The Planner - June 2021

JUNE 2021 REPORT: PLANNER LIVE NORTH // p.4 • RTPI AWARDS: // p.8 • PLANNING MINISTER CHRISTOPHER PINCHER // p.24 • PLANNING AS ‘RENAISSANCE DISCIPLINE’ // p.28 • PRESTON’S WINNING LOCAL PLAN MODEL // p.32

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

The path to net zero

ON THE ROUTE TO TRANSFORMING THE WAY WE LIVE OUR LIVES

RTPI Online Events 2021

NEW programme announced

View programme here

In a series of weekly webinars we help planners navigate the current crisis, keep up their CPD and explore the most discussed topics in the profession right now.

The RTPI Online Events series is FREE to members. Non-member tickets cost £25.

We also offer in-depth CPD masterclasses, a National Events Series, awards, regional social events and bitesized training modules on RTPI Learn.

Visit our website for more information.

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CONTENTS

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04 NEWS 4 The key takeaways from May’s Planner Live North conference 8 New model for delivering local plan policies wins RTPI Silver Jubilee Cup 9 Major Edinburgh development set to go all-electric to cut carbon 10 Green light for Cardiff city centre hotel 11 Newsmakers: 10 top stories from The Planner online

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OPINION

“SPATIAL, ECONOMIC AND INDUSTRIAL STRATEGIES HAVE ALWAYS BEEN INTERLINKED, BUT NET-ZERO IS THE NEW ALL-ENCOMPASSING PARADIGM

14 Louise BrookeSmith: plotting a Roadmap to Utopia 16 Adam Scott: Bring back the agora! A new methodology for the future high street 16 Andrew Dowell: London Plan – how reviving industrial land can help to tackle the housing crisis 17 Rebecca Pullinger: Our woodlands are under threat – planning is critical to saving them 17 Mandy Owen: Can the 15-minute city concept survive contact with reality?

QUOTE UNQUOTE

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“WE’RE NOT AVERSE TO A MORE LOCALISED SYSTEM AND ONE OF THE KEY THEMES THAT HAS COME THROUGH [FROM CONSULTATION] IS THE IMPORTANCE OF A MORE LOCALISED APPROACH TO TRIGGER SETTING” CHRISTOPHER PINCHER ON INFRASTRUCTURE LEVY FEEDBACK

FEATURES

INSIGHT

18 The path to net-zero is a revolutionary one and we are walking it, says Robert Shaw

38 Cases & decisions: Development decisions, round-up and analysis 42 Legal Landscape: Opinions from the legal side of planning

24 Planning minister Christopher Pincher explains how he hopes to oversee the move towards a more consensual system 28 Jonathan Smales explains why planning needs to become a ‘renaissance discipline’ 32 Case study: Preston City Council’s award-winning partnership with Hive Land & 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 more about Planner Live North here: http://bit.ly/planner0621-PlannerLiveNorth

PLANNER LIVE NORTH

Redesignating city and town centres Session: Keynote: Clive Betts, Labour MP for Sheffield South East and chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee Clive Betts noted the demand for affordable housing in Sheffield, particularly from families.

There is resistance from people to building on greenfield land, especially those who live near that land. There is derelict industrial land where development would be welcomed, but that has its own difficulties.

Other challenges exist too, such as the impact of Covid-19 on Sheffield's city centre, likewise other city and town centres across the North and the rest of the country.

Changes had

already begun before the pandemic, with the rise of online shopping.

“We are going to have to substantially reconfigure the city centre in Sheffield and many other areas of the North. Land that was initially for retail will need to be redesignated for housing and, of course, that has great benefits bringing people closer to centres, that means less travel, less pollution, less congestion.”

To deal with the challenges associated with high streets, “changing the designation of the odd property from a shop to a home is not going to be sufficient. We are going to have to reconfigure all areas of land in city and town centres to housing, from retail and permitted development of odd properties could actually get in the way of that.”

“CHANGING THE DESIGNATION OF THE ODD PROPERTY FROM A SHOP TO A HOME IS NOT GOING TO BE SUFFICIENT”

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From an analogue to a digital system Session: Political address: Christopher Pincher, housing minister Covid-19, Christopher Pincher said, will have a “very profound effect” on the way lives are lived.

