waters, which we featured in 2018, is a 60-hectare regeneration scheme on a World Heritage Site that aims to build new neighbourhoods on abandoned docks beside the River Mersey. It's a highly sensitive project managed by landowner Peel Land and Property. But the masterplan has achieved a balance of old and new that will acknowledge the heritage of the site while providing an impressive gateway to the city for seaborne visitors. It will bring jobs, homes, shops, cafes, parks and new leisure uses in a part of the city derelict for decades. Former docks are also the foundation for dramatic regeneration in Glasgow, where a 20km stretch of the River Clyde waterfront was transformed between 2003 and 2014. But the latest water-linked plans for the city are built on the Forth and Clyde canal that bisects Scotland for seagoing vessels. A ‘smart canal’ scheme will use a digitally controlled surface water drainage system to open up 110 hectares of waterside land for development. The scheme, partly funded by Glasgow’s city region deal, will

also connect the canal to five regeneration sites in the north of the city, bringing water into the heart of communities. Rochdale is one of several towns that have freed town centre rivers that had been culverted for various reasons during the 20th century. In Rochdale’s case, the town has uncovered a medieval bridge hidden for 150 years. Aside from creating a more attractive central focus in commercial centre, the council’s Revealing the Roch project has reconnected the town to its wool-trading heritage. Guildford in Surrey is aiming to undo decades of ‘disjointed’ planning which has resulted in the town centre being effectively cut off from the River Wey that flows through it. The council’s masterplan envisages a general opening up of riverside space, with new public realm, riverside walks, leisure and commercial uses, as well as environmental enhancement. Many towns and cities are rediscovering the potential of their waterways in a postindustrial age. Of course, the waterway, and the trade and industry it fuelled was usually the reason the settlement was built. But with much of this industry now gone, water provides a commercially and socially attractive opportunity for restoration and regeneration.

43,500

Number of jobs provided by Thames ports and maritime services5

Sources: 1 HM Treasury Green Book 2 Ten Facts About The Inland Waterways, Inland Waterways Association 3 Water Adds Value, Canal and River Trust with Inland Waterways Association, 2014 4 Assessing the wellbeing impacts of waterway usage in England and Wales, Simetrica 2018 5 The River Thames Public Amenity, Port of London Authority 2015

Liverpool Waters

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E A S T S U F FO LK

BIGGER PICTURE THIS MONTH SEES THE MERGING OF COUNCIL PLANNING DEPARTMENTS IN DORSET, SOMERSET AND SUFFOLK. MARK SMULIAN REPORTS ON THE LOGIC BEHIND MUNICIPAL UNIFICATION

concerned with fish and marine science, and It is rare for fish to play a role in the a large local employer. reorganisation of a planning department – Costs spiralled and spending cuts from the but they are a factor in why Suffolk Coastal continuing recession began to bite. It was and Waveney district councils will, on 1 April, then that Waveney – not a council in robust merge as East Suffolk Council with a single financial health at the time – was hit by a planning team. demand for £9 million from the Department This merger is unusual on two grounds; for Work and Pensions for what it said were although it will create England’s most excess claims made for benefit grants. By the populous district, at 247,000 people, the new time that was resolved, and with the council council will still be classed as a lower-tier facing a dangerous overspend, the campus planning authority. project had to be abandoned. Unlike, say, the reorganisation In 2009, Waveney sought help that’s also happening this month from neighbouring Suffolk in Dorset (see box), events in “EVENTS IN Coastal, which had suffered none Suffolk do not involve any new SUFFOLK DO NOT of these problems. Its chief unitary authority, with planners INVOLVE ANY executive, Stephen Baker, took continuing to work for districts NEW UNITARY over both councils – a post he (the county will retain waste and AUTHORITY, will continue to hold at the minerals planning). WITH PLANNERS merged East Suffolk. And just to confuse matters a CONTINUING The second person into a joint little more, a similar TO WORK FOR senior role after Baker was Philip reorganisation is happening at DISTRICTS” Ridley, head of planning and the other end of the county, coastal management, whose where St Edmundsbury and responsibilities also include Forest Heath districts are coming building control, and who is part together to become West Suffolk. of the senior management team. Suffolk County Council will For someone about to become head of thus span an area of East Suffolk, West planning at the largest lower tier district in Suffolk, and the three remaining districts of England, Ridley is fairly relaxed about the Babergh, Ipswich and Mid Suffolk. change when the new council comes into being. School of thought This is because, even though the two were So, those fish. It all goes back to the separate legal entities with their own disastrous Waveney Campus project in the councillors and their own separate local mid-2000s. This was to have been a plans, Suffolk Coastal and Waveney have regeneration project for Lowestoft based on effectively operated as a single planning an office campus complex to house Waveney team for several years. council, parts of the county council and the Ridley is hoping for a ‘seamless’ transition, Centre for Environment, Fisheries and at least as far as service users are concerned, Aquaculture Science – a government agency

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although gh he no notes that a radical change in the number of councillors will make a difference. “We’ve had a shared service for seven to eight years,” explains Ridley, “and it’s been fairly seamless as we become a merged council. It’s been one team but two clients and from 1 April that becomes one client. But there will be a change in democratic accountability as we have elections on 2 May and the 90 seats will reduce to 55.” (A shadow authority comprising all councillors at both councils will act in the interim.) “From public perception we do not expect much change in the planning service when we merge,” Ridley continues. “The planning committee is changing, though, and the scheme of delegation will have to go along with that. There will be a strategic planning committee, and below that two committees that will split the work 50-50 as far as possible.” Ninety-five people work for Ridley, of which 36 are planners split between 20 in development management and 16 in policy, although the council has recently advertised six new posts. The remainder work in coastal management and building control. Despite the merger, there remains a complex patchwork to Ridley’s work. For one thing, he must still contend with two local plans. Waveney’s was due to be adopted shortly before the merger and Suffolk Coastal’s was set for later this year. He explains: “East Suffolk covers two housing market areas so we have two local plans and it seemed sensible to continue to take both of those through the process rather than stop and start again, when that might mean we could not demonstrate a five-year land supply, which both have.” 24

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[left] Lowestoft is emerging as a centre for the oﬀshore energy industry [right] Sizewell C nuclear power station is in the third round of public consultation

“MERGERS DO NOT ALWAYS RUN SMOOTHLY – EVEN WHERE SHARED SERVICES TEAMS AND MANAGEMENT HAVE LONG BEEN IN PLACE”

Waveney’s housing market area is base based on Lowestoft while Suffolk Coastal is part of a larger area around Ipswich including Mid Suffolk and Babergh. In the longer term it is intended that there will be a single East Suffolk plan once the current ones need renewing. “We will only look to a single local plan when the time comes to renew them, although the founding statement of the new council envisages a single local plan,” he says. Any single plan will cover a diverse area. Ridley says East Suffolk would be the ideal place for any up-and-coming planner to gain experience given the very different places it covers – and the imminence of a nuclear power station project – although he admits “we struggle to recruit like everywhere does”. In the south of the area is the port of Felixstowe “the gateway to the UK for about 45 per cent of what enters the country”, while at the opposite end is the smaller port of Lowestoft, “which is becoming a centre for the offshore energy industry but has areas in need of regeneration and some deprivation”. In the middle, as Ridley says, it is more typical English countryside, villages and small towns with listed buildings and coastal towns like Aldeburgh and Southwold, which attract a lot of visitors. “Also, parts of Suffolk Coastal are suburban in character around Ipswich, so it’s a great place for any planner to cut their teeth with a lot of variety.” In addition to being a centre for the offshore wind industry, East Suffolk is likely to become home to a more controversial type of energy with EDF’s Sizewell C nuclear power station. EDF is now in the third stage of public consultation. The decision on this is not in East Suffolk’s hands; the government will decide because nuclear power stations are deemed nationally significant infrastructure. But the council must deal with everything consequent on the project. Ridley has five officers working on Sizewell C and a group of planners has visited Taunton Deane and West Somerset councils to learn from their counterparts’ experience in dealing with the Hinkley Point nuclear power station. (Coincidentally, Taunton Deane and West Somerset are also in the process of merging – see box). Planners at East Suffolk work closely as needed with the other parts of Ridley’s I M AG E | G E T T Y / A L A M Y

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department, which also meshes with neighbouring councils. Building control is part of a partnership with Ipswich, and coastal management with North Norfolk and Great Yarmouth. The Suffolk coast is famous for Dunwich, once a great port that fell into the sea because of erosion in medieval times, reputedly leaving its church spire sometimes exposed at low tides. Things may not be that dramatic now, but Ridley says: “In coastal management we deal with erosion along this coast with some quite big decisions needed on what can be protected or not, and how we can safeguard places that bring in tourists.” Long coastal spits, such as Orford Ness, may be particularly vulnerable.

