The Planner - December 2020

DECEMBER 2020 TIME FOR A FOR LATER LIFE USE CLASS? // p.4 • ENGLAND’S EX CHIEF PLANNER WALKS BACK TO HAPPINESS // p.8 • PLANNING FOR CLIMATE CHANGE // p.24 • CASE STUDY: STRATHARD’S FUTURE // p.28 • TECH LANDSCAPE: DATA, UNCHAINED // 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

History maker CHRIS MIELE ON HOW PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE BLEND IN THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT

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CONTENTS

D ECEMBER

08 NEWS 4 Is it time for a new use classification?

6 The case for investing in planning 8 Steve Quartermain Take 5: Planning and happiness

20 16 Louise BrookeSmith: It’s the name of the game…

12 Plans to decarbonise transport should link to spatial planning

18 Tony Michael: Whose town is it anyway? 10 thoughts prompted by the planning white paper

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"THE THINGS THAT HISTORIANS STRUGGLE TO UNDERSTAND ABOUT THE MOVEMENT OF CAPITAL, AND THE WAY DECISIONS ARE MADE, I SEE ON A DAILY BASIS”

OPINION

10 MacKinnon: PAC should take on DfI’s duty for regionally significant schemes

13 Newsmakers: 10 top stories from The Planner online

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18 Andrew Woodrow: Bold planning is key to preventing the rise of doughnut cities 19 Kierra Box: Brexit could weaken the role of planners as stewards of the environment 19 Karishma Asarpota: The energy tra transition – are cities doing enough?

COV E R I M AG E |

PETER SEARLE

FEATURES

INSIGHT

20 Planners have a key role in conserving the built environment. but even historic buildings must be allowed to remain vital, says Chris Miele

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

24 Is a climate-adapted future more likely to resemble Futurama or The Good Life? asks Heather Claridge 28 Case study: A look at Strathard, an area covering 13 per cent of Scotland’s first national park 30 Will the proposed infrastructure levy improve on past land value capture mechanisms?

QUOTE UNQUOTE

“IT CANNOT BE OVERSTATED HO HOW MANY LOCAL COUNCILS VALUE UPON THEIR ROLE IN COMMENTING UP PLANNING APPLICATIONS” THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF LOCAL COUNCILS EXPRESSES ITS DEEP CONCERNS ON ‘PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE’

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42 Legal Landscape: Opinions from the legal side of planning

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44 RTPI round-up: News and interviews from the institute 50 What to read, what to watch and how to keep in touch

Make the most of The Planner – mouse over our links for more information

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NEWS

Report {

Read all of The Planner's Planning for the Future coverage by clicking here: bit.ly/planner0920-futureplanning

HOUSING FOR OLDER PEOPLE

Is it time for a new use classification?

By Laura Edgar

Covid-19 has raised many questions about the future built environment, from accessibility to green space to the kind of places people want to live and work in. And that includes older people.

An Associated Retirement Community Operators (ARCO) survey published in October suggests there has been a “very significant” increase in the number of older people inquiring about and moving to retirement communities that combine independent living with care and support services.

Of its 27 not-for-profit members, 55 per cent reported sales and lettings at least 30 per cent higher than in 2019, with 25 per cent saying they are as much as 50 per cent higher.

Sixty-five per cent believe the most common driver of this increase is a desire among potential residents for more company and social interaction, while 60 per cent think retired people want access to a support network in the event of tighter Covid-19 restrictions or lockdowns.

Where though, would they move to? A report by the British Property Federation (BPF) with Cushman & Wakefield, also published in October, shows that just 0.9 per cent of UK households (74,000) are housing-withcare units, demonstrating an “acute” lack of options for older people. (In New Zealand and Australia the figure is 6 per cent.)

Between 2015 and 2019, 3,500 units were delivered, but the BPF says there are 11 million people aged 65 and over in England and Wales. There is a growing disparity between supply and demand of housing for older people.

Reasons vary as to why retirement communities, or housing-with-care, are difficult to deliver. But the fact that they fall between two use classes – C2

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‘residential institutions’ or C3 ‘dwelling houses’ – leads to confusion as they combine elements of both.

When it asked what the difficulties are with delivering retirement communities, The Planner was told: n Guy Flintoff, planning director at Retirement Villages Group: There is no source of public subsidy to pay the service charges, a key feature of housing-with-care. “The underlying costs make it impossible to acquire land in competition with other uses whilst also subsidising the provision of affordable housing.” n Craig Pettit, planning associate at Barton Willmore: Housing need that there is not an over “THE UNDERLYING assessments don’t assess supply of some types of COSTS MAKE IT the need for housingspecialist accommodation; IMPOSSIBLE TO with-care; the numbers making sure that it is ACQUIRE LAND IN are subsumed in overall affordable; and includes COMPETITION WITH housing figures. Despite a genuine level of care, OTHER USES WHILST the obvious benefits, sufficient to distinguish that ALSO SUBSIDISING freeing up family-sized the accommodation offer is THE PROVISION OF homes for example, “the AFFORDABLE HOUSING” care-led”. same level of importance – GUY FLINTOFF n Nicola Gooch, partner at is not attached to the Irwin Mitchell LLP: Some delivery of retirement authorities understand communities where they the sector, some don’t. are considered as C2”.

“The reason for this is that use classes have become n Richard Blyth, head a kind of ‘shorthand’ for of policy at the RTPI: the types of benefits that “There is no clear agreed certain developments should be expected distinction between what people to provide, and moving some local mean when they are talking about authorities away from the expectations care homes, retirement homes, extra that can be set by an assumed or wrongly care, over-55s, senior housing etc.” classified use class can be difficult.”

This causes confusion and delays in discussions between developers and n Eugene Marchese, co-founder and councils about what will be delivered. director at Guild Living: The use classes order is part of the problem. “Unlike the n Elmbridge Borough Council: As policies and regulations in place in many with any type of housing, the issue other developed nations, Britain’s system of meeting need comes down to is, unfortunately, holding back investment availability of achievable sites. The that would support the delivery of challenge the council has is "ensuring

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PLAN UPFRONT

Britain’s system is ‘holding back investment that would support the delivery of much-needed purposebuilt retirement communities’

Planning for the Future – a missed opportunity?

much-needed purpose-built retirement communities.”

The argument for and against a new use class In their July 2020 report, Planning for Retirement, ARCO and the County Councils Network (CCN) suggested that introducing a new use class for retirement communities could be the answer.

The organisations believe that a C2R (retirement) class could incentivise the development of retirement communities and make it easier for councils to include them in local plans. They contend that this would contribute to greater wellbeing in society by keeping people out of hospital for longer.

Marchese thinks a specific use class would help councils to “better understand what we are trying to achieve and the benefits that retirement communities can bring to a local area and its residents”.

Pettit agrees, but stresses it does need to be “underpinned by evidence to ensure that once created it remains robust, useful and effective”.

Greater clarity in the use class would promote more informed housing needs I M AG E | I STO C K

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assessments, including for affordable housing. One downside for Pettit, though, would be “the (incorrect) assumption that all, or the majority, of those aged 65+ years’ housing needs would fall into the ‘retirement needs’ bracket. This is plainly not the case”.

Flintoff adds that there would be “no point” in introducing the C2R use class or clarifying that housing-with-care falls within the existing C2 class “if local authorities then adopt policies based on flawed or incomplete evidence on need, viability etc”.

Although Gooch believes that a specific use class for retirement communities could “help embed a better understanding of the sector across England and help address the ‘postcode lottery’ facing many developers in the sector when trying to bring forward new retirement communities”, the Rectory Homes case (see link at the end of this article) might mean it has less of an impact. This, he suggests, is because “the concept of use classes is no longer necessarily determinative in deciding which policies apply to a retirement community”.

ARCO and the CCN, still promoting the case for CR2, both cite Planning for the Future as a missed opportunity – the government’s proposals for planning reform make no mention of older people.

Flintoff notes that as older people are already housed, they are often “overlooked”, which ignores the fact that they live in “large homes suitable for families and increasingly unsuited to their own needs”.

“Facilitating an increase in ‘rightsizing’ by older people,” he states, “could create significant movement in the housing market, resulting in a better use of housing stock.”

Jon Rallings, CCN’s senior policy officer for adults and children’s social care, agrees with this. “It is a shame there is not more recognition of the interplay between the age groups,” he says, adding that it is an “opportune moment” to consider the value of instituting a C2R use class.

Gareth Lyon, head of policy and communications at ARCO, has called for “a clear category for our sector and for suitable planning treatment underpinned by clear targets based on demand calculations for this form of provision”.

For Gooch, there needs to be a much stronger requirement for local planning authorities to define the level of need for specialist housing for the elderly in their area and to allocate sites accordingly.

It is clear that a lot of work is needed to deliver the number of homes this country needs, but also the type of homes. As Marchese says: “We must not forget the needs of people in later life, who face a worsening shortage of highquality later-living accommodation that can support their health and wellbeing and provide them with tailored care, should they need it.”

Read the Rectory Homes case here (pdf). bit.ly/planner1220-rectory

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Analysis { RTPI

The case for investing in planning

By Laura Edgar

Planning should be invested in as an “essential” public service, according to the RTPI. Invest and Prosper: A Business Case for Investing in Planning also calls for support in building the capacity of public sector planning.

In its submission to the Comprehensive Spending Review, which the government suspended in favour of a oneyear spending review in light of Covid-19, the institute stated that a £500 million planning investment fund for England’s planning system over the next four years would achieve government objectives for housing, design, climate, the economy and health. The report, according to the RTPI, underpins this.

Written by Vivid Economics, Invest and Prosper sets out

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several challenges facing the planning system, including: n Planning services are under increasing pressure and scrutiny despite the clear links between them and the UK’s sustainable development ambitions. In England, total expenditure on planning policy has fallen by 22 per cent since 2010, by more than 40 per cent in Scotland since 2009 and by 50 per cent in Wales since 2008/9. n Local planning authorities are under pressure to deliver more services with fewer resources. n Planning is primarily measured against speed and quantity targets, rather than on the quality of development outcomes.

The report goes on to suggest that overcoming these

challenges and prioritising the planning system "can support planners to deliver on more ambitious development and recovery targets”.

It points out that although the reforms set out in Planning for the Future “have the potential to improve placemaking and value delivered through the planning system”, its proposed funding approach “is incongruous with its ambitions to deliver better quality through planning”.

Governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have all set affordable housing targets while recent research in England suggests that 145,000 homes a year are needed to meet demand, notes the report, but without each nation’s planning systems it is unlikely targets will be met.

The planning system could also help to encourage active travel, maximise the health benefits of green space and prevent locking in inefficient, high-carbon infrastructure.

To achieve this and to increase the impacts of the planning system in England, Invest and Prosper advises the UK Government to: n Invest in planning as an essential public service. Like any good public service, the planning system requires resources and capacity to deliver outcomes efficiently, effectively and equitably.

Financial support to increase the number of public sector planners employed, funding for specialist knowledge and investing in efficiency-saving digital technologies can help support the shift from a largely reactive, regulatory planning system to a proactive and strategic planning system. n Support capacity-building in public sector planning.

“RESEARCH IN ENGLAND SUGGESTS THAT 145,000 HOMES A YEAR ARE NEEDED”

Strategic plan-making requires technical skills and a deep understanding of community needs and priorities.

Prioritising strategic planning includes non-financial actions, such as freeing up resources by reducing needlessly burdensome regulations and changing performance targets to measure quality instead of speed or efficiency. n Provide new models of funding for plan-making. Most planning expenditure is on development management, with the greatest spending cuts in recent years seen in planning policy. This is partly due to increasing statutory obligations on development management, and partly due to the functions of planning which generate revenue.

Funding available for nonrevenue generating plan-making activities, such as the Planning Delivery Fund, could be greatly expanded in size and scope to incentivise quality outcomes, joint working, community participation, the digitisation of part of the planning process, and climate ambitions.

The RTPI plans to set out the implications of the report for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales in due course.

See more on the report from the RTPI on page 44.

Find Invest and Prosper on its website (pdf): bit.ly/ planner1220-investprosper

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PLAN UPFRONT

Body required to align local plans with cross-boundary strategies

By Laura Edgar

The RTPI has called for the establishment of Green Growth Boards in England to provide a strategic context for local plans and align them to economic, infrastructure and environment strategies that span multiple local authorities.

The proposal is set out in the institute’s response to the government’s planning white paper, Planning for the Future, in a section about replacing the duty to cooperate.

Green Growth Boards would act as a mechanism to address strategic and cross-boundary issues, which will be “critical” if the government is to achieve its aim of streamlining local plans. The boards would be able to do this without creating an additional administrative layer, says the RTPI. They would bring together local authorities and other relevant organisations, such as mayoral combined authorities, development corporations, water and energy providers like the National Grid, the NHS, transport operators, Historic England and local economic partnerships. Their functions would include: n Supporting cross-boundary cooperation and setting the long-term strategic direction for planning, making the connections between housing, employment, transport, energy, water, natural resources, climate change and public health. n Supporting the redistribution of ‘binding’ housing targets in a I M AG E S | A L A M Y / I STO C K

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“IT IS NOT ENOUGH FOR THE GOVERNMENT TO VIEW PLANNING FOR NEW HOUSING IN ISOLATION”

transparent and accountable way, by helping to identify the most sustainable locations for development (growth and renewal areas) and environmental enhancement (protected areas). n Coordinating the infrastructure and services necessary to support sustainable development within a given area.

A chartered planner, preferably a local authority chief placemaker, the RTPI suggests, should sit on the board to ensure that planning strategies are well presented.

Chief executive Victoria Hills says the government’s proposals need to recognise the value of strategic, proactive planning. “This cannot be

underestimated, especially as we battle the current Covid-19 pandemic. The crisis has made it absolutely clear that it is not enough for the government to view planning for new housing in isolation from the other key activities at local level.

“Green Growth Boards would bring together key organisations to ensure society’s most pressing issues – climate change, lack of affordable homes and societal inequalities – are addressed.”

Resourcing the planning system is key to the RTPI’s demands, otherwise planning reforms could slow housebuilding in England.

Hills also considers the proposed infrastructure levy to be too simplistic. “While a single flat-rate tax sounds appealing, it cannot work for the country as a whole.

“Set the rate too high, and you risk preventing development from coming forward in struggling areas or complex brownfield sites; set it too low and profitable developments will not make a

fair contribution to affordable housing and critical infrastructure. It doesn’t address the bigger issue – the lack of proper investment by government in affordable housing.”

To address the housing crisis, the institute urges the government to “substantially” increase public subsidy for the direct delivery of affordable homes by councils and registered providers. It believes that this would allow developer contributions to focus on the infrastructure that communities need while supporting better development in the right locations.

Any new planning legislation must clearly align with the legal requirements of the Climate Change Act, the RTPI insists, “enshrining the principle that development must positively contribute to net-zero carbon targets when it comes to transport, energy and design”.

The response has been informed by “extensive” engagement with the institute’s members, including a series of round tables.

The response can be found here (pdf). bit.ly/planner1220-response

Stay up to date with all The Planner’s coverage of Planning for the Future by clicking here: bit.ly/ planner0920futureplanning

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Analysis { PLANNING AND HAPPINESS

Steve Quartermain’s Take 5

By Laura Edgar Soon after becoming England’s chief planner, Steve Quartermain attended the launch of a land use report produced by the Government Office for Science.

One thing that people want from the planning system, it was agreed, was to be happy.

“When you think about this, it’s not a bad objective for the planning system,” Quartermain said while delivering the Town and Country Planning Association’s annual Sir Frederic J Osborn Memorial Lecture.