“Planning must be at the forefront of the way we reimagine our towns, our cities and our villages,” he insisted.

On the planning bill, Pincher explained that it comprises a “once in a generation” set of reforms to bring “an analogue system firmly into the digital age”.

He said the best of “PLANNING the current system will MUST BE AT THE be kept, but the changes FOREFRONT will “move us from the OF THE WAY WE blueprints now REIMAGINE OUR mouldering in the TOWNS, OUR basement of many a CITIES AND OUR town hall to a system VILLAGES” empowering communities and freeing the sector from bureaucratic processes, repetitive tasks and legacy software”.

The reforms will “put local people at the heart of planning and give them a role from an early stage, particularly around design” – a “far cry from wading through dense paper-based applications”.

The housing minister believes the reforms will boost Northern England, giving places like Rotherham, Durham and Wakefield, and regions like Teesside, a planning system that “respects very rich heritage”.

Pincher committed the government to ensuring that local planning departments are freed up from repetitive tasks and are “well resourced with the right skills to make creative decisions and take forward ambitious proposals for [their] own communities”.

PLAN UPFRONT

Action must be at scale and adaptable Session: Plenary 1: Planning for Community Resilience and Sustainable Economic Recovery Speakers: Vincent Goodstadt, chair of steering group, UK 2070 Commission Jane Meek MRTPI, corporate director of economic development, Carlisle City Council Bridget Rosewell, commissioner, National Infrastructure Commission Vanessa Rowell, principal planning consultant, Capita Chaired by: Jane Healey-Brown FRTPI, director, ARUP The UK2070 Commission, Vincent Goodstadt noted, is concerned about the persistent failure – by all governments – to address the issues in the North, such as inequality. Action to level-up “must be at scale”. It’s not just about capital investment, it’s about the breadth and size of action as well as “education, full public

services, the foundation economy, soft infrastructure and culture and the environment”.

“Building on our industrial heritage, it is time for the North to seize the opportunity to become a world-class leader in the emerging clean energy sector,” insisted Vanessa Rowell. The freeport designations in Teesside, Liverpool city region and Hull can lead the way, helping the UK’s netzero emissions 2050 target.

Bridget Rosewell (pictured) emphasised the need to be flexible and adaptable, with devolution key to “undermining the inequalities that exist”.

“The way local authorities have to spend their time applying for new funds with new rules and work out what exactly they have to do has to stop. It’s not just about an

amount of money, it is also about how the application process works. We need to give cities the freedom to produce their own systems. If they have that freedom and the resources, they can employ the people who will be able to do it. Don’t tell me that they lack capability, give them the funds to create that capability.”

Jane Meek agreed on the need to be adaptable. She spoke about Carlisle City Council’s plans for St Cuthbert garden village, creating communities that grow “in a better way”, supported by an SPD on design and a local plan underpinned by nine guiding principles starting with the park to “ensure that green infrastructure is delivered early and it’s not just an add on” and locally distinctive but unique buildings to reflect the surrounding area.

Creating resilient towns Session: How to create resilient town centres Speakers: Rebecca Burrows MRTPI, heritage and planning consultant, Purcell Adrian Fisher MRTPI, director of growth and regulatory services, Trafford Council Tom Roberts, principal transport planner-Mott MacDonald Chaired by: Sarah Longlands, director, IPPR North Adrian Fisher focused on planning frameworks, decision-making and delivery.

Noting a tension between the certainty of statutory planning

and the need for flexibility, he sang the praises of “short and succinct” action plans. He also spoke of revitalising the “lost art” of compulsory purchase orders, proposing regional pools of expertise for employing these.

Burrows raised the importance of heritage in town centres, commenting that the more they resemble each other, the more value they lose. With Leeds and

I M AG E S | R I C H A R D G L E E D / N E I L G E N OW E R / T H E H E A D S H OT G U Y

Nottingham as case studies, she noted that the pandemic has accelerated existing trends that “demand new solutions”, but a major overhaul of the planning system during a time of crisis could have “unintended consequences”.