“WE DEAL WITH EROSION ALONG THIS COAST WITH SOME QUITE BIG DECISIONS NEEDED ON WHAT CAN BE PROTECTED OR NOT”

n Mark Smulian is a freelance journalist specialising in the built environment

West Suffolk This is being formed as a merger of St Edmundsbury and Forest Heath districts. Both districts have had shared services for more than five years, as well as a single head of planning. Each has separate local plans, but it is expected that a single West Suffolk plan will be devised once the existing plans come up for renewal. Both councils had core strategies adopted in 2010. Dorset Council A full unitary reorganisation in Dorset is going live from this month. A single council has been formed to cover the conurbation of Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch, despite the loud objections of the latter. Another new unitary body will cover the largely rural districts of East Dorset, Purbeck, North Dorset, West Dorset and Weymouth and Portland.

East Suffolk – the first of many? There are other mergers taking place on 1 April (see box, right), as well as existing examples of councils not merging but sharing staff and working closely together such as Adur and Worthing, and East Hampshire and Havant. Nevertheless, mergers do not always run n smoothly – even where shared services teams and management have long been iin place. For example, a proposed merger of South Hams and West Devon collapsed last year when councillors in the latter opposed it because of concerns about the implications of council tax harmonisation. However logical a merger may look on paper, and however attractive the savings, local factors will always make or break such proposals.

OTHER COUNCIL PLANNING TEAMS REORGANISING IN APRIL

The Port of Felixstowe in Suﬀolk (below) is the UK’s busiest container port

Somerset West & Taunton This is the result of Taunton Deane and West Somerset coming together. The newly merged district is the result of West Somerset – England’s smallest district by population – being judged financially unviable by the Local Government Association in 2012. The government encouraged the two to merge, although the resulting council will remain a district within Somerset County Council. Both planning departments have operated as a single team since 2014, although they have been serving separate planning committees. From 1 April, there will be a single committee. Tim Burton is assistant director of planning until the end of March, after which, says a council statement: “Work is in hand to source a replacement lead for planning.” Taunton Deane’s core strategy was adopted in 2012, West Somerset’s in 2016. Work is in progress on the evidence base for a new local plan to cover the single council area and a detailed project plan for the local plan review will be prepared this summer. AP R IL 2 0 19 / THE PLA NNER

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Small wonders

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FUTURE OF HOUSING

WHATEVER ITS PROS AND CONS, ‘MICROLIVING’ IS HAPPENING, OUT OF LIFESTYLE CHOICE OR NECESSITY. AND IT'S BEING CREATED AT GRASSROOTS LEVEL FROM SELFBUILD SCHEMES, RIGHT UP TO LARGE PROJECTS BACKED BY INVESTORS AND DEVELOPERS, SAYS SERENA RALSTON

Micro deﬁnition

The British Property Federation and property consultancy JLL define micro-living as “the provision of homes that do not conform to current minimum space standards”. They identify three micro-living product types – compact living (self-contained homes), co-living and shared living (converted or subdivided houses/HMOs). JLL research into energy performance An autumnal afternoon in Bristol. In a newly certificates, which cover 60 per cent of UK constructed home, sun pours through floor-tohousing stock, found that 550,000 of these ceiling picture windows as five people drink homes were below the space standard, mostly in coffee in the living area. From the kitchen, London and the South East. Based on marketing someone else joins the conversation. The oneconsultancy CACI’s Acorn classifications, half of bedroom show home is cosy yet airy, with high these micro-homes are occupied by the most ceilings and plenty of storage. affluent and the other half by the least affluent. Yet this modular home from Tempohousing at Such polarisation suggests that people at one last year’s Bristol Housing Festival has only 27 end of the socio-economic spectrum are living in square metres of floor space, falling below the tiny apartments because they can afford nothing minimum 37 sq m national space standard for a better, while people at the other end are making new home. a lifestyle choice. Elsewhere, artisan ‘Sue’ (not her real name) has “We need to be careful that micro-homes don’t gone even smaller. Her home is a 10 sq m ‘Tiny become a trap for the least House’ [see A tiny tale, overleaf] affluent,” cautions Nick Whitten, pitched on a friend’s land near the director of research for JLL. “But we main house where she lodges. The “MICRO can’t overlook the two most affluent tiny house serves as a self-sufficient APARTMENTS groups who have chosen to live this office where she can work all hours. ARE AN OBVIOUS way.” This arrangement circumvents SOLUTION TO Deborah Smyth of Tempohousing planning requirements, as she is THE HOUSING stresses that demand for their reliant on the main house for key CRISIS” micro-units is diverse, widening utilities. beyond the original customer base In London, developers and of students and key workers to investors are also thinking in microencompass young professionals, units. U+I has devised the ‘town flat’ older ‘downsizers’, and those who concept – a micro-apartment with want to live more simply and floor space of 19-24 sq m, though sustainably. none have yet been built. The consumer group Which? found that 7,809 Inspired Homes recently won an award micro-homes were built in 2016, the highest on at the WhatHouse? Awards for its 31 record, with more than 29,700 built since 2010. sq m micro-apartment in an This included 2,490 built in London in 2016 and office-to-residential 8,460 built since 2010. conversion in Croydon, There is evidently a demand for small spaces. achievable because permitted But whether it can be met is debatable. For development (PD) supporters of micro-homes, the brake is the conversions are not subject to planning system and space standards, which fall space standards. on the side of protecting those whose means are ‘Micro-living’ is happening limited rather than enabling those who wish to through both choice and live small by choice. necessity. It’s happening at The current nationally described space grassroots level and through standard was introduced in 2015 as part of a self-build, and it’s happening wider rationalisation of building standards for in a top-down way through new housing. It “sets out requirements” for oneinvestors and developers of large bedroom homes for one person to be 39 sq m or schemes. AP R IL 2 0 19 / THE PLA NNER

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bigger. This standard now sits within the planning system; others were added to building regulations. Maggie Baddeley, the RTPI’s England policy officer, points to the national policy position (explained in the National Planning Policy Framework’s Footnote 46 – see box). This says that the national space standard should only be embedded in local plans if there is an evidence base that justifies doing so in terms of need. Given that it is not compulsory for local authorities to adopt the space standard, you could argue that it is, in effect, optional. Authorities outside London that do incorporate it into their local plans are largely in urban areas or in the South East. Both the Royal Institute of British Architects and the RTPI want to see the national minimum space standard embedded in mandatory building regulations instead of merely sitting within the planning system. In London, space standards were originally adopted in the 2011 London Plan. The Greater London Authority is now seeking to beef up, rather than water down, these standards through the Draft London Plan. “This is important for two reasons,” says James Murray, London’s deputy mayor for housing and residential development. “First, we need to build decently sized, quality homes as they will be around for a long time. Second, we are building at a much higher density – we need to reassure people that building at higher density doesn’t mean smaller homes. He adds: “We are not going to support the suggestion that standards should be revised downwards. Homes need to be both spacious and well designed [...] It’s essential that all housing – both in the private and social sector – meets minimum space standards and is well designed for the future.” The current London Plan does not set out the full

Tempohousing's student scheme in Utrecht. Units are 20-47 sq m

An Opod interior

A Tempohousing apartment interior

A TINY TALE

The tiny house movement (THM) is an architectural and social movement that advocates living simply in small homes. A residential structure under 46 sq m is generally accepted to be a tiny home although, as with ‘Sue’s’ home, they are often much smaller. The THM promotes financial prudence, eco-friendly choices, shared community experiences, and a shift away from consumerism. Sustainability and community differentiate THM from other types of micro-living. A tiny home costs from £2,500 to build or between £20,000 and £40,000 to buy. As a self-employed person, ‘Sue’ found it impossible to get a mortgage but bought her Tiny Home for £35,000.The home, which has a wood burner and boiler, has off-grid, onboard provision of services and has been built according to a strict low-impact, low-carbon footprint ethic. It is created from sustainable, sensibly managed local timber and recycled materials. She says: “I’m so happy– my house is cosy and cheap to 28

run. I do find it tough coping with technology that's new to me – I was a Girl Guide, but there wasn’t a ‘PV panels and wiring charge controllers’ badge! If I lived in a tiny house community this wouldn’t be a problem, though.” Although some people start off, like ‘Sue’, with a home on wheels, a community such as the proposed Tiny House Community Bristol needs to be semi-permanent to raise finance against assets. Streams of applicable funding include the government’s Community Housing Fund. Tiny House Community Bristol expects land to soon be available. A self-governing group, it is exploring options, including leasing land from Bristol Community Land Trust. Simon Whitfield, a tiny house designer, says: “There appear to be major inconsistencies with planning enforcement for tiny homes. Current planning is outdated and will not be applicable to the tiny house movement in future. The pace of change far outstrips the existing legislation and new guidance is needed.”