The finding could even be said to echo John Burns MP’s famous words at the second reading of the 1909 Housing and Town Planning Bill. “The bill aims in broad outlines at... the home healthy, the house beautiful, the town pleasant, the city dignified, and the suburb salubrious.”

This, said Quartermain, encapsulated the purpose of planning. While this hasn’t changed, the planning system itself has; and, while planners can make any system work, “it will be a poorer system if it doesn’t deliver the outcomes the community needs”. That is, to be happy.

Channelling his “inner Showaddywaddy”, he then set out his own manifesto for planning – five steps to happiness, each delivered by a popular song.

Step one: To bowdlerise The Wombles, Remember You’re a Planner.

Stop worrying about the process and focus on results. “Remember

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that planning is about outcomes. Be less ignorant about the merits in its process; making life better is a proud objective.”

Step two: Listen To The Music, the Doobie Brothers. “I want to urge planners to pay more attention to what people are saying. Listen to the music,” he said.

“The planning cause is not helped by some people saying planning is purely a regulatory function. Nor by the fact that most people encounter planning either when they want an extension, or when they want to object to somebody else’s extension.

“Step two requires us to lift our eyes from the desktop and try and ensure that everybody in the community recognises how planning can help them. It’s more than consulting people; the role of planning should be recognised as critical to the success of placemaking, the wellbeing of its citizens.”

Beyond this, “be prepared to dance to a tune you’ve not heard before”.

Step three: The first line from Joan Armatrading’s Help Yourself: “If you’re going to do it, do it right.”

As Sir Peter Hall wrote in Urban and Regional Planning – set out what the plan is, what you need to do and when it needs to be done; then plan your resources to deliver it. “It shouldn’t take seven years,” said Quartermain. “But if you really do step two, you can’t knock

“PLANNERS THEMSELVES NEED TO HAVE MORE CONFIDENCE IN THEIR COMPETENCE”

this sort of thing out over the weekend.”

Within the current system “you can choose to write a simple plan. You do not need to write a doorstop or an anthology of every planning policy you’ve ever heard of. A simple plan with a lighter touch examination is within our gift”.

Implementation is what matters: “There’s nothing like empty promises to make people unhappy.” But delivery requires resources, specifically enough people with the right skills coming into the profession – something he urged the audience to champion.

Step four: Get Down On It, Kool and the Gang “We can stride away from planning done in the back office by some specialists who produce that doorstop book, we can develop a digital platform, the mobile apps, mobile phones – it’s all much more transparent. This will allow for greater influence on the process.”

Improvements in communication capacity underpin the first three steps and allow planners and investors to look beyond local horizons. “Yep, we can help people shape their 15-minute

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PLAN UPFRONT

Pla Planning application submissions su continue to rise co Figure published by the Planning Portal show that Figures was a 29 per cent increase in submissions of there w planning applications in September 2020 compared plann with the t same month a year earlier. This continues upward trend of recent months, after a the up downturn between March and May owing to the downt Covid-19 pandemic.

Covid According to October’s Planning Market Insight Acc Report: Repor Householder applications are up 46 per cent, with applications for larger schemes also on the increase.

Breaking it down, applications continued their upward trend in all regions of England and in Wales in September.

environment. But we can also look beyond this space as we try and shape the planning ideas across our country.”

Step 5: What A Wonderful World, Louis Armstrong “The right development, the right time, the right place” is a “really good ambition”, suggested Quartermain.

“Planning is good for the economy, and saying ‘Yes’ can be a good thing.”

Development can bring benefits, he stressed, despite some people’s insistence otherwise. “Now, don’t get me wrong, sometimes no is the answer. And the role of planning is to mediate.

Sometimes, in some cases, not all delays are avoidable.

“But the fact that most applications are actually approved is lost in a reputation we have that the planners default is a negative one.”

This reputation can be addressed by openly championing positive outcomes.

“We are indeed trying to create a wonderful world. So let’s ensure that people know planners like to say yes, and there is a pioneering spirit to make lives better for everyone.”

Applications in the North East are 53 per cent higher than September 2019, followed by the North West, where applications were up 37 per cent.

London and the South East region continue to be the lowest areas in terms of percentage growth, but were still a respectable 23 per cent and 25 per cent above last September’s numbers, explains the report.

London and the South East constitute “by far the highest number of applications submitted nationally, between them totalling more than 22,000 submissions, around 40 per cent of the national total”.

Scott Alford, head of business development at the Planning Portal, said: “Another steep rise in householder applications when compared to last year indicates that people across England and Wales are keen to create larger living spaces or dedicated home offices in the wake of Covid-19, and has seen builders extremely busy. Even more positively, September also saw a 7 per cent rise in larger schemes, which is welcome news for the industry after the 18 per cent deficit we saw in August.”

The report can be found here (pdf): bit.ly/planner1220-insight

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NEWS

News { MacKinnon: PAC should take on DfI’s duty for regionally significant schemes

Air quality plan goes out for consultation in Scotland

Former Scottish chief planner Jim MacKinnon has proposed that the Department for Infrastructure should no longer be responsible for handling and deciding regionally significant applications in Northern Ireland.

According to a CBI NI report written with MacKinnon, responsibility for managing, handling, and determining regionally significant schemes should rest with the Planning Appeals Commission.

The report sets out guidance on the strengthening of preapplication discussions; requiring a timetable for handling major

applications; and introducing a presumption against the use of the notice of opinion option, which is unique to Northern Ireland.

It proposes widening the definition of regionally significant applications to include large development proposals for business and homes and highlights that Northern Ireland is the only regime in the UK and Ireland without a longterm infrastructure strategy. It argues that the Northern Ireland Executive needs to inject long-term strategic planning into its core decision-making.

Scottish ministers have published for consultation a new draft strategy for delivering further air quality improvements over the next five years.

It commits the administration to working with councils to make sure that noise action plans are aligned with air quality action plans.

It also highlights a key role for placemaking. “If we get placemaking right, we can tackle air pollution, create better, more sustainable places, contribute to improved physical and mental health and provide high-quality spaces for work, life and play. This, in turn, makes locations more attractive for business too.”

It notes that research shows that there is little direction in Scottish planning policy on how development plans and development management can guarantee that planning development does not have a detrimental impact on local air quality.

A “design” version for architects, planners and developers is being created.

The consultation closes on 22 January 2021.

Read the full story here on The Planner: bit.ly/1220-MacKinnon

Read the full story here on The Planner: bit.ly/planner1220-air

British forestry strategy published The Welsh Government, with the Scottish and UK governments, has issued a new science and innovation strategy for the long-term future of forestry in Great Britain.

The plan acknowledges the sector’s role in reversing the decline in biodiversity, tackling the climate crisis and aiding a green recovery from Covid-19. Environment minister Lesley Griffiths said “the new strategy will play a key role in making sure our forests are resilient and healthy and that the sector has a sustainable future”.

Science and Innovation Strategy for Forestry in Great Britain takes into account strategies in already place, including Scotland Forestry Strategy 2019-2029, a 50-year “vision” for forests and woodlands that provides a 10-year framework for action; the England Tree Strategy, which will set out policies to expand tree cover and support woodland management; and the Woodlands for Wales strategy.

Research programmes in the strategy will reflect these challenges, and will support the industry and the creation of jobs and maximise the contribution woodlands and forestry can make to improve the natural environment.

See the strategy on the Welsh Government website: bit.ly/planner1220-welshgov

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Blueprint for Ireland’s tallest skyscraper gets a knock-back Proposals for would have been the state’s tallest building, a 28-storey hotel close to Castleknock in Dublin, have been rejected by Fingal County Council.

The administration argued that the development would have been “seriously injurious” to the skyline.

Propotron Ltd had applied for the 459-bedroom hotel and office development at the junction of the M50 and N3, between Castleknock and Blanchardstown.

At more than 143 metres high, the skyscraper would have been considerably bigger than Ireland’s current tallest building, Capital Dock at Sir John Rogerson’s Quay in the east end of the city, whose 22 storeys stand 79 metres tall.

Planners for the developer had suggested that the Castleknock development, branded Junction 6, would be a “positive contribution” to the area, saying that the site was suited to “more intensive development”.

Although the developers said the visual impact of the new scheme would be “negligible”, the council saw things rather differently.

It said that the scheme would constitute an “intensive over-development” because of its “bulk, mass, height, scale, design and physical dominance”.

This would make it “seriously injurious to the visual amenity of the area, and to the amenities of property in the vicinity and would be seriously out of character with the pattern of development in the area”, commented the council.

The National Transport Authority had “serious concerns” about the impact the skyscraper would have – if permitted – on already congested roads.

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Boost for offshore wind target in Scotland Scottish ministers have set a new ambition to increase offshore wind capacity to 11 gigawatts installed by 2030 – enough to power more than eight million homes.

The Scottish Government has also adopted a marine plan identifying suitable areas for commercial-scale offshore wind projects.

This will feed into the first seabed leasing process led by the newly devolved Crown Estate Scotland.

To date, Scotland has seen a significant amount of offshore wind energy activity, with 14 offshore wind farms (including two floating wind farms) having received consent, six of which are currently operational. This equates to a total generating capacity of just over 5GW, of which 1GW is operational.

The marine plan identifies locations for potential offshore projects (called plan options), which ministers believe

will be capable of accommodating another 10GW of capacity.

The government recognises that more offshore wind development could have a negative impact on commercial fisheries and shipping, and the tourism and recreation sectors as well as key seabird species, particularly in the east and north-east regions of Scotland.

A number of plan options are located close to island communities or in areas from which island communities derive benefits.

New powers introduced under part 6 of the Islands (Scotland) Act 2018 allow ministers to establish a scheme to license development adjacent to, or within, 12 nautical miles of an island, in respect of designated island licensing areas.

Island licensing areas may only be designated upon application by a local authority.

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NEWS

News { Plans to decarbonise transport should link to spatial planning

Although welcome, plans to decarbonise transport need to link to spatial planning and transport policies should provide a “clear route map” to net-zero 2050.

That’s according to a report published by the Transport Planning Society and written by the University of Hertfordshire.

State of the Nations: Transport Planning for a Sustainable Future explains that plans to decarbonise transport should also link to transport spending priorities.

It notes that the UK, Welsh and Scottish governments are developing transport decarbonisation plans. Such policies provide a guide to how to achieve net-zero by 2050 and how to meet the five-year carbon budgets set under the Climate Change Act. This, the report outlines, will involve strategies that “avoid, shift [and] improve”: they should reduce travel through better planning, shift travel from low-occupancy vehicles to transport that

is shared, active and sustainable, and electrify vehicles.

According to State of the Nations, the pandemic has created an opportunity for the transport planning profession and transport policymakers to “pause and consider” what changes could be made to create an efficient, integrated and sustainable transport system.

It notes that transport trends have been changing over the past 20 years, not just during lockdown, when walking and cycling increased. Overall, car use has decreased, while the increased use of vans and trains, and new modes of transport such as electric scooters, could change the environmental impact of travel.

The report considers travel trends and behaviours, current government policy, regional transport planning, spending and investment in order to make recommendations for the government and the sector.

These include that the government should draw up a national transport strategy to consolidate current guidance and link it explicitly to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF).

Read the full story on The Planner website: bit.ly/planner1220-spatial State of the Nations can be found here on the Transport Society website (pdf). bit.ly/planner1220-transport

Task force launches guidance for self-build homes The Right to Build Task Force has published the first phase of its guidance to support the delivery of custom and self-build homes in England.

The guidance complements the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and other existing legislation.

Through the guidance, the task force wishes to ensure consistent good practice in the delivery of custom and self-build homes under the right-to-build legislation. It seeks to fill identified gaps in what is currently available.

The advice will evolve with the market and the emergence of best practice, and respond to legislative

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changes, planning appeals and case law, the task force explained.

The publication comprises an overview, 16 guidance notes and four appendices. Final guidance notes are set to be published by 31 December. The remaining documents will be issued in three phases.

The first phase of the Custom and Self-build Planning Guidance can be found on the Right to Build Task Force website: bit.ly/planner1220-taskforce

I M AG E S | A L A M Y / I STO C K / S H U T T E RSTO C K

11/11/2020 09:18

CATCH H UP WITH THE PLANNER

N Newsmakers Public trust is ‘vital’ to reforming planning Public trust is ‘vital’ if reforming the planning system is going to be a success, according to the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA). It should be “democratically accountable and genuinely participative”. bit.ly/1220-trust

Councillors block Belfast plan Contentious proposals for a £55 million mixed-use scheme comprising several office blocks and retail units in East Bridge Street near Central Station, Belfast, have been refused against the advice of officers. Kilmona Property’s plan was for a development involving a 14-storey block, one of 10 and two of three storeys, with four retail units. bit.ly/1220-Belfastscheme

Housing-led development proposed at Polmont Proposals for a mixed-use development including about 500 new homes in Polmont have been submitted to Falkirk Council.

Property company Hansteen wants planning permission in principle for the proposals at Gilston Park, on land to the east of Gilston Farm and Gilston Crescent. bit.ly/1220-Polmont

1 2 3

RTPI: Rampant PDR threatens high street recovery Controls are necessary to guarantee that homes delivered through permitted development rights do not damage postCovid-19 efforts to revitalise town centre economies. This was the message RTPI deputy head of policy Aude Bicquelet-Lock made while giving oral evidence to a Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee inquiry. bit.ly/1220-PDRs

Swansea student quarters scheme approved Revised plans for a student accommodation scheme in Swansea have been approved by the city council. Garip Demirci’s plans include a 328-bed high-rise building on land at Jockey Street next to University of Wales Trinity St David’s Swansea Business Campus. bit.ly/1220-swanstudent

4 Report: Strategic planning bodies needed if duty to cooperate is scrapped

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A new approach to strategic planning requires the designation of strategic planning advisory bodies (SPAB), the key roles for which would be prescribed nationally, suggests a report by Catriona Riddell Associates. The role would include advising the government on local growth priorities and how these would support spatial objectives, such as its ‘levelling-up’ agenda. bit.ly/1220-cooperation

Mallon seeks to improve community engagement Neighbourhood plans improve local engagement Local engagement with planning authorities has been improved by neighbourhood planning and plans have become ‘important vehicles’ for placemaking beyond land use planning, according to an independent report. But it adds that government action is needed to expand such activity. bit.ly/1220-NPs

Wind farms blown away Northern Ireland infrastructure minister Nichola Mallon has refused planning permission for what would have been the province’s largest array – a 33-turbine project earmarked for a site wholly within the Sperrins Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. bit.ly/1220-turbines

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Nichola Mallon, Northern Ireland’s infrastructure minister, has established a Planning Engagement Partnership to assess how to improve community engagement. She said the body would consider how the quality and depth of community engagement could be enhanced at regional and local planning levels, as well as to help improve the planning system experience for users. bit.ly/1220-engagement

Welsh flood and coastal erosion risk blueprint published

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The Welsh Government has launched its national strategy for flood and coastal erosion risk management. This sets out long-term policies to manage flooding – as well as the measures that will be taken over the next decade by organisations like Natural Resources Wales, local authorities and water companies to improve how the country plans, prepares and adapts to climate change over the coming century. bit.ly/1220-coast

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09/11/2020 14:45

LEADER COMMENT

Event Time to assess the pandemic’s impact on the profession Here we are, then, coming towards the end of a tumultuous year. At the time of writing there is talk of a vaccine (possibly) and the looming economic catastrophe of further lockdown (likely). It’s a time of unprecedented uncertainty and all we can say for sure is that planning from 2021 onwards will be undoubtedly affected by all that we’ve endured and adapted to in 2020.