Roberts urged a different outlook on streets. Removal of green infrastructure and replacement of lateral space with car-dominated “racetrack”streets have “chipped away” at streets, he

said. In Liverpool, he noted, a plan to pedestrianise a street was stalling under Covid-19, which made it “essential rather than optional”. Pedestrian dominance means more dwell time, which is better for the local economy.

In the Q&A, speakers were asked whether new PDRs are an opportunity or a threat to town centres. While “well intentioned”, Fisher said, they risked a “race to the bottom”.

For Burrows, PDRs address a symptom, not the problem, which is lack of resources.

Densification is a good thing, Roberts added, but PDR may not be the “best route”.

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NEWS

Report { Streamlined planning may put nuanced consultation at risk, conference hears Session: How to build resilient and engaged communities Speakers: Ciaran Gunne-Jones, senior director, Lichfields Colin Parry MRTPI, community engagement manager, Homes England Abbie Miladinovic, senior planner, Leeds City Council Chaired by: Chris Pagdin MRTPI, manager, Planning Aid England What do the proposals for a streamlined local plan system mean for the future of public engagement on planning?

The government’s vision of a simplified local plan process, with consultation on zoning, a local design code and an infrastructure levy “front-loaded”, all “points towards a very different planning application process from what communities are used to”, noted GunneJones. This “big culture change” would pressure planners to ensure that communities are engaging at the right time with the planning process.

Proposed changes could place more stress on ‘social value’ within planning. Consultation would thus be integral to

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social value assessments as goals could only be set in collaboration with communities themselves.

Miladinovic said neighbourhood planning had taught her two valuable lessons about consultation: it requires upfront investment and it must be ongoing. Trust and confidence takes time, and face-to-face contact, to build.

The proposed increase in the use of digital tools in planning might not be good for engagement as these could reduce the nuance that characterises good engagement. Debate should be in hybrid form, online and off.

Panellists also wondered what role neighbourhood planning would play. “The local plan is now going to be the place where all groups need to put their case forward because there will be less room for manoeuvre in neighbourhood plans and even commenting on planning applications,” noted Gunne-Jones.

“Time frames are going to be shorter than we’re used to. It’s going to be a challenge to get in all views under the new front-loaded local plan system.”

Read more about Planner Live North here: http://bit.ly/planner0621-PlannerLiveNorth

Time to accelerate modal shifts and give connectivity infrastructure equal billing Session: Sustainable Infrastructure for our future needs Speakers: Greg Marsden, professor of transport governance, University of Leeds Henri Murison, director, The Northern Powerhouse Laura Partridge, innovation lead, Innovate UK Chaired by: Martin Read, editor, The Planner magazine Murison championed a move away from roads as the obvious means of driving the north’s decarbonisation requirement, pushing at existing modal shift patterns.

Reduced commuting as a result of Covid-19 should not mean the de-prioritisation of investment in infrastructure, the benefits of Northern Powerhouse Rail remaining obvious.

“Good rail and bus infrastructure is essential to placemaking, essential to bringing people into our cities not just for work, but for their wider social lives.”

Marsden spoke of the recently published sixth carbon budget commitments requiring a third of cuts to emissions coming from travel demand reduction, meaning “really significant shifts in the amount of movement on our road networks,” clearly affecting infrastructure demands.

“Covid doesn’t mean no new infrastructure; some of our public transport infrastructure was incredibly substandard before the pandemic. However, Covid does challenge the idea that the thing that will get us between places faster, or open up markets, is solely physical infrastructure.

“We need now to plan for less car traffic. We need to revitalise public transport, but also need to reevaluate what we're wanting our investments [in infrastructure] to achieve.”

Both speakers referenced the importance of digital connectivity to the future infrastructure mix, while Partridge spoke of digital infrastructure often being a hard sell both politically and economically.

“Quite often, digital and transport are seen in two very different pots, led by different funding streams nationally and locally with different timeframes and different priorities. This needs to change. There's a necessity to take a cross-sectoral and multi-agency collaborative approach. Infrastructure, transport or digital, needs to be tailored to the wider strategic economic visions that regions, places and spaces have.”