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FUTURE OF HOUSING

NPPF FOOTNOTE 46 Opod Tube Housing in Hong Kong, where concrete water pipes have been converted into sub 10 sq m stackable homes to ﬁt into gaps between buildings.

national space standards but the Draft London Plan does, while making it clearer that these are minimum standards that apply to all housing development. The existing policy has ‘wiggle room’ on single-person dwellings of less than 37 sq m “of exemplary design and which contribute to achievement of other [plan] objectives”. In the draft plan, this is gone: 37 sq m is regarded as the absolute minimum.

“Planning policies for housing should make use of the government’s optional technical standards for accessible and adaptable housing, where this would address an identiﬁed need for such properties. Policies may also make use of the nationally described space standard, where the need for an internal space standard can be justiﬁed.”

No space, no quality?

poor and desk-bound, so if a micro-home doesn’t tick space standard boxes, it can be instantly Whitten would like to see more flexible space dismissed.” standards – and move them towards design Rachel Butler, co-founder of Tiny House guidance rather than a consideration of space Community Bristol, argues that tiny houses can be alone. Space, he says, is a lazy proxy for quality. offset by communal buildings. However, Murray “We can deliver higher-quality housing because makes clear that communal facilities should not of advances in technology such as modular be seen as a way to offset small spaces and bypass homes. If space standards were drawn up today, standards for self-contained units. they would be lower – since they were adopted, In the Netherlands, size and quality are not house prices have risen and wages haven’t caught mutually exclusive. High-quality apartments of 30 up. Sixty per cent of homes do not have children sq m are common, according to Tempohousing, in them and have different needs. Yet we are which has schemes in Utrecht. City councils set building identikit homes.” rent controls for these types of properties, which Martin Skinner, chief executive at Inspired are aimed at young professionals. Homes, says: “Micro-apartments are an obvious But the spectre of Hong Kong’s notorious ‘coffin solution to the housing crisis. We would like to cubicles’ hangs over the debate. With no minimum deliver new-build micro-apartments but have space standard, Hong Kong has an been prevented by the nationally estimated 100,000 people in described space standard which inadequate housing. But Singapore, means that planners, councillors “WE NEED TO BE another Asian city-state with equally and voters can easily argue that CAREFUL THAT high population pressures, has a anything smaller is ‘sub-standard’ MICROHOMES minimum housing standard of 35 sq regardless of customer DON’T BECOME m and does not suffer the same preferences, design efficiencies, A TRAP FOR THE technology or shared facilities.” LEAST AFFLUENT” problems. In the UK, office-to-residential Deborah Smyth of conversions are damaging the microTempohousing believes that a living cause. Research by the Royal shortage of planning officers is a Institute of Chartered Surveyors has barrier. “Planners are often timefound that the quality of housing built under PD rights is significantly worse than where planning permission is required. “Evidence of this reduction in quality included A one-bedroom Inspired Homes apartment in Croydon ‘studio’ flats just 15 or 16 sq m and an overall rate of just 30 per cent meeting national space standards.” Many fear that relaxing space standards will lead to a race to the bottom. Others are convinced that micro-homes can make a positive contribution to housing supply. Meanwhile, small homes continue to be built, either in the teeth of planning policy or under the radar – and Instagram and YouTube put a chic, hipster slant on what is, for many, a housing emergency. As Butler says: “A lot of people simply want to troubleshoot their own housing crisis.”

n Serena Ralston is a freelance journalist specialising in housing and the built environment I M A G E S | J A M E S L AW C Y B E R T E C T U R E / T E M P O H O U S I N G / I N S P I R E D

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Tech { L A N D S C A P E

P31 TECH P34 REGIONAL P38 DECISIONS P42 LEGAL P51 ACTIVITY

INTO THE FLOW #PLANTECH HAS TENDED TO FOCUS ON INTELLIGENT DATA GATHERING AND SORTING, BUT WHAT ABOUT THE FUNDAMENTAL PROCESSES THAT DRIVE PLANNING? SIMON WICKS FINDS OUT ABOUT MOTIF, WORKFLOW SOFTWARE FOR PLANNERS, AND PLANNERS ALONE

Chris Hunter Tom Woolner

“This is for planners and planners alone.” Tom Woolner is adamant. “They’ve never had that kind of software. This is how we work, not how another industry works.” It’s true – the workplace software revolution has baely touched planning. In recent months, however, Tech Landscape has profiled platforms that help planners access data or conduct well-managed consultations. But there are gaps unfilled in the journey from site identification to discharge of conditions – even though the planning application process ought to be easy to regulate within a workflow

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application. “Planning is almost crying out for it,” observes Woolner, who has drawn on his own experience of planning consultancy with Quod as co-founder of Motif, the project management application for planners (and planners alone). “I spent a lot of time looking for documents, and the right iteration. There are these highly time-consuming, lowvalue admin tasks every day.” Business partner Chris Hunter chips

in. “From a business perspective you want to make sure you’re driving revenue and giving the best experience to your clients. You want visibility and transparency across teams. You want things that help you become more efficient at your job.” The two riff off one another easily – their friendship goes back to student days at Royal Holloway, University of London. Woolner: “A lot of processes tend to be inherited from one generation and one company to another. We’ve ended up in 2019 as an industry looking for better solutions.” Hunter: “There’s been a rule that if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. But people are starting to realise that just because it’s been like this it doesn’t have to continue.” Woolner: “If you look at the number of people under 35 in planning, it’s a young industry. There’s a drive to get

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Tech T {LANDSCAPE more young people into the industry. But then you walk into an office and it’s got these dated practices…” Hunter: “Papyrus did a job. Fax machines did a job. What’s next?” It was just such a conversation that led to the founding of Motif. Woolner, now self-employed, was working from the office in which Hunter runs his tech sector recruitment and advisory business. Hunter’s speciality is helping tech start-ups operate more efficiently. The two men would speculate on how planning could be similarly improved. Another university friend, Luke Moody, is a software developer (“He puts his hands to anything and seems to achieve it,” says Woolner). It seemed obvious what they had to do. “We wanted a practical application that could be implemented in a short time that wasn’t going to take people too far from where they are now,” recalls Hunter. “What’s the current “THERE’S A workflow? DRIVE TO GET How can MORE YOUNG we create PEOPLE INTO something THE INDUSTRY. that facilitates BUT THEN YOU it without WALK INTO disruption?”

Clarity Motif, aimed at planning consultancies, breaks the planning

AN OFFICE AND IT’S GOT THESE DATED PRACTICES”

application process into four stages: es: 1. SETUP / CONFLICT CHECKS

Including job mapping and key information about the job. 2. PRESUBMISSION STATUS

Including sharing key data with colleagues creating a project team. 3. LIVE PLANNING APPLICATION

Including planning application details and a consultation response tracker. 4. POST SUBMISSION SOLUTIONS

Including decision notice storage, discharge of conditions tracker. What the duo had found when speaking to potential customers was that few organisations approach the process in quite the same way, despite the application process always having the same goal. What’s more, they often found that teams within organisations diﬀered in approach, with obvious ineﬃciencies. Could technology improve this? Motif’s dashboard enables planners to see at a glance the progress of all of their live projects, with real-time updates. This alone is a step forward, stresses Woolner. “I’ve found that you’re juggling a dozen applications at one time,” he says. “Trying to keep on top of them all can be very hard because they can change so fast. We asked people how to you keep track and they tapped their heads and said ‘We just remember it’.” Motif puts everything in one place, accessible to all team members and of a consultancy. “In even all employees e general the th idea is to create transparency an overall view of that and to provide pro consultancy’s progress,” says Hunter. consultan