So there’s a value in assessing the extent to which planning professionals have been affected by the pandemic. It’s the reason why we’ve launched our annual Planner Jobs careers survey with the effects of Covid-19 as its central theme – and, of course, we’d very much appreciate your input.

Our aim is to find out what impact Covid has had on the working conditions, earnings, job roles and career prospects of RTPI

Martin Read members. How has the crisis affected your pay? How has working from home affected your wellbeing and your motivation? Have you changed the way you use technology at work?

Has your job changed as a result of the crisis? Have you undertaken any training or development during the Covid crisis? And beyond the personal impact of you as an individual practitioner, what role do you think planning has to play in helping society recover from Covid? We

are surveying through to Wednesday 9 December, the data is anonymised and your name will be entered into a draw to win a £150 donation in your name to the Covid related charity of your choice. A report on the results will appear in these pages early in the new year.

I’ll end with what is becoming a routine reminder for you to make the most of the many links out to additional content found on the majority of pages in these digital editions. With The Planner set to continue in this digital-only mode into early 2021, we’re constantly reviewing the ways in which we present not only what goes into this magazine, but also what we link out to. In particular, every day of the working week our news desk publishes fresh material, some but not all of

"WHAT IMPACT COVID HAS HAD ON YOUR WORKING CONDITIONS?"

which makes it to our three regular weekly newsletters.

This month we’re linking out to some of this content on our Activities spread (p.5051) – but please note that this is the tip of the iceberg.

We’re also doing more to point you to extended versions of the interviews and features you’ll find in these pages. While there is often a virtue in the constraints forced on us by the limits of print design, we offer extended online versions where we know we can offer valuable extra detail and context.

So, a happier new year to all – here’s that survey link: bit.ly/planner1220-survey

Make the most of The Planner – mouse over our links for more information

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£120 – UK £175 – Overseas To subscribe, call 01580 883844 or email subs@redactive.co.uk – alternatively, you can subscribe online at subs.theplanner. co.uk/subscribe © 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.

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11/11/2020 12:18

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

O Opinion

It’s the name of the game…

Record Breakers was a fabulous TV programme when I was growing up.

The amazing energy and sheer infectious energy that Roy Castle brought to millions of viewers from the early 1970s up to his death in the mid-1990s was second to none.

He shone even more brightly when balanced by the calmer and more serious McWhirter twins. Everyone knew they were the real brains behind the Guinness World Record brand and even after Norris was left twinless when Ross died in an IRA attack, the programme and the brand continued in various forms until the early 2000.

The dedication and motivation highlighted on a weekly basis were aweinspiring. From the mundane domino-toppling to leaps from airplanes, from the ‘nearly did it’ to those who ‘smashed it’, the admiration wasn’t only for those who took the records, but also for those who tried.

Why do some people try and others just stand by?

What makes an individual aim for the medal? Is it ego? Is it self-belief? Is it trying to prove something to themselves or others? And once you decide to do something, what keeps you motivated when the inevitable knock-backs come?

If you are an athlete, what keeps you going through all those early training sessions and how do you bounce back after twisting an ankle a month before the Olympics?

And it’s not just the spotlight glory events. What about those who join a company as a trainee and eventually become

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the CEO? It’s the everyday things that can then turn into the extraordinary.

I remember watching the biopic of Margaret Thatcher and, while not aligning with her political ideology in any way, I was struck by her ability to keep applying to misogynistic selection panels across the country until one took her on and she eventually had her foot on the Westminster steps.

We might be emerging from Lockdown#2 and facing Christmas with some trepidation that Boris will shout ‘“only joking – you’ve got to stay home until the New Year”, but how do we collectively or personally keep our peckers up? Will the thought of turkey and all the trimmings be sufficient to motivate each other regardless of the dark nights, rubbish weather, desolate town centres

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“WHAT KEEPS YOU MOTIVATED WHEN THE INEVITABLE KNOCK­ BACKS COME?” and lack of all that flirting at the office party? Just asking for a friend on that last one...

Well of course we are now living in the brave new IT world. From virtual parties to online shopping, we are surviving and the odd delivery from Amazon or FedEx can definitely lift the spirits when we are glued to the screen all day. Doesn’t matter if it’s a new screwdriver that’s taken weeks to arrive via a slow boat from China or the weekly shop – it can still feel like a surprise present and gives me, at least, a bit of a motivational buzz, especially when you forgot you’ve ordered it.

The art is to turn that short injection of motivation into something effective – perhaps a catalyst to finishing that planning report, or making that call to the tricky developer that you’ve been putting off. Perhaps a short burst of motivation can then turn into a run of dedication and instead of seeing the rest of December and January as a long tunnel of dark fog, it turns into a short bridge to a spring full of new shoots, new job opportunities and a new year of Covid-19 inoculations for all – hoorah.

Clearly some people have inbuilt motivation. But for the rest of us, we need some help to find it. If we are hunkering down WFH or succumbing to a duvet day, it could be a delivery of potatoes from ASDA or a replacement handle for the toilet could spark us up again – or just getting a smile from those on a Zoom or Team call. Let’s allow the Roy Castle gene to infect us mere mortals with something more uplifting than the coronavirus.

Happy Christmas everyone and hopefully motivation will spring up in the most surprising places.

Dr Louise Brooke-Smith is a development and strategic planning consultant and a built environment non-executive director I L L U S T R AT I O N | Z A R A P I C K E N

11/11/2020 09:16

Quote unquote FROM THE RTPI AND THE WEB

“I call it the tyranny of the now. So-called wealth is detached from the real wealth of our environment and wellbeing. We have even delegated stock market speculation to algorithms and regard that as wealth – even though it has no real value.”

I M AG E S |

SHUTTERSTOCK / ISTOCK

ANDERS WIJKMAN, OF THE ROYAL SWEDISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES DISCUSSING A EUROPEAN ACADEMIES ACADEMIES’ SCIEN SCIENCE ADVISORY PUBLIC COUNCIL PUBLICATION ABOUT THE SCALE OF THE PROBLEMS HUMANI FACES IN HUMANITY MATCH MATCHING HUMAN DEVEL DEVELOPMENT WITH EART EARTH’S CAPACITY

“The government should be unrelenting in trying to harness the ingenuity of the UK’s environmentally minded entrepreneurial community”

“We need a revival of spirit; a genuine modernisation of our profession and its education to serve the world for now and the future” DR WEI YANG, IN HER MANIFESTO FOR THE OFFICE OF RTPI PRESIDENT , WHICH SHE ASSUMES IN JANUARY AN INTERVIEW WITH HER APPEARS IN OUR NEXT EDITION

“It cannot be overstated how many local cal valu their role in commenting ng councils value upon plannin ea planning applications. It would be t hey major loss of their democratic voice if they w were to lose this.”

THE NATIONAL ASSOCIA ASSOCIATION OF LOCAL COUNCILS EXPRESSES ITS DEEP CONCERNS ON ‘PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE’

IN THE MONTH THAT COP26 WAS SCHEDULED IN GLASGOW, HELEN BOOTH, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER OF THE ENTERPRISE TRUST, ON ITS REPORT UNEQUIVOCALLY SUPPORTING THE CRITICAL ROLE BRITISH ENTREPRENEURS PLAY IN REDUCING OUR IMPACT ON THE ENVIRONMENT EVERY DAY

“A g government algorithm w will set the number of h homes an area must see built.

The refor reforms will create a Wil Wild West for deve developers.”

LEWES DISTRICT DIS COUNCIL COUNC COUNCILLOR EMILY C O’BRIEN,, CABINET MEMBER PLA FOR PLANNING, IN THE AUTHORIT AUTHORITY’S ‘CANDID AND C TICAL’ R CRI CRITICAL RESPONSE TO THE WH WHITE PAPER

“In parts of the UK, office e values ignificant continue to command a signifi alues, in the premium over residential values, process making a weak case for pursuing change of use” RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY CONSULTANT LAMBERT RT SMITH HAMPTON O THE 1987 USE SAYS PD RIGHTS AND PROPOSED REFORM TO N BRINGING NEW CLASSES ORDER STILL HAVE WORK TO DO IN PROPERTY TO MARKET

“Too many key workers have been priced out of the rural communities they serve.

We cannot accept that nine in 10 care workers are priced out by private rents.”

CRISPIN TRUMAN, CEO OF CPRE, ON ITS ANALYSIS OF GOVERNMENT FIGURES INDICATING THAT RURAL HOMELESSNESS HAS DOUBLED SINCE 2018

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11/11/2020 09:17

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

O Opinion

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Tony Michael MRTPI is a town planner and architect

Whose town is it anyway? 10 thoughts prompted by the planning white paper

If "the planning system is broken” as the prime minister said recently, then we should remind him that it is successive governments that have broken it with amateurish tinkering.

We must remember that the planning system was created to protect the public; not to validate developers’ proposals, but to ensure their compatibility with the public interest.

It follows that the principal ‘client’ of the planning system is not the developer, it is the public.

Whose town is it anyway?

Taking advice on how to change the planning system from developers is naive. They give advice to government that is in their interests, not those of the public.

The planning of towns is not in developers' skill sets. They get approvals (often setting the minimum standards they can get away with), then build, sell the finished building to a pension fund, and disappear.

We need their innovative ideas to push things along, but they should have no part in deciding how their proposals are to be judged by the public.

Anyone with experience of a zoning system will tell you that it is cumbersome and complex to set up, inflexible, legalistic and highly determinist. Is this a good fit for the British character, which feels happiest when

there is room for interpretation?

If government wants to improve the planning system, why not ask the public (the principal client) and the profession, which knows how the system works?

Scrapping so-called viability statements (which few believe), the absurd section 79 building in green belt, the hundreds of pages of useless bumf that accompanies applications, setting clear building form constraints, defining neighbourliness p ro te c t i o n and land use c o m p a t i b i l i t y, dealing with housing targets and land value capture, bringing the public in to discussions on day one between developer and planner; these would be some of the starting points, as would going beyond the narrow confines of development control to initiating improvements and running the climate emergency programme of works. And leave architecture to architects.

Everyone needs to be clear that ‘the planners’ are the professionals who serve the public (via their council), and it is councils who are responsible for every decision, not planners.

Finally, shouldn’t government announcements on planning, come from the planning minister, not someone from one of the bit players like housing?

"ANYONE WITH EXPERIENCE OF A ZONING SYSTEM WILL TELL YOU THAT IT IS CUMBERSOME AND COMPLEX TO SET UP AND HIGHLY DETERMINIST"

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2 BLOG

BLOG

Andrew Woodrow is a planning associate in the Glasgow office of Barton Willmore

Bold planning is key to preventing the rise of doughnut cities

Everyone loves a visual prompt: a ‘doughnut’ city is a metropolis with a hollow centre – and this may be the future we’re facing.

Once bustling commercial cores in towns and cities across the country have become deafeningly silent since lockdowns and pandemic restrictions shifted the balance of everyday life away from offices, train stations and afterwork pub trips, towards kitchen tables, online retailers and streaming services.

There is no debate over the fact that our urban centres will look very different from now on. Many office occupiers will not return in the same form, and the retail and restaurant units that supported them face a struggle to survive.

The stakes are high, with planners and designers in a prime position to define what comes next. While the future remains uncertain, there is no doubt that there will be an opportunity to regenerate and reinvigorate our cities like never before. Making them green, healthy, accessible and liveable will make them more appealing and fuel the growth necessary to stem any exodus.

Glasgow is a perfect example.

The city council’s ‘City Centre Living Strategy’ has set a target to double the city centre population to 40,000 people by

2035. This growth drive from the local authority, combined with countless examples of inefficiently used spaces and potentially redundant former workplaces peppering Glasgow’s centre, gives planners the freedom to be bold and imagine a new style of city living – a freedom only achievable with this sort of collaboration from local authorities.

Our doughnut dilemma stems from cities designed in rings – commercial, then residential, then green belt. But the future lies in mosaic cities, where each small section of the city includes a wide range of uses: inner-city parks bordered by residential housing and co-working spaces; high streets mixed with u n i ve r s i t y accommodation, offices and private flats – all based around walking distance communities linked together with fast, reliable public transport.

Eliminating rings may also help public health, reducing cramped commutes on the underground and traffic jams of polluting cars as green streets of walkers and cyclists become the new arteries of city life.

People still want convenient amenities, thriving neighbourhoods and proximity to friends.

The demand for liveable, greener city centres is high, and we must have courage if we are to meet it.

“THE FUTURE LIES IN MOSAIC CITIES, WHERE EACH SMALL SECTION OF THE CITY INCLUDES A WIDE RANGE OF USES”

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11/11/2020 09:19

Have your say Would you like to see yourself in these pages?

Get in touch by email – editorial@theplanner.co.uk Topical, inspirational, angry or amusing – we consider all relevant comment

3 BLOG

Kierra Box is a campaigner and Brexit and trade lead at Friends of the Earth

Brexit could weaken the role of planners as stewards of the environment

Ostensibly, there is little reason for Brexit to affect the UK’s planning system. Leaving the European Union does not necessitate changes to planning law, nor does it preclude reform of planning to support better environmental and social outcomes. But taken together, legal changes wrought by our exit and political pressures shaping the UK’s future system of regulation create a perfect storm for sustainable planning.

From 31 December, the status of legislation that underpins planning’s interaction with nature and climate will change. From the Habitats Directive to Environmental Impact Assessment rules, the UK Government will assume full authority for laws previously guaranteed at a European level. Ministers will also be able to change regulations via secondary legislation, offering less opportunity for parliamentary or public scrutiny.

The context in which government and public authorities will be making decisions will also shift.

Environ-mental principles will be transformed, via the environment bill, into creatures of policy. Government will be able to determine how these long-standing legal principles are framed and change how they are applied in law.

Environmental monitoring agencies have already suffered

4 BLOG

funding cuts, making it harder for strategic decisions to be taken that promote sustainability and for those who flout the rules to be successfully challenged. This is only going to be compounded as civil society loses the ability to challenge the government directly through EU courts.

Yet the government's proposed new governance body – the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) – not only lacks the independence to fulfil the role, but won’t exist for at least the first half of 2021.

It is no accident that the government is simultaneously looking to deregulate planning and make changes to the way the judicial system works which could make it easier for courts to overturn EU case law; nor that it is amending the environment bill to give itself the power to issue guidance to the OEP, and to move environmental review cases out of the Upper Tribunal and into the High Court, where environmental expertise is lacking. The trajectory seems clear – Boris Johnson recently labelled “newt-counting”’ laws as “a massive drag on the prosperity of this country”.

Planners are likely to find their role as environmental stewards reduced by this combination of uncertainty, weakening of regulation, and policy that bypasses the legislative system and democratic frameworks altogether.

“CIVIL SOCIETY WILL BE UNABLE TO MOUNT A REAL CHALLENGE”

Karishma Asarpota is junior officer, climate and energy action at ICLEI World Secretariat

The energy transition: are cities doing enough?

Even before the Paris agreement in 2016, many cities had declared ambitious targets for becoming carbon-neutral and transitioning to renewable energy.

Increased pressure to reduce GHG emissions and push for renewables has prompted even more local governments to draft low-carbon strategies and declare climate emergencies.

Although a policy direction that we need to accelerate, these efforts are not as holistic and integrated as they could be. They need to question the status quo on how to bring about behavioural change more than they do.