PLAN UPFRONT

Want to reach net-zero? Unite, and keep it real Session: Plenary 2: Planning to Tackle Climate Change Speakers: Sarah Davies, director of corporate services, Lancaster City Council Martin Elliot MRTPI, head of strategic planning, Leeds City Council Spencer Powell, principal consultant, LDA Design Catherine Queen MRTPI, CMLI, lecturer, University of Liverpool Chaired by: Bernadette Hillman LARTPI, RTPI Board of Trustees Champion for Climate Change What changes do we have to make to reach the government’s goal of becoming a net-zero carbon society by 2050?

A multi-tiered approach would be vital, said Davies. “No one of us has all of the pieces of the jigsaw, the levers and the powers that we need as local government to act effectively on climate change.”

Only an overarching, climate-centred plan that roams across every area of local government responsibility would create the linkages required to deliver a carbonfree world. This “one plan” would need to be “relatable” to communities.

Elliot, illustrated the challenges of delivering net-zero – in the case of Leeds, by 2030. It had cut its emissions by 40 per cent compared with 2000 by focusing on energy efficiency; further tightening, through active travel networks, locally generated renewable energy and “fabricefficient” homes could extract another 20 per cent.

The remaining 40 per cent would have to come from “significant” innovation and investment, and “massive” carbon sequestration. It would be costly, but “we will have generated jobs, tackled poverty, reduced congestion, enhanced public health.” However, Elliot observed, planners were swimming against the tide

of the NPPF, proposed planning reform and viability rules, which prioritised housing and growth above climate change.

Such lack of alignment was a constant theme: Powell, noted that if planning and transport policy operated in concert, it would be easier to deliver the decarbonised transport systems that would be at the heart of ‘liveable’ places.

For Queen, the vexing divide was between policymakers and communities.

Echoing Davies, she stressed that plans to reshape communities around net-zero carbon targets needed to be “local and relatable” and “place-specific”.

“Think about real life rather than policyorientated statements that alienate people.

People need to feel they are being worked with rather than done to.

“I firmly believe planners have the unique skills to work with a range of other disciplines, and stakeholders to achieve the holistic approach that’s needed."

Consenting the key to keeping sixth carbon budget commitments Session: A planned northern energy approach Speakers: Paul Bedwell, senior director, Pegasus Group Andrew Elmes, head of business development, Siemens Gamesa Professor Joseph Howe, executive director and professor of energy, University of Chester Chaired by: Alex Codd, city economic development and regeneration manager, Hull City Council (pictured) Howe laid it out plainly: The sixth carbon budget target

means statutorily reducing carbon emissions by 70 per cent of 1990 levels by 2035 – a “massive leap” with industrial decarbonisation playing a “monumental role” in achieving net-zero. The North sports six of the UK’s industrial clusters, and they are set to play a big role. Some hydrogen projects could be operational as soon as 2025, consultation exercises now populating the Planning Inspectorate portal as they prepare for the development consent orders. The

first UK ‘hydrogen neighbourhood’ is likely to be in the north of England, with a ‘hydrogen town’ by 2030.

Bedwell spoke of a huge commercial appetite for solar developments in the region and an increase in biomass supply led by a reduction in livestock use, anaerobic digestion combined with battery storage representing a hugely significant repurposing of agricultural.

Elmes celebrated a milestone: on 3 May; the UK’s wind turbines generated 17.6

gigawatts of electricity, more than 50 per cent of the UK’s demand. No time to rest on laurels, though: the sixth carbon budget demands that wind capacity should quadruple within nine years.

Consenting of future projects, said Elmes, will be the challenge. “We're seeing case studies now of projects that may well miss the next auction round because of consenting challenges.”

The danger is of already tested technologies achieving consent while more complex and innovative new solutions struggle.

All agreed that the emerging hydrogen strategy would be hugely significant, and that the north of England was in a “fabulous position” to lead in this arena.