Removing obstacles Removi The team has addressed common sticking points. For example, p everyone has to set up a job, but it can be laborious and everyone does it lab diﬀerently. erentl “We wanted to standardise the creati creation of a job across the industry,” explains Hunter.“Everyone has the same H requirements – for example, the client, requirem the site address. We’ve tried to

keep it uncomplicated.” It can take, he asserts, as little as two minutes to create a new job on Motif. Where an element of standardisation already exists – job types on the Planning Portal, for instance – they’ve stuck with it. The idea, they stress, is not to push planners into wholesale change, but to give them something that mirrors their current experience, improves upon it and is easy to pick up. Transparency runs deep. On setting up a job, team members are automatically alerted and assigned responsibilities. Motif will also flag up ‘conflicts’ with other work within the consultancy. “It will automatically alert a colleague who is working on a job that may conflict – for example, within a particular radius or local authority area, or if there’s a potential conflict of interest within the company,” says Woolner. The “pièce de résistance”, however, is the document tracker. When firms rely on Dropbox and email to store and share documents, it’s too easy for versions to get mixed up or mislaid. “You might be looking at, say, 15 documents that are going to be attached to a planning application. You can upload them and the system will list all documents, all conflicts and show what’s finalised and what’s a draft. Every document is the latest version, and we have a traffic light system that helps with version control.” There's plenty of detail – and more to come. “We’ve already got a roadmap filled with things we think we can add and improve,” says Hunter. “We have a process plan for how we’re going to take this to market the right way.” The justification for the application is clear. As Woolner says: “We read that 40 per cent of all applications are invalid immediately. That costs half a billion pounds a year.” Anything that can save some of this unnecessary expense is surely a good thing. Find out more: www.motifpm.com

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Interpreting the NPPF The New National Planning Policy Framework

Interpreting the NPPF The New National Planning Policy Framework Alistair Mills

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Nations & Regions focus { Irish eyes are open on planning issues Ireland’s planning system was introduced in 1964. A large body of planning legislation since then reflects the expansion of the statutory development control system to meet the demands of economic growth, public concern about environmental control, a public desire for an independent planning appeals system, and a growing European dimension arising from membership of the European Union. Ireland is now one of the few European countries with an independent third-party planning appeals system, operated by An Bord Pleanála. Furthermore, a newly established Office of the Planning Regulator will be responsible for assessment of all local authority and regional assembly forward planning, including zoning decisions. The regulator will also ensure that planning authorities operate with integrity to underpin confidence that important planning decisions are taken in line with national policy. Among its powers, the regulator will have the power to review the organisation, systems and procedures used by any planning authority or An Bord Pleanála. A new National Planning Framework published in 2018 aims to guide development and investment. Its companion, the National Development

Plan, is a 10-year strategy for public capital investment of almost €116 billion. Their joint publication as Project Ireland 2040 aims to ensure that the country’s investment strategy aligns with strategic planning. Rebuilding Ireland: Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness is the government strategy to boost housing supply. Its ﬁve ‘pillars’ aim to address homelessness, accelerate social housing, build more homes, improve the rental sector, and use existing housing. Planning and Infrastructure are key parts of the strategy, and actions include opening up land supply and low-cost state lands, and ﬁnancing of

large-scale ‘on-site’ infrastructure. The plan has driven the launch of a Land Development Agency, which aims to build 150,000 homes over 20 years, particularly on state-owned land and underused sites. In the longer term it will assemble strategic land banks from a mix of public and private lands. The Irish Government is very interested in the implications of – and opportunities – arising from Brexit. When the UK leaves, Ireland will become the largest English-speaking country in the EU and this could present inward investment opportunities for the country, which the government is looking to facilitate.

IN THE PIPELINE

Waterford City North Quays A €280 million-plus development of a 7-hectare waterfront site to include 60,000 square metres of retail, leisure and oﬃces, 200 ﬂats and a relocated train station. Includes €6m from the Urban Regeneration Development Fund to build a pedestrian bridge to the South Quays. bit.ly/planner0419-NorthQuays

Kilkenny Abbey Quarter This is a 50/50 partnership between Kilkenny County Council and the National Treasury Management

Agency to transform an 8-hectare town centre site at the former Smithwick’s Brewery with 645,000sq ft of commercial, residential, retail, educational and civic space across 14 blocks split into three distinct areas. bit.ly/planner0419-abbey

Dublin Docklands The latest phase in the regeneration includes 366,000sq m of oﬃce space and 2,600 homes across 22ha of land under the Docklands Strategic Development Zone planning scheme. bit.ly/planner0419-docklands

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Ireland FACTFILE 2019 2018 2018

Area: 27,133 square miles Population: 4.8 million Major population centres: Ireland’s ﬁve cities, deﬁned on the National Planning Framework, are Dublin 1.1 million; Cork 210,000; Limerick 95,000; Galway 80,000; Waterford 55,000 Oireachtas constituencies: Dáil Éireann, the lower house, is directly elected using proportional representation and has 166 members (Fine Gael 49, Fianna Fáil 44, Sinn Féin 21, independent or other 20, Labour 7, Independent Alliance 4, I4C 3, Green 2, Social Democrats 2) The Seanad has 60 senators who are not directly elected: 43 are elected by councillors and parliamentarians, 11 are appointed by the Taoiseach, 6 are elected by two university constituencies (Fine Gael 20, Independent 15, Fianna Fáil 13, Sinn Féin 6, Labour 4, Green 1, Human Dignity Alliance 1) Planning authorities: 88 – 29 county councils, 5 county borough corporations, 5 borough corporations, 49 town councils. Decisions of the planning authorities can, for the most part, be appealed to An Bord Pleanála, the planning appeals board. RECENT SUCCESSES

Lough Boora Discovery Park This nature and outdoor sculpture park won RTPI Ireland’s Best Places competition in 2018. Once an industrial peat bog, its transformation includes a nature reserve maintained by the Irish Wildlife Trust to make sure its natural resources and biodiversity remain for generations to come. Its cycling and walking trails, sculpture park and visitor centre attract 100,000 people a year. bit.ly/planner0419-LoughBoora

Poolbeg West SDZ Plan The Poolbeg West Strategic Development Zone project proposes a new quarter in Dublin on a brownﬁeld site near the Docklands and city

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centre. The designation provides for mixed-uses – primarily 3,000 homes but also commercial (providing 8,000 jobs) and community-focused – against the background of a tough political legacy. bit.ly/planner0419-Poolbeg

Cork city centre transformation Ireland’s second city is being transformed by a series of developments to boost jobs and tourism. They already include One Albert Quay (high-tech offices) and The Capitol (retail/offices). But the future pipeline includes extensive office space at 85 South Mall, Penrose Dock and Navigation Square as part of the Port of Cork regeneration. bit.ly/planner0419-cork

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Ireland INTERVIEW

More than one in four Irish citizens live in the city of Dublin

Craig McLaren, Director of Scotland and Ireland, RTPI “Too often with planning we’ve seen great strategies set out with not enough resource behind them to make things really happen,” says McLaren of Ireland’s National Planning Framework (NPF) and its Ireland 2040 Vision. “Hats oﬀ, then, to the Irish government for setting out how their vision can be delivered and the resources they’re providing for it.” McLaren extols the virtues of the capital investment plan for the period 2018 to 2027 introduced as part of Ireland’s 2040 vision, and puts great store by the four capital investment funds introduced parallel to the NPF; a €2 billion urban regeneration development fund; a €1 billion rural development fund; a €500 million climate change change fund; and a €500 million disruptive technologies fund. “It’s an interventionist approach to help get the best out of land, ensuring land values and prices don’t rise too much. It should reap real value, and you have to credit the Irish government for taking this approach.” “It’s the ﬁrst time that there’s been this explicit link between resource and vision,” McLaren enthuses. “It’s a huge step forward.” He also believes the nature of the NPF launch demonstrated how it is valued by government. “The NPF was launched by the Taoiseach at a cabinet meeting with all the cabinet ministers in attendance, each of whom had contributed a paragraph to it," says McLaren. “They each saw it as much their document as it is a planning document.” Ireland is a growth economy with a growing population and the NPF is seen as a key tool in dealing with this in both a sustainable and economically successful way. And McLaren accepts

that the real test will be in how planning is delivered on the ground. “There needs to be a golden thread in terms of policy and resource going from NPF to regional spatial economic strategies down to local government too. We’re seeing that already, helped by having a capital investment programme tied in with local priorities and projects.” Ireland’s regional spatial and economic strategies cover particularly large regions and, says McLaren, “the test will be in how these plans develop. There have to be bold decisions taken; politicians should see the value of not having a tier at that level which means that they can make some truly strategic decisions on infrastructure provision." As ever, issues of synchronicity and politics exist, but McLaren believes the NPF, linked to resources, puts Irish planning in a good place. “Hopefully we can make the best of it.”