Take transport:. most local governments are switching to electric vehicles, using biofuels, and applying transport d e m a n d management strategies. Although effective and easier to implement than long-term solutions, they do not address the underlying issue – a need to reduce private vehicles running on polluting fuels with few passengers.

Behavioural change to reduce commuting is rarely addressed at the scale it needs to be. Policies to increase efficiency of land use by bringing jobs and services closer to homes, encouraging mixed development or creating pedestrian and cyclist-friendly neighbourhoods rarely receive the attention they deserve.

Such spatial planning

strategies usually take years to implement. However, this ability to deliver an integrated approach by addressing land use, the distribution of infrastructure, efficient technologies and encouraging behaviour change is what is needed to successfully deliver the energy transition.

Vancouver was one of the first cities to adopt an integrated policy approach to reduce GHG emissions with its ‘Greenest City Plan’. It has addressed emissions reductions strategy in its building development plan and street design approach, as well as deploying renewables and u p g r a d i n g infrastructure.

One intermediate goal was to reduce GHG emissions by 33 per cent by 2020.

Yet in 2018, Vancouver had only cut emissions by 12 per cent and was criticised for not being on track [bit.ly/ planner1220-vancouver].

If a pioneer like Vancouver is yet to realise its short-term goals, how can we expect other cities to get there? As cities draw nearer to their goals, they need to be even more critical of the steps they are taking to get there. If the spatial development agenda is still not considered as a valuable tool, let alone be the go-to approach cities are adopting, it will take even longer to impact trends to tilt the scales in a significant manner.

"IF A PIONEER LIKE VANCOUVER IS YET TO REALISE ITS SHORT­TERM GOALS, HOW CAN WE EXPECT OTHER CITIES TO GET THERE?"

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11/11/2020 09:19

INTERVIEW: CHRIS MIELE

“AS A HISTORIAN OF DESIGN OR ARCHITECTURE AND THE CITIES IN WHICH YOU EXPERIENCED THOSE THINGS, I REALISE NOW THAT I WAS ALWAYS LOOKING AT THE SHELL”

PAST

CONTINUOUS

This is an abridged version of a longer interview that can be read on The Planner’s website

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25/11/2020 12:24

INTERVIEW: CHRIS MIELE

PLANNERS HAVE AN IMPORTANT PART TO PLAY IN CONSERVING THE BEST OF THE PAST IN OUR BUILT ENVIRONMENT. BUT EVEN HISTORIC BUILDINGS MUST BE ALLOWED TO REMAIN VITAL IN THE PRESENT, CHRIS MIELE TELLS SIMON WICKS

F

towers at One Nine Elms, Vauxhall. or me, there’s a continuum between “Undoubtedly there will be cases where a tall past and present. It’s really profoundly building causes harm to the setting of an old important to think about the past and building and the character of an area,” he begins. the present and the future at the same “But there are also cases where a tall building time.” adds to the historic environment. If you walk in Chris Miele is not really your typical planner. north Lambeth along Roupell Street, this enclosed For a start, he’s actually an art historian, born Dickensian environment, and then the Shell and educated in the USA – or was. He’s also an Centre is at the end of it. You think, ‘My goodness, architectural historian who decamped to London this demonstrates historical change’. If they are on account of his love for the Albert Memorial and designed in a way, which is, well, beautiful – The Clash. He wanted to experience both the most we should think about beauty in relation to all visceral sides of the city, and its most majestic. things, really – some [tall buildings] do. They also He’s a writer, a heritage adviser and a planner communicate something about the structure of whose expertise lies in the reframing of London, and so identity.” historically sensitive buildings and Miele speaks of adopting a environments; but also in placing tall “curatorial mindset” around or unapologetically modern buildings “IT’S REALLY planning and the built within these environments.

PROFOUNDLY environment, “presenting things These are not contradictions so IMPORTANT TO of quality and then adding to the much as coexistences – past, present THINK ABOUT collection.” But perhaps I shouldn’t and future commingling within the THE PAST AND be surprised at this mingling of built environment. What matters is THE PRESENT contemporary metropolitan and not age, but an idea of beauty and AND THE FUTURE historically vivid. Both seem carved its travelling companion through AT THE SAME into Miele’s own history, too. time, utility. These things matter if TIME” our living environments are to be precisely that – living environments, Portrait of an art historian not dying ones.

Raised in Stamford, Connecticut, “The best conservation outcome is the son of an Italian-American the one with the greatest social value, lawyer/pharmacologist father because social value then attracts who commuted to Manhattan, he some kind of economic investment,” Miele tells describes his upbringing as “very suburban”. Then me. “Everybody talks about design quality, but it he qualifies that description: “but, you know, New must also be realising social value. That’s what the York metropolitan”. investor wants, but it should be what the public Art was very present; an uncle was a successful wants at the same time.” commercial artist, his grandmother a gifted Ostensibly, our interview is to discuss Miele’s seamstress who designed wedding dresses. His work as a heritage and design specialist at Montagu father had a “keen amateur interest” in art.

Evans, the property consultancy where he has built “I remember lots of visits. He took me to MOMA a heritage team from scratch. We quickly establish (Museum of Modern Art, New York). I did a lot of that his understanding of both is textured in a painting and drawing (he still does). When I got to way that the government’s messaging about the Columbia University I was delighted to realise you function of built heritage and design is not. could read art history.”

Despite his love of the past, he is in no way in A PhD at New York University followed, during retreat from the present and future. Take the tall which his interest turned towards architectural buildings he has worked on, including the two history, thanks to two ‘epiphanies’ that brought

I M AG E |

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PETER SEARLE

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25/11/2020 12:24

INTERVIEW: CHRIS MIELE

Miele to London and, ultimately, a career in practical planning rather than academia.

The first was hearing English punk band The Clash (see box, London calling).

His desire to visit their home city led to a second revelation.

“In 1985 I had the opportunity to attend the Victorian Society summer school as a freebie,” Miele remembers. “The very first [study] site we saw was the Albert Memorial and I had an epiphany. I mean, I just completely fell in love with Victorian architecture.

“I then wrote a PhD on the way the Victorians restored and repurposed medieval buildings. That led to an interest in heritage as a practice.”

Miele then moved to London for good with his Scottish fiancée (now wife), Claire. From 1990-98, he worked at English Heritage, where he “learned a bit about what planning was. It made sense to me as a historian. It was all about the causes of things”.

In 1998, he moved as a conservation adviser to the built environment consultancy Alan Baxter Associates, where his interest in planning flourished and he obtained an Open University planning diploma.

In 2006, he was invited to build a heritage team at property consultancy Montagu Evans. Today his team of 20 has a reputation for handling historically sensitive developments. Its success, he argues, has been in creating a “permeable

membrane” between the surveying and planning teams. Exposure to commercial realities has given him a deeper understanding of how the built environment evolves.

“As a historian of design or architecture and the cities in which you experienced those things, I realise now that I was always looking at the shell,” he elaborates. “But because of working in the development process, it’s a bit like I’m lifting the hood on the car and I can see the way the engine works.

So the sorts of things that historians struggle to understand about the movement of capital and the way decisions are made I see on a daily basis.”

This way of seeing the built environment in terms of past, present and future has opened the way for Miele to work on complex projects that have required a particular blend of historical understanding, design appreciation and commercial awareness. These include the South Bank Centre, Westminster Abbey and the conversion of the former Commonwealth Institute into the new Design Museum.

London calling “I was driving in a yellow 1975 VW Super Beetle I bought from my uncle. It must have been 1977 or 78. The local DJ said, ‘Listen to this’.

And he played I’m So Bored With the USA. I thought ‘Oh, my God! This is just unbelievable. I’ve never heard anything like this’. And he said ‘I’ll play it again’. I just thought, what was it? It was authentic at a time when music was not really particularly authentic. Because I was studying art it seemed to me like it was the musical equivalent of German Expressionism. It was

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vital. It was unmitigated. It was clumsy. It was all those things you admire in those paintings from 1910 or 11 by Kirchner and those kinds of guys.

“The Clash were political, too.

They commented on everything.

They commented on what it was like to be depressed about everything, about being shown a shitty job at the job centre. That’s fascinating – to an American particularly. And it was that visceral thing that I really wanted to find when I came to London.”

But three projects clearly have a personal resonance. There’s the Blavatnik School of Government in Oxford, a showstopping example of modernity set in one of the most historic environments imaginable. There’s also the Engineering Heartspace at Sheffield University, where Miele celebrates “the idea I had to help the client distil the brief into a format the planning system understands, which does draw on my skills as a historian”.

The building that has given him “most pleasure”, however, is the British Museum extension by Rogers Stirk Harbour and Partners. “Its beauty and purpose, giving the museum up-to-date conservation facilities and a modern exhibition centre and storage [is] incredibly important to me. It was very moving for me personally because I read for my PhD in the Round Reading Room. ”The key consideration was trying to understand how the facility would improve the way the museum functions to the betterment not just of its collections, but to the general public; and then to communicate that as part of the planning process to people who didn’t want it.”

Historic opportunities Miele sees the word ‘heritage’ as too political, particularly in an era in which we seem to be in constant conflict over matters of culture and identity.

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PETER SEARLE

25/11/2020 12:25

INTERVIEW: CHRIS MIELE

CURRICULUM VITAE Born: 1961, Washington DC, USA Educated: Columbia University (BA and MA art history, architecture, 1983), New York University (PhD art history, architecture, urban planning 1991) Career highlights

1990­98 Officer, English Heritage

1998­2003 Director, Alan Baxter Associates

2004­2006 Senior planning director, RPS Group

2006­ present “It doesn’t meet the requirements of a pluralist society,” he stresses. “I much prefer ‘historic environment’ because it’s just neutral.”

We talk about ‘conservation’ as a movement and how its progressive and conservative inflections (the socialism of William Morris; the imperialism of the Victorian age) continue to travel through the present, interminably intertwined. “[Morris] saw conservation as part of progress towards a more equitable, freer future. But he picked up the concept from essentially a reactionary idea.

All heritage conservation starts really in response to the French Revolution in this country because in France the revolutionaries defaced monuments,” Miele observes.

“Edmund Burke, writing about the French Revolution, pitched the virtue of ‘steady state’ in England. For him the conservation of the British constitution, that becomes like the conservation of historic monuments.”

In the year of Black Lives Matter, discussion has turned to the extent to which the built environment informs our understanding of culture and identity.

Terminology is one way of neutralising any contention within conservation as a practice. “It’s like any sort of cultural activity – because that’s what it is – you can spin it left or right. Ultimately, I think

Senior partner, planning and development, Montagu Evans

2006 Editor, contributor to From William Morris: Conservation and the Cult of Authenticity

2010 Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford

2014 Editor, contributor to The UK Supreme Court

2014 British Museum extension

A question of character “Think about the difference between London and Paris.

Paris has been designed to a code because it has a highly centralised system, which probably reflects a long institutional involvement with Catholicism – I say this as a Catholic – and a monarchy. Then Napoleon, the central code, and civil code, the basis of their law.

Anglo-Saxon countries have the civil law system, and we’re mercantilists. We can do what we like until we cause harm, because individual liberty is the quintessence of the English idea of itself. The townscape of London is this mélange which reflects individual initiative as supported by a liberal state. If you ask ‘What would the design code be for Lambeth?’, I have no idea. In my neighbourhood it’s late Victorian houses. Walk down to Herne Hill, and you’ve got lots of different things.

“Design codes reinforcing the character of the area work where you can define that character. But actually many of our city environments are really varied and we sort of like that about our city.”

2016 Design Museum Kensington, London

2017­2019 The Illuminated River for the Rothschild Foundation

2018­2020 National Holocaust Memorial

2020 London Chest Hospital consented

2021 Contributions to Custom House, London, and William Morris and Architectural Culture

it’s politically neutral. It just depends on how you’re holding it at any one time.”

After almost two hours of talking, I ask Miele whether he ever returns to the Albert Memorial. “I was out in West London on a foggy morning and I took a shortcut through Hyde Park back to work,” he replies. “I just had to stop and take a photograph of it in the mist. The restoration they’ve done on it is fabulous. I always look at it kind of wistfully whenever I pass.” n Simon Wicks is deputy editor of The Planner.

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P L A N N I N G FO R C LI M AT E C H A N G E

EIGHT STEPS to carbon-conscious planning

IS A CLIMATE­ADAPTED FUTURE MORE LIKELY TO RESEMBLE FUTURAMA OR THE GOOD LIFE? HEATHER CLARIDGE SHARES DISCOVERIES FROM RESEARCH INTO ‘CARBON­CONSCIOUS PLACES’ IN SCOTLAND

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variety of contexts and with a range of stakeholders.

In particular, we wanted to understand how local authorities could collaborate in finding answers to their common climate challenges through exchanging changing climate? support and insights. In tandem with Will it be like Futurama, with four local authorities, we spent the technology leading the way towards year ‘learning by doing’ in supporting carbon-free living? Or more like The the development and implementation Good Life, where an emphasis on of spatial plans that prioritise self-sufficiency eliminates or mitigates decarbonisation and climate action. carbon-using activities?

We chose Shetland This, in a nutshell, was Islands Council, Moray the question that the “PROXIMITY Council, Glasgow City Scottish Government’s IS THE KEY TO Council and Loch Energy and Climate MAKING CITIES Lomond and the Change Directorate VITAL” Trossachs National Park asked Architecture for their variety – in and Design Scotland – geography, scales, issues Scotland’s design agency and project stage. And – back in 2019. because they all shared Against the backdrop a desire to explore how of increasing climate to position climate change as a driver for crisis and an ambitious target to be a change. net-zero carbon society by 2045, they At the same time we collected insights wanted us to work out how best to from professionals with expertise implement Scotland’s Climate Change in energy, food-growing, greening, Plan locally – at the level of settlements, brownfield reuse, health, waste, mobility rather than individual buildings or and behaviour change. national infrastructure.

Eight clear principles emerged, eight We’ve learnt a great deal about pillars that support a holistic approach to sustainable design. But how do you scale developing places that reduce, repurpose that up to a ‘whole place’ approach? and absorb carbon while adapting to the We spent a year researching how to impacts of climate change. create ‘carbon-conscious’ places in a

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hat will Scotland look like in 2050 if we take a whole place approach to designing for a

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A place-led approach

A ‘place-led’ approach – understanding, appreciating and working with existing assets, the surrounding landscape and the place identity – is critical.

The mix of measures required to balance carbon emitted with carbon absorbed will vary from place to place. Scotland’s Place Standard is a powerful tool that can help to identify the opportunities and assets in each location that need to be factored into this balancing exercise.

This simple framework prompts people to think about the physical elements of a place (its buildings, spaces, and transport links) as well as the social elements (for example, whether people feel they have a say in decision-making), in a methodical way, pinpointing the assets of a location, as well as areas where it could improve.

Example: During Covid-19 restrictions The Place Standard was at the heart of an online engagement undertaken for Glasgow’s South-Central local development framework – the first stage of gathering place-based data.

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11/11/2020 09:22

“ENABLING PEOPLE TO LIVE, WORK AND PLAY WITHOUT GENERATING UNNECESSARY EMISSIONS WILL BE A BIG STEP TOWARDS DELIVERING CARBON­CONSCIOUS PLACES”

I L L U S T R AT I O N | R I C H A R D C A R M A N

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A place of small distances

The carbon intensity of our settlements and lifestyles is habitually shaped by the form of the built environment that surrounds us.

Sprawling neighbourhoods require carbonintensive infrastructure to service them and typically generate higher carbon emissions from transport. By contrast, dense and compact settlements supported by walkable neighbourhoods, mixed-use developments and everyday amenities and transport links, tend to support more carbon-conscious lifestyles.