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NEWS

News {

Watch the 2021 RTPI Awards for Planning Excellence

2021 RTPI AWARDS FOR PLANNING EXCELLENCE

New model for delivering local plan policies wins RTPI Silver Jubilee Cup THE WINNERS OF THE 2021 RTPI AWARDS FOR PLANNING EXCELLENCE ARE:

By Laura Edgar Preston City Council has won the RTPI Silver Jubilee Cup for its City Living Strategy, a model for delivering the visions and policies set out in its adopted local plan. The award was presented at the 2021 RTPI Awards for Planning Excellence, held virtually on 29 April.

Working in partnership with Hive Land & Planning, the council created a strategy to de-risk brownfield sites in inner Preston to attract private investment into the city centre.

Between them, the partners developed a range of solutions to overcome barriers to delivering new buildings on the sites. The resulting development is set to bring a wave of housing growth to inner Preston, which partners anticipate will regenerate neighbourhoods.

Preston City Living Strategy won the Excellence in Plan Making Practice category, as well as being commended in the Planning Authority of the Year category. Judges thought the strategy “extremely impressive”, commenting: “The plan and the practice in implementing it is innovative and leading, especially insofar as it is a planning document which seeks to involve itself with the practicalities of delivering development. Additionally, the planners had a proactive approach to addressing a wide range of issues, such as de-risking brownfield sites to attract public and private investment, which is very transferable.”

A case study on Preston appears on page 42 of this edition.

Dyan Currie HonMRTPI, chief

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Excellence in Plan Making Practice Winner: Preston City Living Strategy Submitted by: Preston City Council Commended: Ross-on-Wye Neighbourhood Plan Submitted by: Place Studio

Excellence in Planning for a Successful Economy planner at Brisbane City Council and chair of the judging panel, said Preston City Council’s City Living Strategy “is a worthy winner of the Silver Jubilee Cup”.

“A human rights impact assessment is a unique addition to the strategy, setting a really positive tone for how planning can benefit all in a variety of ways. This project is highly relevant to the ‘levelling up’ agenda for the North and is transferable across the UK.” Cheltenham Borough Council won a special Planning Heroes in a Pandemic Award this year, for acting early and quickly to temporarily relax planning controls and for taking a creative approach to enforcement so the council could support local businesses during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Judges called Cheltenham’s activity “a good demonstration of planning as an enabler and use of temporary solutions to inform the long-term shaping of place”.

Also at the ceremony, Ryan Walker, chartered planning consultant at the Paul Hogarth Company in Belfast, was announced as Young Planner of the Year. The headline sponsor of the RTPI Awards for Planning Excellence 2021 was engineering firm AECOM.

Winner: The BIS Submitted by: Hartlepool Borough Council Commended: Great Central Square Submitted by: Leicester City Council and Marrons Planning Commended: Small Scale Employment Space Local Development Order Submitted by: Somerset West and Taunton Council

Excellence in Planning for Health and Wellbeing Winner: Plymouth Climate Challenge and the Climate Emergency Bonus Submitted by: Plymouth City Council

Excellence in Planning for Heritage and Culture Winner: Illuminated River Submitted by: Montagu Evans LLP Commended: Bicester Heritage Submitted by: Bicester Motion Limited

Excellence in Planning for the Natural Environment Winner: Plymouth Climae Challenge and the Climate Emergency Bonus Submitted by: Plymouth City Council

PLAN UPFRONT

Excellence in Planning to Deliver Homes – large schemes Winner: Great Kneighton Submitted by: Countryside

Excellence in Planning to Deliver Homes – small schemes Winner: North Norfolk District Wide Affordable Housing Strategy Submitted by: Broadland Housing Association

Excellence in Tech within Planning Practice Winner: Planning London Datahub Greater London Authority Submitted by: Atkins Limited

International Award for Planning Excellence Winner: Cape, Torres, and Gulf Economic Opportunities Plan Submitted by: Arup Australia Pty Ltd and Torres Cape Indigenous Council Alliance (TCICA) Inc. (Australia)

In-house Planning Team of the Year Winner: Jacobs (London)

Planning Authority of the Year Commended: Preston City Council Commended: Plymouth City Council

Major Edinburgh development set to go allelectric to cut carbon Real estate company Parabola has signed a multimillion-pound contract with multinational energy company Vattenfall to deliver what will be one of the UK’s largest allelectric property schemes, in this case in Scotland’s capital.