COMING UP No dates have yet been conﬁrmed for this year’s RTPI Ireland events, but keep an eye open for the RTPI Ireland annual dinner, the annual law seminar and other events on the RTPI Ireland events page: https://www.rtpi.org.uk/the-rtpinear-you/rtpi-ireland/events/

SIGNPOSTS n Regional chair: Huw Evans, consultant and a planning adviser to the Public Services Ombudsman in Wales n Regional web address: www.rtpi.org.uk/the-rtpi-near-you/rtpi-cymru/ n Events: www.rtpi.org.uk/the-rtpi-near-you/rtpi-cymru/ events/ n Annual Review: www.rtpi.org.uk/the-rtpi-near-you/rtpi-cymru/ n South West Young Planners: www.rtpi.org.uk/the-rtpi-near-you/rtpi-cymru/ young-planners-cymru/ n Email: wales@rtpi.org.uk n Twitter: @RTPICymru NEXT MONTH:

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ADVERTISER CONTENT

Central Bedfordshire – career opportunities in a key growth area

Come and work for us If you would like to apply for the Strategic Projects Manager positions or join our Planning Team to be part of the exciting growth of Central Bedfordshire, please call Natalie Franklin on 0300 300 6943 or email Natalie.franklin@centralbedfordshire. gov.uk Search our current vacancies at: www.centralbedfordshire.gov.uk/jobs

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The proposed Redlands Village: image courtesy of David Lock Associates

The Council needs the best, most innovative enablers to achieve its ambitions and is investing heavily in ensuring it has a quality team in place. In 2017 it introduced its RTPI-approved Planning Academy, attracting new talent to be trained and nurtured across the Regeneration and Business Directorate disciplines. As part of a directorate-wide programme of personal and professional development, the focus is very much on career progression and the skills pipeline, something that is critical for the planning profession.

Nomination for RTPI Local Authority Planning Team of the Year This approach has been endorsed by the RTPI, which has shortlisted Central Bedfordshire for Local Authority Planning

Team of the Year in its 2019 Awards for Planning Excellence. With new recruits coming S ie into the organisation, Central Jenn Bedfordshire is building its team at the top, too. Jennie Selley, Head of Planning Delivery, is currently looking for two Strategic Projects Managers who, with the support of a Programme Manager, will help shape sustainable place-making, taking ownership of and project managing strategic scale planning applications, such as Marston Vale. “These are not your usual planning roles,” says Jennie. “They will be solely responsible for one or two strategic projects. There will be no day-to-day caseload, just their 5,000-plus dwelling scheme to focus on with all the many aspects involved to maximise the success of the plan.” These senior roles will help drive the Council’s approach, to ensure quality of development at all scales and shape the future of the area.

le y

Developing the best

Central Bedfordshire Council is one of the largest unitary authorities in the country and contains a varied mixture of rural countryside, attractive villages and market towns. Creating the sustainable communities that will deliver what local people and businesses need is a complex challenge requiring leadership from highly skilled individuals – people who understand that housing growth, transport infrastructure, employment, health and education facilities are all inextricably and holistically linked. This ethos is fundamental to the approach taken by the planning team at Central Bedfordshire Council, a location which sits at the heart of one of the highest growth areas in the UK and one of the top ten housing delivery areas. Geographically, the area could not be more important, given that it represents a significant expanse of the much-publicised Oxford-toCambridge Arc. Central Bedfordshire alone has housing projections of up to 20,000 over the next 15 years, in addition to the 23,000 homes that are already allocated or have planning permission, in a number of key locations. Notably, an outline application has been submitted for the 5,000 home Marston Vale scheme, proposing residential, employment, retail, community sport and leisure, in addition to seven schools, waterways, cycle routes and ecology areas.

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CASES &DECISIONS

A N A LY S E D B Y M A T T M O O D Y / A P P E A L S @ T H E P L A N N E R . C O . U K

‘Extra care’ bungalows would be class C3 use class, rules inspector Plans for 30 retirement bungalows in Cornwall would constitute a standard residential use, an inspector has ruled, despite the appellant’s plan to restrict their occupancy to people who need at least two hours of care a week. The appellant sought permission to build 30 bungalows on greenfield land near the town of Launceston in Cornwall. The bungalows would be restricted to use by people over the age of 55 who require a minimum of two hours of care a week. The appellant’s position was that the care on offer meant the scheme would fall under use class C2 (residential institutions, including care homes). The council argued that the units should be considered a class C3 use, and would therefore need to make provision for affordable housing. Inspector Rory Cridland noted that two characteristics distinguish a C2 use from a C3 use: “provision of personal care”, and that “residents and staff do not form a single household”. He considered that many of the services and facilities the appeal scheme offered, such as an on-site hairdresser, management of heating systems and access to disability equipment, did not “fall within the definition of personal care”. Those that did, he said, were better described as “extra care services” and “would be little different from many other forms of support available” to

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EXPERT ANALYSIS John Sneddon, managing director at Tetlow King Planning ( “The case shows the government’s failure to respond to a care industry that is developing new products and types of accommodation in order to address the challenges presented by the ageing population.

( “A government select committee inquiry into housing for older people published in February 2018 recommended ‘either the creation of a subcategory of the C2 planning classification (which currently applies to residential care and nursing homes) for specialist housing... or the creation of a new use class for specialist housing’.

( “Unfortunately, this

LOCATION: Launceston AUTHORITY: Cornwall Council INSPECTOR: Rory Cridland PROCEDURE: Hearing DECISION: Allowed REFERENCE: APP/ D0840/W/18/3199163

older people living in regular housing. On this basis he ruled that the scheme would constitute a C3 use. The council also objected

to the scheme on the grounds that the site was positioned beyond the nearest settlement boundary and not allocated for development. The appellant argued that the scheme could be considered “rounding off”. Cridland referred to an advice note published by the chief planning officer in 2017, which explains that to be rounding off, a proposal “must be adjacent to existing development and contained within long-standing and enclosing boundary features”, such as a road or Cornish hedge. Siding with the appellant, he agreed that the development would “create a more coherent development boundary” and therefore allowed the appeal.

recommendation was focused on how use classes affect developer contributions. The government was able to respond, saying that the issue could be dealt with through viability assessments.

( “The recommendation and the response missed the point: that we all need clarity to avoid endless arguments at local planning level over what is C2 and C3. This clarity would allow local authorities, other decisionmakers and the industry to concentrate on delivery and create local policies tailored to this beneficial form of development, which could then also take into account developer contribution levels.

( “Such an approach would enhance the industry’s ability to meet a recognised demographic need. The appeal is a symptom of a failing in government advice and legislation.”

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These are just a few of the 40 or so appeal reports that we post each month on our website: www.theplanner.co.uk/decisions

‘Crossrail effect’ does not justify zero affordable housing The developer behind plans for a 25-storey tower in Ilford cannot ‘put off’ a review of its affordable housing contribution until Crossrail has increased house prices.

‘Industrial’ food prep at flat in Notting Hill was no ‘hobby’ A London restaurateur who was once on Interpol’s mostwanted list has failed to overturn an enforcement notice alleging that the flat above his Notting Hill restaurant was being used to prepare food. The enforcement notice concerned a flat in Notting Hill above a restaurant called 108 Garage, which was opened in 2017 by the appellant, Luca Longobardi. Longobardi left Italy for New York aged 21, starting his career as a kitchen porter before become a successful Wall Street banker. Over the next 20 years he launched his own investment bank in Brazil. However, an accusation that he was laundering money for the New York mafia saw him added to Interpol’s most-wanted list. He was arrested and spent a month in a South American prison before being released and exonerated of any wrongdoing. He then relocated to London and opened 108 Garage in partnership with a Michelin-starred chef he met on the website Gumtree. In March 2018, however, the council issued an enforcement notice alleging that the flat above was being used for food preparation and storage ancillary to the restaurant. The appellant said he used the flat to “practise cooking with new ingredients”. He called his activities a “hobby use”. But on a visit to the site, enforcement officers LOCATION: Notting Hill observed “various people working on food AUTHORITY: Kensington & Chelsea preparation” and saw Borough Council shelves storing “large quantities of non-perishable INSPECTOR: Chris Preston food and drink”, industrial food mixers, two large PROCEDURE: Written submissions fridges and a chest freezer. There was “no domestic DECISION: Notice upheld furniture visible” in the flat, and “no room for a REFERENCE: APP/ bed” among the cooking K5600/C/18/3200615 equipment. On this basis, inspector Chris Preston had “little doubt that a change of use had occurred”.