Example: Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, has followed up her work to create a post-car city with an idea of a city of neighbourhoods where you can find everything you need within 15 minutes from home, creating socially and economically mixed districts to improve overall quality of life for residents and visitors.

Inspired by the work of Jane Jacobs, Melbourne’s 20-minute neighbourhoods and ‘hyper proximity’ in Copenhagen and Utrecht, the Paris project proposes that proximity is the key to making cities vital.

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A network of small distance places

Transport is one of the largest contributors to carbon emissions. Enabling people to live, work and play without generating unnecessary emissions will be a big step towards delivering carbon-conscious places.

Sustainably connecting compact neighbourhoods to provide a network of such places will support a shift away from carbon-intensive travel.

Example: The 2015 re-opening of the Borders railway route inspired a significant shift from car use to public transport. In 2018, Transport Scotland estimated that this had already saved 35,800 car trips.

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A place designed for and with local people

Placing people’s needs at the centre of decisionmaking, service provision and investment is the cornerstone of carbonconscious planning. People need to be actively involved in the design process to feel a sense of ownership over any changes that will be proposed.

A place that reuses, repurposes and considers whole-life costs

The UK Green British Council estimates that 80 per cent of the buildings that will exist in 2050 have already been built. This means retrofitting existing structures to be climate ready is not only important but necessary. Viewing structures as ‘material banks’ with components that are demountable, rebuildable, reusable and resaleable enables planners to work with the ‘embodied carbon’ in a place – not releasing it through disposal, or adding more unnecessarily.

Land, too. Scotland has 11,000 hectares of vacant and derelict sites – reusing this as a platform for compact neighbourhoods and green spaces is key to designing carbon-conscious places. Whether buildings or land, planners need to consider the cost of the entire life cycle of a project rather than its initial capital costs only.

Example: Collective Architecture, on behalf of Queens Cross Housing Association, refurbished three blocks of flats in Glasgow. The refurbishment challenged the regular practice of renewing high-rise buildings and met the Passivhaus EnerPHit retrofit standards – retaining skyline landmarks and cutting the risk of fuel poverty for 314 housesholds.

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Example: Inspired by the work of Sir Patrick Geddes, Deveron Projects in Huntly, Aberdeenshire, involves communities in their place through creative engagement. The ‘town is the venue’ describes the framework in which Deveron works to inhabit, explore, re, map and enliven the place through artist-driven projects. One activity invited ed residents to create a brand for Huntly that they feel reflects local identity.

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A place with whole and circular systems

The places we live in are shaped by the systems thatt make modern life work – heat, energy, water, transport and waste – as well as the natural systems in the landscape.

Enhancing, repairing and joining up these different systems is key to creating carbon-conscious, circular places where systems become self-sustaining.

Example: Sheffield’s Grey to Green project is the UK’s largest retrofit sustainable urban drainage project. One of its main functions is to reduce and slow surface water run-off on a route that runs alongside the River Don in an area prone to flooding. Its benefits include increased urban biodiversity, protection of pedestrians from air pollution through multilayered planting, urban cooling, treatment of contaminated water and the promotion of wellbeing.

I M AG E S | G E T T Y / A N DR E W L E E

11/11/2020 11:07

PLANNING FOR CLIMATE CHANGE

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A place that supports sharing

Sharing of assets and services has a vital part to play in the pursuit of lowercarbon living. Sharing works at all scales and can include sharing tools, food, bikes, electric vehicles, service provision, even accommodation.

In Shetland, where half of all households do not earn enough to live well, planning for greater sharing opportunities could help

to offset rising living costs, as well as providing climate benefits.

Example: The Edinburgh Tool Library is at the forefront of the sharing revolution. It plans to extend the reach of its community sites to include the whole of Edinburgh and partner with other groups to establish tool sharing libraries across the country. The library champions the principle of making reuse, recycling and repurposing a norm in the places we live in.

Rethinking the problem Rethinking how we move, live, support town centres and become more self-sufficient is nowadays indivisible from a consideration of the different ways in which we can reduce, repurpose and absorb carbon.

The four places illustrated in Carbon Conscious Places offer a glimpse of one possible 2050 that is neither Futurama nor The Good Life. Instead, they pluck useful bits of both and add to what is already there in places where the emphasis is as much on ‘liveability’ as ‘adaptability’.

Left unaddressed, the corrosive impact of climate change on the built environment is a cost that will be borne by the whole of society.

We must therefore work together to embed climate action into the plans we develop for our villages, towns, cities and regions.

Shifting away from our current reliance on carbon-intensive developments, services and modes of transport requires thinking about planning and development in a more holistic, collective way. The eight principles described above can provide the building blocks for climate-minded planning. n Heather Claridge MRTPI is principal design officer with, Architecture and Design Scotland (on secondment from Glasgow City Council)

Promoting carbonconsciousness

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A place designed in time

We should not forget that time is a fundamental dimension in the emergence of places and it’s something that we can factor into plans deliberately – for example, in long-term visions or short-term (‘meanwhile’) approaches that test out new ideas.

Example: Glasgow’s Canal Regeneration Partnership links long-term and meanwhile actions I L L U S T R AT I O N | R I C H A R D C A R M A N

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together to successfully ‘grow’ places over time. For more than a decade, the partnership between Scottish Canals, Glasgow City Council, BIGG Regeneration and two housing associations has been supporting locally driven activities, through seed funding, resources and helping secure leases.

Twenty local organisations have now set up a cooperative to connect community and strategic activities under the themes of urban recreation, culture and nature.

Architecture and Design Scotland’s Carbon Conscious Places report explores the use of ‘whole place’ planning to address the challenge of meeting the Scottish Government’s 2045 net-zero target.

By working with communities on pilot projects in four different locations, the authors outline eight principles for creating carbonconscious places and offer a vision for Scotland in 2050 that incorporates rural, town and urban places. The report also contains a series of reflections on each of four pilot projects.

You can download it from the Architecture and Design Scotland website: bit.ly/planner1220designing

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11/11/2020 09:23

CASE STUDY

CLOSER LOOK:

SUSTAINABLE STRATHARD THE RURAL COMMUNITY OF STRATHARD IN LOCH LOMOND AND THE TROSSACHS NATIONAL PARK WAS ONE OF FOUR LOCATIONS CHOSEN TO PILOT ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN SCOTLAND'S APPROACH TO CREATING CARBON CONSCIOUS PLACES

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Strathard is a large rural area covering 13 per cent of Scotland’s first national park, Loch Lomond and The Trossachs. Beyond its main communities – Aberfoyle, Kinlochard, Inversnaid and Stronachlachar – more than 40 per cent is forest and woodland. Although sparsely populated, Ben Lomond – Scotland’s southernmost munro – and its proximity to Glasgow have made the area a popular destination for tourists.

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Tourism puts pressure on the national park’s transport infrastructure and natural assets. This, combined with a lack of affordable housing and a failure to attract young families, has led to calls for the area to diversify its economy. But its topography makes it vulnerable to flooding, a problem that climate change could worsen.

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11/11/2020 11:09

CASE STUDY

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Workshop participants created d ‘illustrative futures’ for Strathard, one where sustainable population growth is achieved, another depicting the results of inaction ion and population decline. They considered the effect of the national park’s strategic plan on fi ve notional five ‘personas’, including a student from Inversnaid nversnaid who attended the 2019 Stirling climate te strike, and a visitor services adviser from Aberfoyle berfoyle with muscular dystrophy. The personas as reinforced the human impact of climate change and the importance of planning for the community. ommunity.

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In 2015, Strathard took a partnership approach to managing the area’s ecosystem, collecting community views on approaches to integrating land and water management at a landscape scale. This led to a project trialling natural flood management measures, such as debris dams in the Loch Ard area.

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Pilot Reflections reviewed A&DS’s four carbon-conscious design projects.

The reflections gave rise to the eight principles for carbon-conscious design outlined on pages 24-27. You can read the reflections by clicking here: bit.ly/planner1220-reflections

Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park Authority created a steering group from community groups and public bodies to guide a 10-year strategic land use and development framework. As one of its four pilots exploring design for climate change, A&DS (Architecture and Design Scotland) worked with the authority and Strathard community to embed carbon consciousness in the framework. Two workshops were held – one ’live’ in March, one virtual after the Covid-19 outbreak.

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

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11/11/2020 11:10

P M IVTAT LU E DE DCEAVPETLO L AE NR D U RPEM E N T R I G H T S

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BEST

THE PROPOSED INFRASTRUCTURE LEVY IS THE LATEST ATTEMPT TO CAPTURE THE DEVELOPMENT VALUE OF 30

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I L L U S T R AT I O N | N E I L W E B B

L A N D V A LU E C A P T U R E

When land receives planning consent and is transformed from green field to built development, its value rockets. How can society benefit from this increase?

V A LU E

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LAND, NOTE TONY CROOK AND CHRISTINE WHITEHEAD. BUT WILL IT BETTER PREVIOUS MECHANISMS? D EC E MB ER 2 0 20 / THE PLA NNER 30-33 Feature_December 2020_The Planner.indd 31

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L A N D V A LU E C A P T U R E

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obligations with developers to mitigate the hy do land values adverse impacts of development. And from increase? There are three 2010, additional powers were introduced reasons: first, growth to allow local authorities to levy tariffs (for in economic activity example, Community Infrastructure Levy and prosperity; second, - CIL) for sub regional and regional level provision of infrastructure, which creates infrastructure to support new development productivity and greater opportunities; and and future economic growth. third, planning consent that enables the How successful have these approaches realisation of higher-value opportunities. been? Certainly, locally negotiated planning In our discretionary planning system, obligations and CIL have been a relative this last is when development values finally success, when compared with a system crystallise. Until then, there is always some of national taxation, as the graph (‘Values uncertainty about what will be permitted, captured’) shows. which is reflected in the land value.

In 2018-19, £7 billion was agreed through Importantly, we only use planning to s106 and CIL, of which £1.3 billion was for capture land value increases related to infrastructure, £1 billion for CIL and £4.7 economic growth or infrastructure provision billion for new affordable homes (providing on consented land. The increase in value on 44,500 new affordable homes, according to existing land is not directly taxed. research we and others conducted for the Policies to capture land value increases Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local have always been highly political and tend to Government). In other work we estimated change when the government changes. But to that s106 and CIL captured approximately 30 ensure a consistent and coherent approach, per cent of development value on three resource-based greenfield sites and landowners/ principles should guide policy decisions: “ESTIMATES SHOW developers paid another 20 per cent in national capital gains and n Improving economic THAT S106 AND stamp duty land taxes. efficiency by helping to CIL CAPTURED By comparison, efforts to ensure productive land use.

APPROXIMATELY capture development value via n Improving equity, mainly 30 PER CENT OF national taxation collected little, by capturing ‘unearned DEVELOPMENT with the money going into general increments’ and using these VALUE ON taxation. High taxes deterred to fund community needs, GREENFIELD landowners from bringing land such as affordable homes.

SITES” forward and there were problems n Raising revenue consistent assessing development value and with taxation principles such ensuring liabilities were paid. as predictability, simplicity Moreover, developers structured and vertical and horizontal developments to minimise their equity between those taxed. liabilities. Opposition parties were In the UK there have been generally committed to repealing the tax if two main approaches to capturing land value returned to government – and did. increases following planning permission. The proposed Infrastructure Levy takes lessons from both. The original 1947 approach was Comparing the approaches highly centralised and was part of state How far do the three approaches match control of the ‘commanding heights’. It principles? Both taxation and obligations fail involved un-hypothecated national taxes on some principles. National taxes have been development value at varying rates based on inefficient as they have modified what land political attitudes to ‘unearned increments’. came forward and incentivised distortionary There were three distinct attempts: decisions. They secured equity through taxing Development Charge (1947), Betterment Tax unearned increments, although unevenly.

(1966); and Development Land Tax (1976).

They did not match taxation principles, This approach also enabled public sector yielding little revenue and breaching purchase of land at near existing use value, transparency and simplicity. so that increased land values could fund Obligations have also been inefficient, investment in new development. Early New involving delays and negotiation costs and Towns are examples of this. have negatively affected smaller builders.

The second approach started locally in They have been unevenly implemented, with the 1930s but was formalised in 1990 when, many exemptions resulting in inequities; through s106, local authorities were enabled but they have secured equitable outcomes to negotiate contractually based planning at the local level, offsetting the costs of

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THE PROS AND CONS OF DEVELOPER OBLIGATIONS Section 106 and CIL have succeeded in capturing more development value than national taxation, significantly because of their acceptability.

In particular: n obligations are locally determined; n courts have permitted a wide range of obligations; n obligations are negotiated on a site-by-site basis, so vary with the extent of development value available; n obligations are hypothecated to local expenditure; and n obligations are enforceable private contracts: local authorities know developers must deliver and developers know infrastructure will be provided.

Obligations do have significant limitations, however, as: n amounts depend on the market; n there are asymmetries between planning authorities and developers in skills and capacities; n there are a range of exemptions from s106, especially for smaller sites and for permitted development; n there are few obligations on commercial development (except large retail); n there are wide variations in planning authorities’ obligations policies and practice; n CIL is not charged by many authorities because of exemptions; has been to subject to regular change and has not always been spent on infrastructure critical to development; and n affordable housing is sometimes of low standard and tends to provide intermediate rather than social-rented housing.

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L A N D V A LU E C A P T U R E

VALUES CAPTURED Tax raised and S106/CIL agreed in specific years (£bn at 2018 prices) 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 1952

1970

1983

2003

2005

2007

2011

2016

2018

The figure shows the sums raised through national taxation and s106 plus CIL for specific years. It shows in real terms the relative success of locally negotiated planning obligations and CIL (see figures in 21st century).

National taxation examples are the years 1952, 1970 and 1983.

development, and have benefited local people. They have not complied with all taxation principles, such as simplicity and predictability. But importantly they have been politically acceptable and have raised significant revenues for local areas.

The infrastructure levy (IL) proposed in the recent planning white paper, Planning for the Future, aims to overcome many s106 and CIL problems. For example, it removes all the s106 negotiating complexities. It will also be a charge on development in all use classes – so is far more broadly based than CIL – and will be levied on the final value of developments (ie, gross development value).

Conceptually, it is a simple sales tax unrelated to the principles of obligations that should be used to make planning decisions acceptable. There is to be a threshold, based on average build costs per square metre and a small allowance for land value, up to which the rate will be zero. Below the threshold, developments will be exempt and all developments will benefit from a zero tax. If the tax is transparent and certain, it should make it easy for a developer to negotiate the land price down– so it will be landowners who ultimately bear the levy. If not, then not!

The amount of levy to be paid, agreed at the time of permission, will be charged on actual values at the point of occupation.

As a result, local authorities will bear the costs or benefits of market volatility, while the developer pays on actual revenue – a reversal of the current position.

The local planning authority may borrow against the expected levy income – possibly expensively, because of uncertainties about value and timing. The IL rate, or rates, will be set nationally but the revenue will be collected and used

locally. As many of the risks developers face will be less, their cost of capital should be lower, meaning a flatter playing field between large and smaller builders.

As well as First Homes discounts, developers will be expected to provide on-site affordable homes if the local planning authority wishes, with the difference between sale and market prices offset against the IL. Mayoral/strategic CIL in London and the combined authorities will become an element within the IL.

Will the new IL match our principles better than S106/CIL? The tax, which has been developed by clever economists, clearly has efficiency benefits distorting fewer development decisions, plus speedier development and lower costs of determining the tax.