The Swedish-headquartered group is set to provide and operate all the electrical infrastructure at Parabola’s Edinburgh Park Southern Phase scheme where Vattenfall’s distribution network will enable every property at the development to connect to the local grid and use renewably generated power.

This will include nearly 1,800 residential units, 92,903 square metres of commercial office space, as well as restaurants, a health centre, bicycle hub, nursery and EV charging points, all of which will be added to the electrical network as the project is built.

Stewart Dawson, managing director of Vattenfall Networks, said:

“Edinburgh Park Southern Phase provides a fantastic example of decarbonisation in action; where energy companies, developers, architects and investors are coming together to deliver our low-carbon future.

“This initiative puts Edinburgh firmly among the leaders in the race to become the UKs first net-zero city and provides the blueprint for changing the way we heat and power our homes, offices and buildings”.

Tony Hordon, managing director of Parabola, commented: “Working in partnership with Vattenfall ensures that the ambition that we have for Edinburgh Park as an exemplar in terms of the creation and use of energy from renewable sources is realised.

“Parabola is determined to work with a range of partners to ensure that Edinburgh’s goal to be a netzero city by 2030 is achieved.”

Small Planning Consultancy of the Year Winner: Aurora Planning

Planning Consultancy of the Year Winner: Iceni Projects

Planning Heroes in a Pandemic Winner: Cheltenham Borough Council

Young Planner of the Year Winner: Ryan Walker (Northern Ireland), planning consultant at The Paul Hogarth Company, Belfast Commended: Daniel G Wilson (West Midlands), development manager – Hill Group UK, Essex

I M AG E | I STO C K

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NEWS

News { Galway harbour renewal proposals launched

Green light for Cardiff city centre hotel The city council has approved proposals to convert a shopping centre in Cardiff into a 166-bed hotel with food and drink outlets.

Developer Mahavir Properties is behind the scheme at 10 to 25 Queens Street, which used to be known as the Queens West Shopping Centre. The project

involves a part-reconfiguration of the existing grade II-listed building, with the creation of two additional storeys and an external stairwell to provide hotel accommodation.

The developer said several hotel operators were interested in the scheme, including the Hilton and Bespoke chains.

Proposals for a large redevelopment of Galway harbour have been unveiled, which would see a new urban living quarter as well as significant new commercial floor space delivered on on a 7.6-hectare site surrounding the inner dock area.

The Galway Harbour Company is consulting on the scheme,. It involves 130,000 square metres of development, just under 40 per cent of which would be residential.

The development would include a landmark 14-storey building, with most of the rest of the proposals accommodated in buildings from six to eight storeys high. Redevelopment of these inner harbour lands would open up “extensive” waterfront recreation areas and multipurpose public spaces in the city centre, said the firm.

The project, in conjunction with long-standing proposals for port expansion involving 27ha of land to be reclaimed from the sea, currently under consideration by ministers, would expand the city to the water’s edge while future-proofing the port as a transport and renewable energy hub.

Planning apprenticeships ‘essential’ for profession in Northern Ireland Introducing a town planning apprenticeship in Northern Ireland would help the profession to become “genuinely representative” of the society in which it works, says the RTPI. In an open letter to the country’s economy minister, Diane Dodds MLA, the institute insists that the talent coming into the profession needs to be broadened.

It maintains that a degree-level chartered town planner apprenticeship should be considered as part of a “strong, well-resourced planning service delivered through the Department for Infrastructure (DfI) and the 11 councils and supported by private sector planning consultancies”. The letter highlights the degree-level chartered town planning apprenticeship launched in England in 2019, which has had more than 290 apprentices take part in the programme, adding that the development of a level 4 town planning

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assistant apprenticeship may also offer opportunities.

Roisin Willmott FRTPI, director of RTPI Northern Ireland, said: “The RTPI wants to demonstrate that planning is a profession that is open to all, regardless of background and believes that the single most influential way to do this is through the education system. The traditional route to becoming a chartered town planner is via university. However, with this route prohibitive to some in society, the introduction of a degree-level planning apprenticeship is an essential step in creating a truly diverse and inclusive profession.”