The appeal concerned a vacant brownfield site near Ilford railway station. The appellant sought permission for a 25-storey tower with 124 flats. The council refused permission on the grounds that the developer’s application stage offer to provide 9.7 per cent affordable housing for the scheme fell far short of the council’s target of 35 per cent. Before the hearing, the appellant produced a draft unilateral undertaking that would require it to undertake two post-permission viability reviews, “in anticipation of the development becoming capable of delivering some affordable housing”. Its ‘baseline’ offer, however, had been reduced to zero per cent. The appellant said there was scope for “substantial growth” in the sales value of the proposed flats because of the forthcoming Crossrail, which will call at Ilford. While the scheme would result in a deficit of £9.24 million at current prices, the appellant said the ‘Crossrail effect’ could enable it to

LOCATION: Ilford AUTHORITY: Redbridge Borough Council

REPORTER: Grahame Gould PROCEDURE: Hearing DECISION: Dismissed REFERENCE: APP/ W5780/W/18/3200299

generate a surplus to provide affordable homes in future. In inspector Grahame Gould’s view, the appellant was arguing that “the consideration of the scheme’s affordable housing requirement should be put off for another day”. He found it “difficult to reconcile” how an alreadycleared site with a benchmark land value of £2.5m could not support a scheme with a gross development value of £50m with some affordable housing from the outset.

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C&D { C Council must pay costs for ‘openness’ misinterpretation Warrington Borough Council must pay costs for failing to distinguish between “openness” as it relates to green belt policy and openness as a descriptive term, in refusing plans for two agricultural buildings.

AUTHORITY: Warrington Borough Council

INSPECTOR: Stephen Normington PROCEDURE: Written submissions DECISION: Dismissed REFERENCE: APP/ M0655/W/18/3210355

The appellant proposed two storage buildings on green belt land south of Warrington. The council considered that the scheme would “have a detrimental impact upon the open character and visual amenity of the green belt”. In 2015, the High Court clariﬁed that if a development in the green belt has been deemed “not inappropriate”, then its impact on green belt purposes has already been taken into account. NPPF paragraph 145 says

£230k ‘starter homes’ would not be locally affordable An inspector has rejected plans for 11 ‘starter homes’ in Dorset, ruling that they would be too expensive to meet the identified local need for affordable housing. The appeal concerned a parcel of land slightly beyond the settlement boundary of Corfe Mullen, a village in Dorset. The appellant planned to demolish the existing bungalow on the site and replace it with 11 “affordable starter homes”, in line with local policy allowing sites adjoining or very close to settlement boundaries to be developed for affordable housing if there is an identified need. Inspector David Wildsmith noted that the revised NPPF – published after the council’s decision to refuse permission – defines ‘starter homes’ as

available to ﬁrst-time buyers aged between 23 and 40, sold at a discount of at least 20 per cent below market value, and with a price cap of £250,000. With an average cost of £230,000, the proposed

agricultural buildings are not inappropriate. The appellant sought costs against the council because its reason for refusal had made it necessary for him to address the matter of openness at the appeal, despite the fact that the proposal would not be inappropriate development. The council contended that it had referred to “openness” as “a characteristic feature of the local landscape”. Inspector Stephen Normington noted: “There is

a clear planning distinction between ‘openness’ as it relates to green belt policy and the ‘open’ character of a landscape as a descriptive term.” This distinction, he said, was “not clear in the council’s oﬃcer report”. The council was therefore ordered to pay costs. However, the inspector said the buildings would be overly large and “would erode the open character of the countryside”, and he dismissed the appeal.

homes would technically fit this definition. However, Wildsmith considered, assuming a deposit of about £25,000, potential occupiers would need an income of just over £50,000 a year to afford one of the homes. Both parties referred to a housing survey commissioned by the local parish council as evidence of an identified need for affordable housing. The appellant argued that the provision of 11 homes would meet the need for nine units a

year identiﬁed by the survey. Wildsmith was not persuaded by this, noting that respondents to the survey had indicated a generally lowincome range, low savings, and a preference for rented accommodation. He found that the appeal scheme could not be said to be meeting this identiﬁed need.

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LOCATION: Warrington

LOCATION: Corfe Mullen AUTHORITY: East Dorset District Council

INSPECTOR: David Wildsmith PROCEDURE: Hearing DECISION: Dismissed REFERENCE: APP/ U1240/W/18/3198249

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DECISIONS DIGEST{

SUBSCRIBE to our appeals digest:

https://subs.theplanner. co.uk/register

300home Norwich scheme approved with woodland upkeep covenant Plans to build 300 homes on a forestry plantation near Norwich that would see 85 per cent of the site converted to an ‘ecologically driven community woodland’ can go ahead, subject to an upkeep covenant for future residents. bit.ly/planner0419-covenant

299 flats at Aberdeen quarry refused on design grounds

Diplomatic incident could disrupt embassy’s neighbours

A reporter has rejected the “modular” design of a major residential scheme planned at the famous Rubislaw Quarry in Aberdeen, ruling that the proposal would overdevelop the site. bit.ly/planner0419-Rubislaw

The use of a Paddington townhouse as an embassy for the Dominican Republic could disrupt neighbours if a “diplomatic incident” made it the focus of attention, an inspector has ruled. bit.ly/planner0419-diplomat

261 homes approved on land between two motorways

Appellant admits altering email evidence under oath

An inspector has granted permission for 261 homes on a parcel of land enclosed by the M6 and M61 motorways, ruling that “enhanced acoustic glazing” could keep noise levels to an acceptable standard. bit.ly/planner0419-motorway

An appellant admitted mitted under oath that he had produced false evidence showing g that an email he had received in n 2017 was sent in 2011, at an inquiry into enforcement action on against his conversion of a South outh London home into two ﬂats. ts. bit.ly/ planner0419-oath h

Brokenshire back backs 600home scheme despite 10year land supply Pub with dance floor ‘not a restaurant’

The housing housin secretary has granted outline permission for 600 homes east of despit the council’s housing Doncaster despite supply of “over “o 10 years”, citing the “out-of-date” local lo development plan. bit.ly/p bit.ly/planner0419-Doncaster

An inspector has upheld an enforcement notice alleging the unauthorised change of use of a Glasgow restaurant to a pub, citing its dance ﬂoor, dartboards and extensive mu programme of live music. bit.ly/planner0419-da bit.ly/planner0419-dance

Notice upheld aga against ‘HMO’ containing six selfcontained units ‘Ta ‘Tallest school in Britain’ blocked on design grounds

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A ten-storey t secondary school in Bro Bromley has been rejected despite a “pressing need” for school spaces, after “pr an inspector ruled that a focus on a “de “demanding educational brief” had yielded a design that would harm its yie surroundings. bit.ly/planner0419-school sur

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An inspector has upheld enforcement action against a three-bedroom home in Brent, described by the appellant as an HMO, which was converted into six self-contained ﬂats, leaving a corridor as the only remaining communal space. bit.ly/planner0419-hmo

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LLegal landscape OPIN IO N

The Use Classes Order: fit for now? There’s a growing case for a reconsideration of use classes amid changing shopping, working and leisure habits. Nigel Hewitson imagines a use classes order fit for the 21st century The way we live, work, shop and spend our leisure time – and consequently the way we use land – is changing faster than at almost any time in history. Yet the categorisation of uses currently contained in the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987 (other than the deletion of various now-archaic uses – my favourite being ‘breeder of maggots from putrescible animal matter’!) – has changed remarkably little since the first Use Classes Order came into force in 1950. The rise of the internet has meant that ever more of us shop online. In 2018, 10 per cent of total retail sales were online but, more alarmingly for our town centres, one survey found that 51 per cent of UK consumers prefer to shop online. It is no wonder that conventional retail stores – even household names – are disappearing with alarming rapidity. The watchword for town centres needs to be flexibility – both more flexibility in the uses permitted in town centres and more flexibility in permitted changes of use to ensure continued vitality and to respond to the changing way we shop. We should expect a growth in 21st century uses: n More and smaller pure

by using less office space, has meant that more and more of us are working from home – often referred to as ‘telecommuting’. In April 2016, the Office for National Statistics found that 4.2 million people (around 15 click-and-collect units per cent of the workforce) n Collection centres for regularly worked from Amazon parcels (for home, and some industry example), inevitably with commentators believe this is drone facilities set to increase to 50 per cent n ‘Reverse vending machine’ by 2020. facilities where you can return If the trend towards recyclables (cans, bottles and telecommuting so on) for small continues, there amounts of money “FLEXIBILITY will be two n More leisureMAY WELL BE major effects: related uses THE KEY TO a reduction in n Fewer out-andGUARANTEE out shops ; THE CONTINUED the demand for office space n ‘Touch VIABILITY OF (and the need down’ space TRADITIONAL to do something with superfast OFFICE SPACE” else with it) and broadband changes to the connection for way we use our agile workers homes. n More leisure Again, flexibility may uses. well be the key to guarantee I envisage a new A1 use the continued viability of class that would encompass traditional office space. As not just traditional shops office occupiers use less of and financial services (thus the space available over time, abolishing A2 – betting and consideration will need to pay-day loans having been be given to uses that might made sui generis in 2015) be suitable in existing and but also many of the 21st proposed office buildings. century uses listed above. Particularly in large office In town centres (but not in buildings, these might include residential areas), I would small retail, food and drink also relax the distinctions units aimed primarily at the between restaurants, pubs office workers, as well as and takeaways (use classes other uses of interest to office A3-A5). workers such as gyms. These The internet also enables are certainly far better located us to work more remotely in former office space than from the traditional office. close to residential premises. That, and the financial drive Linking in with the changes for employers to save costs