Nonetheless, as happened with previous national taxes, equally clever lawyers will ensure that uncertainties (for example, how the threshold value should be determined, when is the development occupied, who bears the costs if the

This article draws on Tony Crook and Christine Whitehead’s paper Capturing Development Value, Principles and Practice: Why Is It So Difficult?, which won the Sir Peter Hall Award at the 2020 RTPI awards for Research Excellence in 2020. bit.ly/planner1220peterhall

infrastructure is not provided on time) foster delays while these are sorted out. There are also limited incentives for the local planning authority to spend on the critical infrastructure options – or at the appropriate time.

The situation with respect to equity is far less clear. There is no requirement to offset the costs of the development to local residents; affordable housing will be sacrificed to return a development to viability if the market value is less than projected; the local authority (and therefore local people) bear market risks which under s106/CIL are borne (and managed) by developers.

In terms of taxation principles, the principle that unearned increments in land value should be taxed is followed. Whether there will be horizontal equity, notably in spatial terms, depends on whether there are multiple rates, what exemptions arise, how cross-borough expenditures are determined and how areas with inadequate levy revenues will be compensated. As for vertical equity, those working in areas with greater opportunities will pay more, but they will also get to spend it; so the IL will not help ‘levelling up’. Simplicity and predictability will depend on the detail.

Most importantly, will the proposed IL be effective at raising revenue? The government expects more to be collected than under s106 and CIL. But this depends on how the rate or rates and the threshold are actually set – fundamentally political questions.

If there is a single national rate and threshold, there will undoubtedly be some areas where little is raised and other areas, notably London, where amounts received are well below current levels, particularly on residential sites. The overall total could be much larger, especially given that permitted development and commercial developments are included. But equally, it could be whittled away as the details are determined.

One important practical question is how the system will ensure infrastructure is in place to enable agreed developments to be delivered.

Under CIL this has worked badly. Under s106 there is a contract between the local planning authority and the developer – and this contract is one of the reasons that both developers and local planning authorities wanted s106 to be retained for large developments. No such relationship appears to be envisaged under the proposed IL – which must be a matter of concern to everyone involved. n Tony Crook CBE FRTPI is emeritus professor of town and regional planning at the University of Sheffield. Christine Whitehead OBE HonRTPI is emeritus professor of housing economics at the London School of Economics.

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LANDSCAPE

TTech { L A N D S C A P E

DATA, UNCHAINED IS THERE TRULY A CASE FOR BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY WITHIN THE PLANNING PROCESS OR COULD IT BE MORE HYPE THAN HELP? UNBOXED’S KASSIE PASCHKE AND RHIAN LEWIS CONSIDER THE PROS AND CONS The 2020 planning shake-up in the UK means that the role of planners will come into even sharper focus. To make the right decisions, and to ensure that planning strategy in one local area is aligned with others at a national level, it is crucial to have access to standardised and reliable data.

Although progress has been made in digitising processes, much of this has simply shifted the emphasis from shuffling papers around to shuffling digital copies of papers around. Viewing PDFs on a computer screen is not fundamentally different from unfolding a paper plan and viewing it. This may be sufficient to get each planning application over the line on an individual basis, but it does not allow for the free flow of knowledge and data that is crucial for informing future policymaking at either a local or national level.

Improving the flow of data would allow many of the more mundane processes to be automated, as well as allowing more information to be made available to policymakers. There is

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currently much variability between councils and the way they process and store such information, which makes an overarching approach difficult.

To understand why “treating planning applications as data, not documents” is so important, it’s worth reading this blog post by Euan Mills at the Ministry of Housing and Local Government – bit.ly/ planner1220-mills.

Although we at Unboxed are proud of our ongoing contribution to this initiative (check out bit.ly/planner1220-bops for information on the beta phase of the Back-office Planning System (BOPS) that Unboxed is developing with Southwark Council), there is much work to be done on this digital journey.

Hype or help?

When we talk about the need for ‘interoperable’ data and standardisation, it may sound like a demand for greater centralisation. But there may in fact be a case for

increased decentralisation – and this is where people tend to start throwing around buzzwords such as ‘blockchain’.

Over the past few years, the idea of distributed ledgers such as the ones that underpin cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin have been touted as the cure for all technological ills.

Blockchains – or distrib“MUCH OF THIS HAS uted ledgers – allow transactions to be recorded SIMPLY SHIFTED in such a way that THE EMPHASIS record-keeping is largely FROM SHUFFLING automated, secure from PAPERS AROUND retrospective tampering, TO SHUFFLING DIGITAL COPIES OF and the same data is replicated in multiple places.

PAPERS AROUND”

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An appetite for realtime data presented in a standardised format could make blockchain technology valuable for several aspects of planning

There has been an awful lot of hype around blockchain technology but, once the exaggerated claims have been stripped away, there is much in its trust model that can be useful to planners.

Indeed, HM Land Registry has already conducted its first prototype blockchain transaction, using distributed ledger software called Corda. A property ownership transfer whose paper-based processing had taken 22 weeks to complete was conducted in just 10 minutes.

One of the properties of distributed ledgers is that external documents or data can be identified by a unique, timestamped digital signature that can I L L U S T R AT I O N | S H U T T E R S T O C K

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be retrospectively verified.

So if an application was granted against a particular drawing or particular conditions, this document could be ‘hashed’ and inserted into the unbreakable chain of data that makes up the blockchain, and this record viewed by any council employee or member of the public who had permission. There would be no need to grant individual access to a particular council’s own legacy computer systems, thus speeding future innovation.

Other than simply validating ownership or tracking the history of planning applications and drawings, there are many areas where distributed ledger

technology can also be useful – and establishing the provenance or the standard of building materials, their environmental impact, or the quality of construction work, is an important part of this.

It is difficult to talk about building safety without mentioning the unimaginable horror of the Grenfell Tower fire, the investigation into which has prolonged the suffering of victims and their families. We have a responsibility to design systems that can validate the safety of materials and building processes with as little room for human error as possible.

“The construction industry is very transaction-heavy and it’s also a very fragmented industry,” explains Dr Eleni Papadonikolaki, associate professor in digital innovation and management in the Bartlett School of Construction and Project Management at University College London (UCL) and a partner at Digital Outlook.

“There are a number of different trades and professionals involved in the construction of a building project, such as architects, engineers, structural engineers, fire experts and so forth.

Each of these trades and professions is protected by a different professional institution and all of these different people have to sign off the project before construction can start. There is a chain of accountability which becomes increasingly complicated.”

Unblocked Dr Papadonikolaki belongs to the Construction Blockchain Consortium (CBC), an interdisciplinary team that draws knowledge from innovations adopted in various other sectors.

The CBC looks to find ways to advance interoperability within the construction industry, enforce higher

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TTech { L A N D S C A P E levels of accountability, transparency cations to talk to each other), and and streamline information flows those which genuinely need a blockwithin the sector by moving away chain-type approach.” from top-down communication flows Duckworth’s employer provides a toward the decentralisation of data near real-time multiparty network management systems. for global supply chain management Problems they are looking to which manages anything from the solve include the issue of US Marine Corps' ammunition siloed knowledge stores – worldwide to pharmaceuticals, different departments that and even money for a national don’t necessarily speak bank. to one another. They may “These are very familiar also make use of legacy problems,” explains Ducktechnologies and archaic, worth. “For example, a ‘bill paper-heavy systems. of material’ is the list of And they may be resistant parts that goes into mak“ONCE THE to change, apprehening a product. Most parts EXAGGERATED sive about open-source are outsourced, so there CLAIMS HAVE BEEN is a supply chain behind development. As a result, STRIPPED AWAY, contracts and tenders are every one of those parts.

THERE IS MUCH often awarded based on I think distributed ledger IN ITS TRUST systems that are heavily technology can help in all MODEL THAT CAN intermediated. those areas.

Naturally, many of these BE USEFUL FOR “Our network has a PLANNERS” issues are process probchain of custody service lems that could be solved that is blockchain-enasimply enough without bled. It tracks the chain using blockchain technolof custody as the product ogy, as Nigel Duckworth, moves through the supsenior strategist at One ply chain, so you have an Supply Network, advises. immutable record of who “There are a number of challenges has what, where and when. I think this with the technology, but on the whole, is an ideal use case, not just because I think it has genuine promise,” he you have this authoritative record, says. “However, when we talk about but the very act of tracking can help how solutions such as decentralised enforce compliance and deter product technology can help planning, we need mishandling and theft.” to be careful to separate problems Among reasons to be wary that could be solved easily with data of blockchains as a solution standards and open APIs (application for supply chain validation programming interface – the software are their speed and scalaintermediary that enables two applibility, Duckworth points out.

“Global supply chains involve thousands of trading partners, across thousands of sites, managing thousands of products. Any technology is going to struggle with that, but distributed ledger technology and blockchain more than most. No technology is a panacea, and probably every technology has been abused. I imagine it wasn’t long after fire was discovered that some angry prehistoric character committed arson.”

He is right to urge caution. Many of the uses for which blockchain technology has been suggested will instead be resolved in more efficient ways.

Other use cases may be valid, but may never see the light of day because the overhead of getting so many different parties to sign up to one technological solution will prove impossible.

However, as councils move forward into a future where the availability of trustworthy, virtually real-time data, presented in a standardised form, becomes crucial, it is easy to imagine that blockchain technology may play at least some part in this. n Rhian Lewis and Kassie Paschke are from Unboxed, a digital agency which has been working with Southwark Council to deliver the Back-office Planning System (BOPS) mentioned in the article

BLOCKCHAIN, IN BRIEF

Blockchain can be a difficult idea to grasp and many attempts have been made to explain it simply. This effort, ‘Blockchain explained... in under 100 words’ from the Deloitte website, is one of the better ones: “You (a ‘node’) have a file of transactions on your computer (a

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‘ledger’). Two government accountants (let’s call them ‘miners’) have the same file on theirs (so it’s ‘distributed’).

As you make a transaction, your computer sends an email to each accountant to inform them.

“Each accountant rushes to be

the first to check whether you can afford it (and be paid their salary ‘Bitcoins’). The first to check and validate hits “REPLY ALL”, attaching their logic for verifying the transaction (‘proof of work’). If the other accountant agrees, everyone updates their file…”

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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

Safety of house hand-built from tyres not demonstrated EXPERT COMMENT

An inspector has refused retrospective permission for a ‘charming’ off-grid Fenland home, built by hand from earth-filled worn-out car tyres, despite noting that the decision would interfere with the appellant’s human rights, citing concerns over the building’s safety.

The appeal concerned four-and-a-half acres of land outside Friday Bridge, a small village near Wisbech surrounded by flat, open fenland. The appellant moved onto the land in 2016, and had been using most of it as an ornamental tree nursery. On part of the site, however, he had built a home described as a “clay-rendered eco tyre house”, along with a site office, storage shed and workshop.

The house had been made from worn-out tyres filled with compacted earth on concrete-free foundations, a clay render with a limewash finish, and a roof of recycled timber. It was built by hand with no powered machinery.

The appellant’s aim was for himself and his family to live a “sustainable off-grid lifestyle” with ultra-low emissions.

The house and its “undulating walls” had “a certain charm” and was “undoubtedly unusual”, Nicholson commented, noting that although the appellant had not recorded the construction process, it could still meet the policy requirement of promoting

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Michael Holmes, chair of the National Custom and Self Build Association, said::

( “Whilst the pioneering spirit of the appellant, attempting to house himself and his family in a sustainable, low­cost and innovative self­build home is admirable, approaching such a project without first obtaining planning permission or providing any demonstrable compliance with the building regulations is a huge risk to have taken and not an approach to be recommended. Development controls are there for good reason, protecting the collective interest of our society.

LOCATION: Friday Bridge AUTHORITY: Fenland District Council INSPECTOR: David Nicholson PROCEDURE: Hearing DECISION: Dismissed REFERENCE: APP/ D0515/W/20/3244101

sustainability through an information board, limited visits, and a website.

For it to be considered innovative, however, the home had to be habitable and safe, said the inspector.

The council’s building control team’s advice was that the

building “had the potential to achieve compliance with building regulations”, but would need to be assessed by a structural engineer.

The appellant responded that he had not wanted to be forced to use unsustainable materials such as concrete to meet the regulations.

However, Nicholson noted, building regulations “generally just set out the required standards for the building work, for example, that a home must be structurally sound... not how this should be achieved”.

Without evidence that the building’s “walls and foundations are stable, that the roof can’t blow away or catch fire, and many other matters”, the inspector could not be sure that the building met the required standards.

Nicholson acknowledged

( “The self­builder still has the opportunity to apply for retrospective building regulations approval via the local authority – which has indicated that it may be possible to demonstrate compliance for the dwelling, even though the construction system is unconventional.

"This might yet create an opportunity for a future retrospective planning application seeking consent under paragraph 131, which requires 'substantial weight to be given to innovative designs which promote high levels of sustainability', a route the inspector appears to have left open in the wording of their decision."

that dismissing the appeal could leave the appellant and his family homeless.

However, he concluded, the “legitimate aim of protecting the countryside” could only be achieved by dismissing the appeal, and “interference with the human rights of the appellant’s family” was both “necessary and proportionate”.

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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

Scottish ministers reject hotel plan for Royal High School Plans to turn the category A-listed Royal High School in Edinburgh into a hotel have been rejected by Scottish ministers as not ‘the right development in the right place’.

10-year housing scheme to fund estate restoration is approved

I M AG E S | I STO C K / A L A M Y / S H U T T E RSTO C K

Plans to part-fund the restoration of a ‘nationally important’ Cheshire estate by building 112 homes across 12 sites over 10 years period been allowed after an inspector accepted the appellant’s guarantee to pay the remaining £4.35 million shortfall.

The appeal concerned the Doddington Estate in Cheshire, comprising Doddington Hall and Delves Hall, both grade I listed, and the grade II* listed Star Barn. The estate was left in a poor state of repair after a variety of uses throughout the 20th century, and all three buildings were added to Historic England’s Heritage at Risk Register.

The appellant, Lady Rona Delves Broughton, whose family had owned the estate since 1372, worked with Historic England to plan its future. She secured planning permission to restore and convert Doddington Hall into a 120-bedroom country house hotel and spa, as part of a scheme that would also see the other two listed buildings restored.

But the estate fell £14 million short in funding for the project. The appellant sought permission to build 112 new homes across 12 different sites within the estate’s 800 acres of parkland over 10 years to fund the restoration works.

Inspector D J Board noted that even if the housing – which would cause some “less than substantial” harm to the setting of the estate – was allowed, LOCATION: Doddington Estate a funding shortfall for the restoration works AUTHORITY: Cheshire East Council of around £4.35 million would remain.

INSPECTOR: D J Board The appellant, in response, offered a “bond PROCEDURE: Inquiry and personal assurance” to make up the shortfall DECISION: Allowed and secure the estate’s future.

REFERENCE: APP/ Board was satisfied that R0660/W/19/3221564 the scheme was necessary to enable the heritage restoration works, and therefore met the local policy exception.

The historic building, which had been a contender as the site for the Scottish Parliament, was designed

by Thomas Hamilton and opened in 1829. It is prominently located on the southern slope of Calton Hill, a highly culturally significant area of Edinburgh, within the Old and New Towns of Edinburgh World Heritage Site (WHS).

The change-of-use proposals included alterations to the former school building and two large extensions, to create a “world-class hotel of international standing”, as well as considerable demolition works.

Ministers agreed that the proposals would harm the WHS and would be contrary to various local and national heritage policies. Although they acknowledged that the scheme would result in significant economic benefit locally and potentially regionally, “it would be a stretch to conclude that the economic impacts alone would be nationally significant”, they ruled.

Besides not protecting

LOCATION: Edinburgh AUTHORITY: Edinburgh Council INSPECTOR: Scott Ferrie PROCEDURE: Inquiry DECISION: Dismissed REFERENCE: PPA­230­2213

and enhancing the historic environment, the scheme would not demonstrate the qualities of successful places, they added, given that the proposals would not complement local features and would have adverse impacts on the character and appearance of the area and significant adverse townscape and visual impacts.

The scheme would “constitute overdevelopment”, ministers said, concluding that, taken overall, the proposal “does not represent the right development in the right place”.

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C&D { C James upholds local plan by rejecting Caerphilly housing

LOCATION: Blackwood AUTHORITY: Caerphilly County Borough Council

INSPECTOR: A L McCooey PROCEDURE: Recovered appeal DECISION: Dismissed REFERENCE: APP/ K6920/A/19/3226294

Inspector AL McCooey had advised approval of Persimmon’s plan to build housing beyond the settlement boundary of Blackwood and Cefn Fforest, noting that the council had failed to meet the requirement for a five-year supply of housing land since the plan’s adoption, with a shortfall of 2,700 homes.

But housing minister Julie James said she was “committed to a plan-led system”. adding that the primacy of the adopted

£50m Southend leisure complex wins inspector’s approval Plans to build a major leisure complex on a councilowned car park near the Southend seafront can go ahead after an inspector decided that the scheme’s economic benefits outweighed its conflict with the local development plan.

In 2018, developer Turnstone Estates submitted plans for a leisure complex comprising an 80-bedroom hotel, bowling alley, IMAX cinema, restaurants and cafés, outdoor activities, and a landscaped square. A multistorey car park would provide space for 555 cars.

The council had leased the land to the developer three years earlier for £1 in a deal that would see the developer finance the scheme. When

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the developer appealed to the Planning Inspectorate, the council decided not to oppose the application, partly because it would have had to pay back £3 million of government grant money already spent on the project if it did not go ahead.

LDP was key to providing certainty for communities and developers on the type and scale of development that will be permitted.

James accepted that the proposal would provide some benefits, but she noted that several housing sites allocated in the LDP had not been developed, including a similarly sized brownfield residential allocation close to the appeal site. This site, owned by the council, had yet to come forward for development, although it has

faced robust examination and public consultation through statutory LDP procedures.

She said:“There’s an understandable expectation in the local community that allocated housing sites in the LDP will be developed before unplanned sites outside defined settlement boundaries, which do not accord with adopted LDP policies, are considered.

Planning Policy Wales is clear that brownfield land, where possible, should be used in preference to greenfield sites.”

Inspector I A Dyer instead dealt with the various thirdparty objections.

In terms of design, Dyer noted, the project would introduce a number of “substantial buildings”, including “a landmark building of modern design”.

As well as being large enough to “create its own character“, he found, its “sensitive design” would also help it to integrate into its surroundings. In heritage terms, the inspector noted that the site was close to the town’s pleasure pier – the

LOCATION: Southend­on­Sea

I M AG E S | I STO C K / A L A M Y / S H U T T E RSTO C K

Welsh housing minister Julie James has rejected an inspector’s recommendation and refused outline permission for up to 300 homes near Blackwood after citing the primacy of the local plan.

AUTHORITY: Southend­on­Sea Borough Council

INSPECTOR: I A Dyer PROCEDURE: Written submissions DECISION: Allowed REFERENCE: APP/ D1590/W/20/3245194

longest in the world – and a number of listed buildings.

He found no harm to these.

Dyer noted that the scheme did not comply with the development plan as a whole. But, he ruled, the scheme’s economic benefits carried decisive weight.

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DECISIONS DIGEST{

SUBSCRIBE to our appeals digest:

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

Office change of use approved after council missed decision deadline eadline The change of use of offices to 45 apartments nts in a Hertfordshire town has been approved and granted prior approval after the planning authority failed to provide a decision within the 56-day deadline. bit.ly/planner1220-ware

Inspector criticises ‘derisory’ 1.6sq m amenity space offer

170­home scheme’s footpaths would not stick to desire lines

In refusing permission for an eighthome brownfield development in Charlwood, Surrey, an inspector strongly criticised the appellant’s offer of only 1.6 square metres of outdoor amenity space per person, calling it “a derisory level of provision”. bit.ly/planner1220-space

Reserved matters approval for 170 homes near Weymouth sought three years ago was refused by an inspector, who ruled that the footpath layout was too “circuitous” and did not adhere to natural desire lines. bit.ly/planner1220-footpath

Watford 165­home brownfield scheme is ‘wholly uninspiring’

Permeable paving would harm listed water cure house

Plans to replace a locally listed bus garage in Watford with 165 flats have been criticised by an inspector, who called the scheme “a jarring intrusion of urban city-style apartment architecture” that was ”wholly uninspiring and unappealing”. bit.ly/planner1220-bus

Plans to install permeable paving at a listed building in Malvern, known as the town’s first hydropathic therapy establishment,, to improve surface p water drainage nage have been rejected after an inspector or criticised its ‘artificial, engineered d appearance’. bit.ly/planner1220-water ner1220-water

650­home scheme approved following cancelled inquiry

Ammonia from poultry droppings pings could harm protected heathh

Plans for 650 homes me near Chesterfield can go ahead after the council dropped dropp its opposition to the scheme of its new local plan, as an following the adoption adop inspector found no material considerations to justify ma withholding permission. bit.ly/planner1220-chesterfield bi

Plans for a free-range egg production unit in Shropshire re have been blocked by an inspector, or, who cited European case law in taking aking a precautionary approach to the impact of ammonia from poultry oultry droppings on a nearby special al area of conservation (SAC). bit.ly/planner1220-poultry

Rising prices justify 128­home all­affordable scheme

Trainspotting facility’s rural al location is justified, rules inspector

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Plans for a trainspotting facility lity in rural Lincolnshire offering a viewing platform Eastt platforrm of of the the Eas Ea Coast Main Line and historic train-style camping pods can go ahead, an inspector ruled, rejecting the council’s claim that it was a “niche opportunity for enthusiasts”. bit.ly/planner1220-pod

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Plans for fo 128 affordable homes on the edge of Burton-uponhelp to address a Trent would w “pressing need” an inspector “pressin the worsening ruled, after noting n ordability in an area where affordabi house prices price have increased 48 per cent since 2012. bit.ly/planner1220-affordable

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LLegal landscape OPINION

Delay to environmental legislation spells uncertainty for developers Delays to the government’s environment bill means the UK will be without its promised environmental legislation when the Brexit transition period ends, says Claire Petricca-Riding.

This is not good for the development industry The environment bill has during which there will be no been discussed for over body to oversee compliance a year now. Since the last with the new legislation. general election it has formed In early November, George part of the draft bills being Eustice, the environment proposed, having made it into secretary, said that all cases the Queen’s Speech on 19th before the European Court December 2019. of Justice will fall away at the This is the government’s end of the transition period. flagship bill The European which is set to set Commission down in primary waded into “THE UK WILL legislation the the debate to BE WITHOUT AN government’s 25ENVIRONMENTAL remind Eustice year plan and the and the UK WATCHDOG AT plans and policies Government that THE END OF for improving the withdrawal THE BREXIT the environment, agreement TRANSITION setting legally states that the PERIOD AND binding targets ECJ will retain THERE WILL across four key jurisdiction for BE A GAP IN areas, as well as ENVIRONMENTAL cases concerning the mechanism the UK before LEGISLATION” for the Office of the end of Environmental the transition Protection period and these (what has been matters will be called the ‘green heard. watchdog’).

It does raise, however, a The bill has been delayed confusing picture of what through the Commons since will happen after that period, its first reference in the with complaints having to be Queen’s Speech. This has made to a shadow secretariat been in part down to the which will in effect babysit current pandemic, but some cases until the OEP is set up of it in part is down to it not and functioning. This is not having enough debate in the due until the summer of 2021, Commons. with 2022 looking more likely.

Furthermore, the lack of This delay means there action setting up the OEP is no longer enough means there will be a hiatus parliamentary time available

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for the environment bill to pass into law before 1st January 2021 – with the result that the UK will be without an environmental watchdog at the end of the Brexit transition period and there will be a gap in environmental legislation and the way this is governed.

Given the announcements from the cabinet throughout the summer which went to heart of the key environmental issues the country faces, the delay of this vital piece of legislation is a disappointing setback.

Not only is the bill delayed, but we have been promised various consultations on the 16 binding targets the government intends to set in the four main areas of air, waste and resources, water and biodiversity, together with the fundamental reform of the environmental impact assessment framework. None of the consultations has yet come to light.

There have been further amendments to the bill, which seeks to introduce species conservation and protected site strategies in what is clearly an alignment with the much-discussed zonal planning policy that has been introduced in the recent planning white paper.

Further, the amendment to the role of the Office of Environmental Protection casts doubt on its independence.

This lack of information combined with the Planning for the Future white paper, Brexit and the current global pandemic has led to further uncertainty not only for the development sector, but for us all, which will restrict growth and innovation Claire Petricca-Riding is partner and national head of planning and environmental law with Irwin Mitchell

In brief The environment bill has experienced delays in its journey through the Commons This means there will be a gap in environmental legislation at the end of the Brexit transition period There will also be no environmental watchdog Recent amendments to the bill weaken the proposed watchdog’s independence Uncertainty reigns for the development sector

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EVENTS

CASES

LEGISLATION

NEWS

ANALYSIS

NEWS Irish minister vexed by planning reviews Irish housing minister Darragh O’Brien has voiced frustration at the excessive use of the judicial review system to overturn planning decisions.

Speaking to the Sunday Independent, he warned that the system needed urgent attention.

“The whole area of judicial review is something in the Programme for Government that there is a commitment to review and revise, and I think it needs to be revised drastically,” he said.

“It is strange to me that we would have instances of one planning authority taking another planning authority to court by way of judicial review, and I think it should only happen in very exceptional cases.

“It is something that is difficult for people to understand. If you have experts at planning authorities that are all working for the state, then why would there be a conflict between them in relation to any decision?”

His comments came after the High Court overturned the granting of a fresh permission by An Bord Pleanála for 500 new apartments or additional co-living spaces in the heart of Dublin docklands, which was the result of a second successful legal challenge by the planning authority, Dublin City Council.

O’Brien said: “All planning legislation is under review regularly as to how we might improve it to get to the stage of seeing whether we can deliver homes efficiently at an affordable rate where we need them.

That’s my priority as minister. And if planning needs to change to make sure that happens, well that is something I am very open to doing.”

Judicial review for Norfolk wind farm The High Court has granted a Norfolk resident a judicial review over the energy secretary’s decision to grant a development consent order for the Norfolk Vanguard wind farm.

Ray Pearce claims that the secretary of state unlawfully excluded from consideration the cumulative effects of the Norfolk Vanguard wind farm, taken together with its sister wind farm project, Norfolk Boreas.

The wind farms would share some onshore infrastructure but are subject to separate development consent applications.

The judicial review is due to be heard early next year.

Offer to plant trees if protesters end action If protesters voluntarily stop occupying a copse due to be felled to make way for a development the London Borough of Islington has said it will plant trees to a value equivalent to the legal costs it would incur in moving them.

The council wants to build 27 council homes next to its Dixon Clark Court tower block. Protesters, though, have occupied the site’s trees in a bid to stop them being felled.

Local Government Lawyer reports Diarmaid Ward, the council’s executive member for housing and development, as saying: “The council does not take the decision to remove trees lightly and we always pledge to replace more trees than are removed.”

He said the council would plant 63 new trees around the borough – including 13 at Dixon Clark Court – to replace those felled, which would exceed the carbon absorption from the existing trees and would make other biodiversity improvements.

But the council has been unable to proceed while the protest continues and has made the offer to divert the legal costs of removing the protesters into more tree planting.

A petition opposing the tree felling has attracted 733 signatures. It claimed that retaining at least seven of the 18 “mature and healthy trees” the council originally wanted to remove would help to provide a screen for the estate and a nearby primary school.

LEGAL BRIEFS High Court hears permitted development and use classes challenge The High Court has heard a challenge to new permitted development rights and use classes introduced by the government, with campaigners arguing that the changes “fundamentally change the nature of the planning system”. bit.ly/planner1220-useclasses

Judicial review reforms urged by Law Society In its submission to the Independent Review of Administrative Law, the Law Society has called for four reforms that it says would reduce the need for citizens to resort to judicial review, reports Local Government Lawyer. bit.ly/planner1220-reviews

Interim injunction over Hackney singing sharks Works on a controversial sculpture in the Regent’s Canal in London that features fibreglass sharks singing and delivering a lecture on urbanism must be stopped until planning permission is secured, the High Court has ruled. bit.ly/planner1220-sharks

Northern Ireland Planning Law Update This annual event, held online this year on 10th November, will feature speakers William Orbinson QC and Andrew Ryan. bit.ly/planner1220-niupdate

Online CPD - Giving Evidence at Inquiries This three-hour masterclass, to be held online on 1st December, will provide the tools and techniques needed to prepare for cross-examination at a public inquiry. bit.ly/planner1220-evidence

If You’re Gonna Do It, Do It Right Simon Ricketts shares his final thoughts on the planning white paper. bit.ly/planner1220-ricketts

GMSF 2020 in a nutshell Brian O’Connor, Lichfields’ planning director for Manchester, summarises the recently released Greater Manchester Spatial Framework publication plan 2020. bit.ly/planner1220-lichfields

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NEWS RTPI news pages are edited

by Will Finch at the RTPI, 41 Botolph Lane, London EC3R 8DL

Invest in planning as ‘essential public service’, RTPI report urges Wokingham Town Centre Regeneration, submitted by Wokingham Borough Council, was the winner in the Excellence in Planning for a Successful Economy category at the RTPI Awards 2020

HOUSING AND PLANNING APPG Invest and Prosper was launched at a recent meeting of the AllParty Parliamentary Group on Housing and Planning, chaired

by Conservative MP David Simmonds. The RTPI acts as secretariat for the group, which gives parliamentarians a forum to discuss housing delivery, infrastructure and placemaking via the planning system. n For for more information, visit bit.ly/planner1220-appg

An injection of £500 million over the next four years should be made into England’s planning system, according to a new report commissioned by the RTPI. Invest and Prosper, written by Vivid Economics, demonstrates, in economic terms, the positive contribution that planning makes across the UK and calls on national governments to invest in planning to realise sustainable development ambitions.

RTPI Chief Executive Victoria Hills said that the planning system had been seriously under-resourced for decades: “Our Invest and Prosper report makes the case that a strong planning system is essential if the government is to achieve its objectives concerning housing, beauty, climate, the economy and health.

“However, like any good public service, the planning system requires resources

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and capacity to deliver outcomes comes efficiently, effectively and equitably. quitably.

“This important report makes a range of recommendations ns including increased investment ment in the number of public sector ctor planners and in efficiency-saving saving digital technologies. More funding in these areas would ld help support a vital shift from a largely reactive, regulatory planning system, to one that is proactive and strategic.

The report found that local planning authorities are coming under pressure to deliver more services with fewer resources, and that constraints on planning system functions are limiting public planners’ capacity to deliver on strategic local priorities.

For more about Invest and Prosper, see pages 52-55.