to the high street, this may also include click-and-collect centres, enabling workers to get their online purchases delivered to where they are actually going to be during the day. The other side of the telecommuting coin will be changes to the way we use our homes. Case law already accepts that a business can lawfully be run from a home without the need for planning permission but, as the incidence of home/business use increases, it would be wise to redeﬁne ‘dwelling’ to expressly include home working and set parameters to the levels of disturbance other residents can reasonably be expected to put up with. It may even be that we reinvent live/work units as a new use class to establish control over businesses in residential areas. Nigel Hewitson is a consultant at Gowling WLG

In brief The way we live, work, shop and spend our leisure is changing fast Existing use classes are no longer able to accommodate our land use requirements We should revise town centre use classes, but particularly a new use class that recognises the growing incidence of home-working

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EVENTS

CASES

LEGISLATION

NEWS

ANALYSIS

NEWS Supreme Court to rule on green belt quarry plan The Supreme Court is to hear an appeal in a long-running dispute over the visual impacts of a planned quarry extension in the green belt. The hearing will focus on North Yorkshire County Council’s granting of planning permission to Darrington Quarries to extend the Jackdaw Crag Quarry, which is in green belt land near Tadcaster. The High Court rejected a challenge by brewery Samuel Smith, a major local landowner, in March 2017. This was overturned by the Court of Appeal a year later in a case that hinged on preserving “openness” of the green belt. The Court of Appeal ruled that a senior officer had misunderstood national planning policies on the preservation of the green belt. Lord Justice Lindblom said the officer had mistakenly concluded that the openness of the green belt would not be harmed because the proposal did not involve the construction of new buildings. “When the development under consideration is within one of the five categories in paragraph 90 [of the National Planning Policy Framework] and is likely to have visual effects within the green belt, the policy implicitly requires the decision-maker to consider how those visual effects bear on the question of whether the development would preserve the openness of the green belt,” Lindblom ruled.

Judge hits out at ‘inadequate’ green space talks The High Court has criticised a West London council over its consultation on a decision not to designate playing fields as green space. Udney Park Playing Fields in Teddington were donated by press baron Lord Beaverbrook to St Mary's Hospital Medical School in 1937, but have been owned since 2015 by developer Quantum Teddington. The company proposes to build 107 flats and a doctor’s surgery on the site, a move opposed by the London Borough of Richmond Upon Thames. The judicial review follows a planning inspector’s statutory examination of the local plan last year, which rejected the fields’ designation as green space. Local campaigners Friends of Udney Park Playing Fields said that modifications proposed by the inspector and put out for consultation did not make clear the site’s ‘de-designation’ as a local green space. The group’s judicial review challenge was contested by Quantum but not by the council. Mr Justice Waksman branded the consultation as “manifestly unfair” and “plainly inadequate” and said campaigners had little opportunity to comment. He ruled that the outcome could have been different if campaigners had been allowed a proper chance to take part.

South Gloucestershire loses High Court case South Gloucestershire Council has failed in a High Court bid to overturn a planning inspector’s decision to allow an appeal against its refusal of a 350-home scheme. The council applied under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to quash the inspector’s decision in favour of Welbeck Strategic Land last year. It refused to grant outline planning permission against officers’ advice, saying the proposal was speculative in nature, would not result in a comprehensively planned development, and was contrary to its core strategy. A planning inspector later overturned this. In court, the council said the inspector failed to provide adequate reasons for rejecting its submission that permission should be refused on the ground of prematurity in the light of the emerging joint spatial plan, to be followed by the emerging South Gloucestershire Local Plan. But Mrs Justice Lang said she did not accept that the way in which the inspector formulated his reasons substantially prejudiced the council. “The inspector’s reasons were specific to this application. It is open to the council to seek to distinguish this case from other appeals and applications, concerning different proposals, at other sites.”

LEGAL BRIEFS RTPI Awards for Planning Excellence 2019 The RTPI’s annual awards ceremony will be held at Milton Court Concert Hall in London, on Wednesday 24 April. bit.ly/planner0419-RTPIawards

Parking for disabled people in Northern Ireland The consultation period for the Parking Places (Disabled Persons’ Vehicles) (Amendment No. 2) Order will open on 6 March and close on 29 March. bit.ly/planner0419-disabled

High Court rejects Tate Modern neighbours’ privacy challenge The High Court has thrown out a challenge by residents of luxury ﬂats overlooked by Tate Modern who tried to block visitors looking into their homes from the gallery’s viewing platform. bit.ly/planner0419-Tate

Planning and Technology: Creating Smart City-Regions This event, in Oxford on Tuesday 26 March, will explore how technology is transforming the planning system. Speakers from Future Cities Catapult and Land Insight are conﬁrmed. bit.ly/planner0419-CityRegions

Trial by Instagram: Privacy & Planning Planning lawyer Simon Ricketts considers the intersection of privacy and planning in light of the recent court ruling on the Tate Modern viewing platform (see above). bit.ly/planner0419-Simoncity

Housing an Ageing Population This CPD event, hosted by Dorset young planners on Thursday 4 April, will consider how the planning system can best respond to the issue of the UK’s ageing population. bit.ly/planner0419-ageing

Aberdeen FC wins court battle over new home Aberdeen FC have been permitted to proceed with their new £50 million stadium, The Press and Journal reports. bit.ly/planner0419-Kingsford

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RTPI {

RTPI news pages are edited by Will Finch at the RTPI, 41 Botolph Lane, London EC3R 8DL

Twenty-three young planners get a taste of life at the top table Twenty local authorities and organisations across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland responded to our call to offer young planners opportunities to gain insight into what it is like to be a Chief Planning Officer. During February and March, 23 planners in the first 10 years of post-qualification experience work-shadowed Chief Planning Officers for a day to understand the challenges and processes in making strategic decisions at senior levels in local government. The RTPI recently published Chief Planning Officers: The corporate and strategic influence of planning in local authorities, highlighting planning’s importance as a strategic corporate function that helps councils tackle social, economic and environmental challenges. RTPI Chief Executive Victoria Hills said: “I’m delighted that so many authorities have responded with such enthusiasm to our work to champion good leadership in public sector planning. Amid the challenges of Brexit and tight resources, strong, experienced local planning leadership makes all the difference. “We’re passionate about putting planning back at the top table, and that’s why it is vitally important to inspire young planners with this ambition and precious career development opportunity.” Graham Stallwood, Director of Planning and Place at Royal Borough of Kensington Robyn Skerratt and Graham Stallwood

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James Blake (far left) with the team at Bromley: (l-r) Tim Horsman, Head of Development Control; Katie Ryder, Joint Acting Manager of Planning Policy; Gill Slater, Joint Acting Manager of Planning Policy; and Jim Kehoe, Chief Planner

and Chelsea, hosted young planner Robyn Skerratt. He said: “I’m delighted to support this initiative. “Good planning is so important for the future of our communities, as is inspiring a future generation of Chief Planning Officers to build their knowledge and meet the challenges they will face.” Young planner James Blake enjoyed his day with the team at the London Borough of Bromley. He said: “This initiative has shown me a clear route for career progression, although a Chief Planner’s job is not an easy one to get into without a lot of experience in various different public and private positions! However, one of Chief Planner Jim Kehoe’s tips was to work in a range of different planning areas in order to build up a catalogue of perspectives, enabling you to see more of the ‘bigger picture’ and understand concerns from a variety of viewpoints.”