OPEN LETTER

RTPI Chief Executive Victoria Hills has written an open letter to the Treasury, asking chancellor Rishi Sunak to commit to a longer-term funding settlement for planning. In the letter, Victoria writes that planners play a ‘key facilitative role within the UK economy’, and that investment will have a ‘significant knock-on impact on development and construction as a whole’. n Read the letter in full at bit.ly/planner1220-sunak I M A G E S | S T E WA R T T U R K I N G T O N / R T P I

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Editorial E: rtpinews@rtpi.org.uk

RTPI (switchboard) T: 020 7929 9494

Registered charity no.

262865 Registered charity in Scotland SCO37841

M Y V I E W O N … V O LU N T E E R I N G New RTPI Fellow Gareth Giles says that volunteering for the RTPI has been the most rewarding experience of his career to date I was immensely proud earlier this year to be elected to Fellowship of the Institute – it has real significance for me personally and professionally. I am so grateful to those in the industry who have supported me throughout my career.

I started work as a local authority planning officer and after 12 years of public sector service founded a small planning consultancy business with a former colleague. I now have the privilege of employing four town planners, including two Young Planners at the start of their careers.

My most rewarding experience has been volunteering for the RTPI, which I have done for over 10 years. It has enabled me to travel around the UK, gain invaluable learning opportunities and meet many other planning

professionals. I would thoroughly recommend volunteering on an RTPI Regional Activities Committee to anyone that may be interested – they are a cornerstone of learning and help steer the direction of the profession.

I hope through my Fellowship I can be of further service as an Gareth (second from left) joins former President Stephen ambassador for the Wilkinson’s visit to Gillingham Waterfront, Kent in 2017 Institute, and continue to focus on promoting the planners have the same opportunities essential role of a thriving planning that I was afforded when I started out. profession in shaping our natural and built environments. n Gareth Giles FRTPI is a founding I will also maintain my objective of partner at planning consultancy ensuring that the next generation of Whaleback, based in Sussex

POSITION POINTS

PLANNING AND MENTAL HEALTH SUE MANNS FRTPI, RTPI PRESIDENT As part of our Plan the World We Need campaign, the RTPI has published a practice advice note setting out how planners can work within the current UK planning systems to create healthy communities that promote good mental health. Published to mark World Mental Health Day 2020, the advice highlights the importance of building safe homes, encouraging inclusive and connected communities, creating pedestrianfriendly places, introducing new green spaces, building housing in well-located places and finding temporary solutions to improve environmental quality.

There is no doubt that there are many factors relevant to planners which have an effect on a person’s wellbeing and mental health, including noise, pollution levels, quality of green space, opportunities to socialise, access to services and ‘beauty’.

This new practice advice note can help planners create a truly accessible and inclusive built environment.

Download Mental Health and Town Planning at bit.ly/planner1220-mentalhealth

PLANNING AND DEMENTIA SARAH LEWIS MRTPI, RTPI PLANNING PRACTICE OFFICER The RTPI has published updated advice setting out the different approaches and tools that planners can use to ensure homes and local environments are dementia-friendly, enabling those with the condition to remain in their own homes for as long as possible.

The design and location of housing for people living with dementia is particularly important in light of the pandemic. By ensuring a safe, comfortable and familiar environment with easy access to amenities like local shops, doctors, post offices, banks and green spaces, planners can help those with dementia live active and fulfilling lives.

With the numbers of those living with dementia on the increase, social care figures rising and uncertainty around future lockdowns all putting pressure on the NHS, there has never been a more important time to address this issue for the benefit of not only those with dementia but also the wider community.

Download Dementia and Town Planning: Creating Better Environments for People Living with Dementia at bit.ly/planner1220-dementia

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NEWS

Optimis Consulting wins Learning Partner award

WHO ARE THE RTPI’S LEARNING PARTNERS?

RTPI Learning Partners are organisations which have committed to support the learning and development of their planning staff. Learning Partners have representatives on some of the RTPI’s committees and also provide input into education and training initiatives.

Planning and development consultancy Optimis Consulting has been announced as this year’s winner of the RTPI Learning Partner of the Year Award.

Optimis Consulting won the award for its graduate programme which provides a comprehensive education in the planning and development profession, developing individual skills in a nurturing and supportive environment.

The award was presented to the Optimis Consulting team

by RTPI President Sue Manns FRTPI during a virtual meeting of the RTPI’s General Assembly. n For more information Optimis Consulting Managing Director Justin Wickersham and a full list of said: “Thank you very much to the RTPI and to the judges.

Learning Partners, visit We’re very proud of the team we have here who have bit.ly/planner1220worked very hard over the last few years in developing their learningpartners professional skills.

“Our graduate planners and our mentors are a brilliantly talented group of people that continue to have a positive influence on the planning profession, and will do for years to come. This award is testament to their abilities and what they have done over the last year and before.

“We’re very grateful to receive this award and we hope to continue to improve the professionalism of the fantastic talent coming through.”

Sue Manns announces the winner of the RTPI Learning Partner of the Year for 2020. Pictured from Optimis Consulting are (l-r) Robbie Locke, Leila Cramphorn, Lauren White, Natasha Abbott, James Angus and Justin Wickersham.

2021 SUBSCRIPTIONS: HERE FOR OUR MEMBERS By now, members will have received their RTPI subscription renewal notice for 2021.

Subscriptions are due for renewal on 1 January annually.

As first reported in the November issue of The Planner, we’re delighted to be able to confirm that there will be no increase in subscription rates for 2021.

RTPI Chief Executive Victoria Hills said: “There’s no doubt that we’re living through a period of uncertainty, but we’ve recognised the opportunity afforded by the global pandemic to do things differently. By

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embracing change, we have transformed our operations to ensure we can work smarter and continue to support you in your career in 2021 and beyond.”

Members can spread the cost of their annual subscription by setting up a direct debit for payment in quarterly instalments.

There is also the option to pay online by credit or debit card. n For more information, email subscriptions@rtpi.org.uk or phone +44 (0)20 7929 9463

ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES FELLOWSHIPS The RTPI would like to congratulate six of its members who have been conferred the award of Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.

The academy said the new Fellows had been elected for “outstanding contributions to research, and for their application of social science to policy, education, society and the economy”: n Prof Claire Colomb MRTPI (Professor of Urban Studies and Planning at UCL) n Prof Harry Dimitriou MRTPI (Director of OMEGA Centre of Mega Infrastructure and Development at UCL) n Dr Peter Geraghty FRTPI (Director of Planning and Transport at Southend on Sea Borough Council, former RTPI President) n Prof John Pendlebury MRTPI (Professor of Urban Conservation at Newcastle University) n Dr Richard Simmons MRTPI (former Chief Executive of the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, Visiting Professor at UCL) n Waheed Nazir MRTPI (former Director of Planning & Regeneration at Birmingham City Council, now Chief Executive at NCL Development Ltd and Visiting Professor at Birmingham City University).

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MEMBER NEWS

New Chartered members The RTPI would like to congratulate the following newly-elected Chartered members

ROUND 2 RESUBMISSIONS (ELECTED 7 AUGUST 2020)

ROUND 3 FIRST­TIME SUBMISSIONS (ELECTED 21 SEPTEMBER 2020)

East Midlands n Rebecca Beardsley n James Clark n Jonathan Gaynor n Jonathon Gill n Katie Gulliver n James Lambert n Giovanni Loperfido n Lydia Prince

East of England n Dan Malloy n Dickon Povey n Eleanor Scott n Ellen Nicholson

Northern Ireland n Kyle Elder n Jonathan Martin n Mark McEvoy

Scotland n Colin Bradley n Jamie Watt n Rim Chouaib

East of England

South East

n Saffron Frost n Hannah Northrop n Thomas Sharman n Adeola Awolola n Catherine Hewitt

n Katherine Alger n Juliet Amoruso n Alexander Dean n Emily Fitzpatrick n Matthew Pearce n William Sparling n Tom Wicks n Melanie Beech n Richard Reid n Michael Ruddock n Andrew Spiers n Ulrich Vosloo

International n Emily Bent n Long Tai n Long Chi Wu n Tung Yuk

London n Michael Birch n Padraig Collins n Jason McElhoney n Gavin McLaughlin n Celine Mionnet n Elizabeth Osborne n Aleksandar Pantazis n James Clark n Jonathan Harris n Folasade Olokodana n Bryce Tudball North East n Sarah Witherley n Edwina Symmons

North West n Nick Blackledge n Andrew Clement n Hannah Ellison n Rachel Horton n Kate Kingston n Elizabeth Snead

South West n James Blake n Keegan Ferreday n Lauren Gallagher n Jennifer Joule n David Smart n James Tavernor

Scotland n Hannah Belford n Mark Fitzpatrick n Robbie Calvert n Steven Sinclair n Lewis Begbie n Monica Loughran

International n Shing Tai Endy Cheng n Long Chow n Pui Mak n Yee Ting Tam n Wai Tam

North West n Kieran Blaydes n Jamaal Hafiz

South East n Luke Burroughs n Aline Hyde n Annabel Le Lohe n Laura Robinson n Oliver Woolf n Grahame Dorrington

South West n Hannah Booker n Tom Emery n Simon Fox n Eliott Kelly n Alexander O’Doherty n Georgina Perry n John Shakespear n Scott Britnell

London n Natasha Coakley n Michael Fishpool n Mark Leitner-Murphy n Thomas Pemberton n Olafiyinfoluwa Taiwo n Thomas Young n Lucy Haile n Belinda Mackay

Wales n Georgia Crawley n Sophie Jones n Joshua Price

West Midlands n Matthew Chadwick n Adrian Moore n Samuel Watson

North East West Midlands n Mohammed Gani n Teodora Golemdzhiyska n Helena Obremski n Jodi Stokes n Bethany Street n Luke Webb n David Butler n Shamim Chowdhury n Richard Jennings n Matthew Stanczyszyn

n Jack Burnett

Yorkshire n Joel Gandhi

Yorkshire n George Oldroyd n Christopher McDonagh

Robbie Calvert

Olafiyinfoluwa Taiwo

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Reach out to our audience of membership professionals There’s never been a more important time to reassure the planning community that their skills are in need.

The Plannerr job board board offers offfers you an opportunity it to t attract tt t the th attention tt ti of a guaranteed, dedicated audience of membership professionals, and reassure them that you are still looking to recruit.

Whether you have vacancies now, or will be looking to recruit at a later time, remind our readers what sets your organisation apart, and let them know your plans.

You might also consider advertising in The Planner magazine, and ensure you are seen by the profession’s top-calibre candidates and kept at the forefront of their minds. Show them that you are here, your brand is strong, and your organisation needs them.

For more information and rates, contact us now on: T: 020 7880 6232 E: jobs@theplanner.co.uk p49_PLN.DEC20.indd 2

09/11/2020 10:20

Activities

Click where you see this icon

THE MONTH IN PLANNING

Mouse around for more details As the sun sets on a truly extraordinary year, one obvious shift is in how readers consume our content. We always publish standalone online reports and stories as each month progresses, so this month, as well as other useful links, we’re showcasing examples of our exclusively online content from recent weeks. Click on each story to read more.

What we’re watching Planning Enforcement Week: Tackling the Issue of Airbnb and Short Term Lets

Co-housing: lessons from the awardwinning Marmalade Lane development in Cambridge

A focused discussion considering Airbnb and its enforcement-related challenges, considering inovations as a newly such inovatio defi d ned use class for f short-term holiday lets, h licences, and l even a tourist e tax. t Chaired by Andrew Coleman A (University of ( Brighton) as part of the RTPI's Planning Enforcement Week – make sure you bring the popcorn – it lasts 1hr 30mins. bit.ly/planner1220-enforce

An RTPI East of England presentation, with speakers Meredith Bowles, Trovine Monteiro, Neil Murphy and Frances Wright considering the initial design and subsequent success of Marmalade Lane, overall winner of the Silver Jubilee Cup at this year’s RTPI Awards for Excellence. For more detail see The Planner’s Marmalade Lane case study in June’s issue.

Webinar: bit.ly/planner1220marmalade Case study: bit.ly/ planner1220-costar

Covid-19: Planning profession impact – rolling news Since the first lockdown in March, The Planner has been keeping track of Covid-19-related policy changes and pledges as they arise. Through this link you can find further links out to our coverage and other useful sources. We are continuing to update this resource regularly. bit.ly/planner0520-RollingNews

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CHANGE Learn about CHANGE – the RTPI’s 10-year action plan to make the planning profession more diverse and inclusive: https://www.rtpi.org.uk/aboutthe-rtpi/corporate-strategy/ change/

Abraham Laker and Judith Onuh – Communities, RTPI membership and top tips for students To mark #BlackHistoryMonth, the RTPI posted this discussion between Abraham Laker and Judith Onuh. uh. who talk about why they became planners, what they do to help shape communities and why chartership matters. Tips for students to succeed in practice are also included.Webinar: bit.ly/ planner1220-risingstars

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LANDSCAPE

Forestry strategy for Great Britain is published hed Forestry and primary wood processing in the UK generates £2.5 billion GVA a year, from a total woodland area of 3.2 million hectares. Last month, the Welsh Government, with the Scottish and UK governments, issued a new science and innovation strategy for the longterm future of forestry in Great Britain. bit.ly/planner1220-forestry

Place-based leadership and the battle with Covid-19 Robin Hambleton discusses his new book about how Covid has exposed the need for stronger local governance in the UK.He contrasts proposals in the “misguided” planning white paper with the more devolved systems elsewhere where local mayors oversee "hyperlocal" placemaking. bit.ly/planner1220-hambleton

Planning for the (right) future The Planning for the Future white paper consultation inspired excellent defences of planning.

This, from LDA Design chairman Frazer Osment, is an eloquent and powerful statement of what planning is for and how it can underpin our efforts to meet the environmental, social, health and economic challenges of the 21st century.

Osment contends that planning needs to have a far more visionary purpose but is “trapped in a reactive and dysfunctional sitebased system". bit.ly/ planner1220-osment

I M A G E S | I S T O C K / D AV I D B U T L E R

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Home comforts: the lockdown stress test Place Alliance’s Home Comforts survey, completed by 2,500 UK households during summer 2020, studied people’s experiences of lockdown, the ‘home and neighbourhood factors’ that played a part, including local green space and amenities.

Matthew Carmona, professor of planning & urban design at the Bartlett School of Planning, UCL, and chair of Place Alliance, talks about how much still needs to be done to design or adapt neighbourhood amenities to support healthy lives. bit.ly/planner1220-alliance

Better public engagement Public engagement underpins effective planning, say academics Dr Tessa Lynn, Dr Mark Dobson and Prof Gavin Parker. But, while Planning for the Future emphasises engagement in local plan-making and greater use of digital technology to achieve this, it offers few clues as to how this will be designed into a reformed planning system. bit.ly/planner1220-cooperate

What we’re planning If 2020 has been truly extraordinary, 2021 is likely to see an evolving focus on realigned priorities for the profession. In our January edition we speak to incoming RTPI president Dr Wei Yang about her career to date and her aspirations for her presidential term, while we’re also working on themes detailing coastal change management, natural capital accounting and our annual careers survey. Feel free to contact us on editorial@ theplanner.co.uk (or DM us @ThePlanner_RTPI).

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Book today rtpi.org.uk/training training@rtpi.org.uk + 44 (0)20 7929 8400 @RTPIPlanners #RTPICPD

View our brand new 2021 list of online masterclasses: rtpi.org.uk/training

Boost your CPD with interactive online masterclasses High-quality expert training for planning professionals p52_PLN.DEC20.indd 2

40+ courses: • 8 new courses • Brand new How to succeed in your new job series for recently qualified planners

04/11/2020 16:25