ORGANISATIONS TAKING PART IN THE #FUTURECHIEFPLANNER SCHEME Camden Council Salford City Council Trafford Council Warwick District Council Derby City Council Basingstoke Council Bath and North East Somerset Council Nottingham City Council Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council Staffordshire County Council Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Council Brent Council London Borough of Bromley Enfield Council Glasgow City Council Edinburgh City Council Welsh Government Cardiff City Council Belfast City Council Fife Council n bit.ly/planner0419-ChiefPlanners I M AG E S | RT P I / S H U T T E R S T O C K

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M Y V I E W O N … O B J E C T I V E LY A S S E S S E D N E E D Planner Hannah Budnitz on why we should embrace the subjectivity of place when assessing local housing needs The National Planning Policy Framework dictates that land use planners in English local government start their plan-making by calculating ‘objectively assessed need’, with the new ‘standard method’ based on national demographic statistics and household formation forecasts – it is the ‘predict and provide’ of housing. However, by making calculations at district level without reference to the spatial context, the approach is still very much subjective. Yet I would argue that this subjectivity is not a problem if professional planners are empowered to apply knowledge of local circumstances to their understanding of future demographic or economic trends, to integrate their vision of accessibility and sustainability, and to engage local people in shaping a future that tolerates growth and change and is sensitive to the community’s existing culture. We need transparent methodologies, but not ones divorced from the places for which they are planning – places which may be best assessed with subjectivity, sensitivity, and professionalism, rather than

objectivity, standardisation, and regulatory rubber-stamping. n Hannah is a transport planner with public and private

sector experience, and a doctoral candidate at the University of Birmingham researching the relationship between travel behaviour, technology, and weather resilience. @HBudnitz

POSITION POINTS

BIODIVERSITY NET GAIN JAMES HARRIS, RTPI POLICY AND NETWORKS MANAGER The government has proposed a mandatory requirement that all new developments should leave biodiversity in a better state than before – an approach known as ‘biodiversity net gain’. However, while welcoming both the government’s broad aim of improving the state of the environment and Defra’s ambition to deliver biodiversity net gain through planning, the RTPI believes that such a move would not be suitable for some areas of the country. The way that Defra is proposing to measure biodiversity net gain does not appear suitable for sites with zero or little existing biodiversity value, and so may have limited value in areas like London, where most development takes place on previously developed sites. For brownﬁeld sites with limited biodiversity value in a dense urban setting, a speciﬁc target for biodiversity units would surely be more appropriate than a percentage gain. For the RTPI’s full response to Defra’s consultation, visit: bit.ly/planner0419-biodiversity

PLANNING APPEAL INQUIRIES MAGGIE BADDELEY, RTPI PLANNING POLICY OFFICER Having contributed as a key stakeholder to Bridget Rosewell OBE’s ‘Independent Review of Planning Appeal Inquiries’, we were delighted to see our members’ concerns with the current inquiry system reflected in the report’s recommendations. However, these recommendations will only come to fruition if new IT systems can be relied on for document submission and sharing, if wifi at inquiries is the new ‘bottom line’ and if the increased demands on senior inspectors’ time can be offset by still further new appointments. The RTPI’s submissions on other more detailed aspects of procedure are also responded to directly in the review’s recommendations – particularly those for changing how inquiries are conducted, with more structured timetables helping inspectors to be more assertive where necessary, and for using senior inspectors’ knowledge as best practice throughout. While it is possible to see that the revised inquiry process and procedures will help to free up Inspectorate resources, the time taken initially by the appeal route is still a concern. It’s not clear how a significant reduction in this time can be achieved simply by a new portal, by prospective appellants advising local authorities of their appeal in advance, and by the use of proformas.

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NEWS

RTPI { NEWS

RTPI launches advice on large scale housing developments

New practice advice has been published for members of the RTPI on delivering housing developments of between 650 and 8,000 dwellings.

The advice note looks at the tools involved, best practice and case study

examples, and sets out the practical challenges and considerations for planners in bringing forward such developments. The advice, based on research commissioned by the RTPI and carried out

in south-west England by Heriot-Watt University and Three Dragons Consultancy, comes in response to the RTPI’s 2017 membership survey, which identified a range of areas relevant to delivering large scale housing on which respondents wished to develop their skills and knowledge. Tom Kenny, RTPI Policy Officer, said: “Delivering large scale housing is wide-ranging and complex work, especially for councils without much relevant experience, so we hope that this advice will give a useful introductory overview of the different issues in the process. “There is now broad agreement that we need more homes, and large scale developments are a key part of delivering the housing that the UK needs. However,

simply increasing the supply of homes is not enough – we need to deliver sustainable, vibrant communities in the right places that people want to live in and can aﬀord.” n To read the large scale housing practice note, visit: bit.ly/planner0419-large-scale

Degree apprenticeship gets green light The RTPI has launched the ﬁrst degree-level apprenticeship to train Chartered Town Planners. Employers in England are now able to recruit candidates to start the programme this autumn. The apprenticeship is a new route into the profession that combines academic education with practical experience to equip future employees with vital skills as well as a degree. Under the scheme, developed with the Chartered Town Planner Apprenticeship Trailblazer Employer Group, apprentices

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will earn a wage from an employer while completing a planning qualification at an RTPI-accredited Planning School and gaining RTPI Chartered Town Planner status. The scheme was launched at an event at the offices of Trailblazer employer CBRE, introduced by Trailblazer cochairs Hannah Blunstone (CBRE) and Philip Ridley (Suffolk Coastal and Waveney District Councils). n For more information visit: rtpi.org.uk/apprenticeships

RTPI President Ian Tant and England Chief Planner Steve Quartermain (back row) join current apprentices and recent graduates at the launch I M AG E | RT P I

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G PLANNIN AHEAD RTPI SHORTS

Key dates for 2019 Who will come away victorious from the 2019 edition of the UK’s most prestigious planning awards? On 24 April, we’ll be announcing the winners of this year’s RTPI Awards for Planning Excellence and celebrating the contribution that planners and planning make to society. Join more than 400 built environment professionals at the ceremony to ﬁnd out who among all the project category winners will be awarded our coveted Silver Jubilee Cup. It’s also an exceptional opportunity to network with the best of the best in the planning profession. Tickets for the ceremony at Milton Court Hall in central London are £75 + VAT and include networking drinks and bowl food.

24 APR

n To buy your ticket, visit http://www.rtpi.org.uk/excellence. Join the conversation on Twitter using #RTPIAwards As city-regions across the country develop ambitious growth strategies, a reliable and secure supply of minerals is more important than ever. Held in partnership with the Mineral Products Association, the annual Minerals Planning Conference brings together all the key stakeholders to explore how eﬀective minerals planning underpins local and regional aspirations for housing, jobs and infrastructure. This is a fantastic opportunity to meet and network with fellow minerals planners, hear from the experts, and keep up to date with the latest industry news and developments. This year’s conference will be held in Manchester on 16 May 2019.

16 MAY

n For more details and to book: www.rtpi.org.uk/mpc. Join the conversation on Twitter using #mineralsplanning What does the future look like for planners and the planning profession? Join more than 400 industry professionals at the Planning Convention on 19 June at etc. venues County Hall in London to discuss the future of planning. From examining what good design is and reimagining town centres and debating infrastructure, to merging tech with the practical, looking at solutions to the housing crisis, taking inspiration from successful cities around the globe and planning for a diverse society, we’ll be asking – what’s next and where are we going?

19 JUN

AWARDS FOR RESEARCH EXCELLENCE 2019 – OPEN FOR ENTRIES Would you like to join the elite group of researchers, students and consultants who have had their work acknowledged by their planning peers and the Royal Town Planning Institute? Now in its ﬁfth year, the prestigious RTPI Awards for Research Excellence continue to recognise and promote high quality, impactful spatial planning research carried out by chartered members and accredited planning schools from around the world. As with previous years, the ﬁve categories are open to senior academics, early career academics, planning consultants and students. New this year will be the Practitioners’ Research Fund - this award, unlike the others, will be biennial and will support work that has not yet been carried out. Entries for this award will take the form of a proposal and the winner will receive £6,000 funding to undertake the research outlined. The awards will be presented at the opening ceremony of the UK-Ireland Planning Research Conference, which will be hosted by the University of Liverpool’s Department of Civic Design in September. n For more detals and to enter, visit: bit.ly/planner0419-excellence or contact the Research Team by emailing research@rtpi.org.uk

Tweet of the month th h Head of Planning Practice at Homes for Scotland @NikolaMiller enjoyed the RTPI’s annual assessor training, an important part of the Institute’s quality assurance

“Great training day – inspiring to discuss the APC with so many other Assessors and to meet my new Assessor team partner for the year. Assess Thank anks @RTPIPlanners for another great ssession #RTPIAPC”

Fo all the latest from the RTPI, For follow @RTPIPlanners

n Tickets start at £220 + VAT. Book your ticket now: www.rtpi.org.uk/convention2019. Join the conversation on Twitter using #plancon19

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