Read the letter here: bit.ly/planner0621-NIapprenticeships

I M AG E S | I STO C K

CATCH UP WITH THE PLANNER

Newsmakers Deal required for net-zero homes, says report

The Covid Recovery Commission has urged the government to commit to making all social homes in the UK as energy efficient as possible by 2030 as part of a national deal for net-zero homes – a 15-year pathway to full decarbonisation. bit.ly/planner0621-greenhomes

NI planning regime needs fundamental reforms, say Belfast CC and RTPI

Northern Ireland’s planning system needs radical reform, the province’s largest planning authority has told the DfI. And RTPI Northern Ireland has called for a digitally focused overhaul of the entire planning service and far more resources. bit.ly/planner0621-NIreform

Government seeks 78% reduction in emissions by 2035 The UK Government has set an ‘ambitious’ target to reduce emissions by 78 per cent compared with 1990 levels as it looks forward to hosting COP26 in November. The target will be set in law by the end of June 2021. bit.ly/planner0621-emissions

Major Edinburgh development set to go allelectric and cut carbon

Real estate company Parabola has signed a multimillion-pound contract with multinational energy company Vattenfall to deliver what will be one of the UK’s largest allelectric property schemes – in this case in Scotland’s capital. bit.ly/planner0621-electric

RTPI: Leadership is essential to getting local plans in place

Responding to the Queen's Speech, which featured the anticipated planning bill, RTPI chief executive Victoria Hills said qualified planners installed within all local authorities as chief placemakers is a must. Leadership is essential to ensuring local plans are in place and to "level up". http://bit.ly/planner0621-queensspeech

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Native woodlands in ‘poor’ condition

Woodlands in the UK are “isolated and in poor ecological condition”, with just 7 per cent in good ecological condition, reports the Woodland Trust. It brings together evidence identifying the “catastrophic” threats to trees, flora and fauna. bit.ly/planner0621-nativewoods

Consultation published on mobile phone mast permitted development rights

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The government wants to extend PDRs in England for mobile phone masts to be upgraded for 5G and to improve coverage in rural areas. The rights are intended to minimise the visual impact of masts and cut build time and costs for new infrastructure. bit.ly/planner0621-masts5G

Green light for Cork housing development An Bord Pleanála has given the go-ahead for a large residential development that will see more than 1,000 flats built on a prime docklands site in Cork city’s golden Marina Quarter. bit.ly/ planner0621-Corkflats

7 Key Burry Port regeneration land deal move

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Carmarthenshire County Council is to sell land with outline planning permission for 300 homes at Burry Port harbour. The move to speed up regeneration of the area is being led by Llanelli Waterside, a partnership between the council and the government. bit.ly/planner0621-BurryPort

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University campus relocation is ‘catalyst’ for city centre growth

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The arrival of thousands of students to live in Belfast city centre when the new Ulster University campus opens next year will provide a major catalyst for growth, says Alistair Reid, Belfast City Council’s strategic director of place and economy. bit.ly/planner0621-UlsterUni

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LEADER COMMENT

Event Climate realities put planning in a brighter spotlight For the recent Planner Live North conference – see our report, page 4 – I was invited to chair a session on future infrastructure in the north of England. What struck me about the session, and indeed the general ambience of the wider event, was a sense of planning being on the cusp of a significant uptick in prominence in the national debate.

Infrastructure requirement, housing demand, energy supply – each session had something to remind us that Net Zero looms ever larger on the horizon, the targets in the Sixth Carbon Budget requiring nothing short of a momentous leap forward. When you consider the targets, the sheer scale of these challenges and the decision making can seem intimidating.

The idea, for instance, that the UK can expect to see a four-fold increase in wind turbines within the coming

Martin Read decade may seem fanciful.

But then, massive leaps have already been made in wind power over the past decade, a near doubling in capacity that itself would have seemed outlandish.

Indeed, the scale of renewable energy development over this past decade an extraordinary testament to what can be achieved. Cities have already made impressive cuts in emissions, Leeds for example by 40 per cent by comparison with 2000.

While all such achievements should be lauded, they pale in comparison to the targets now ahead of us. And despite strong evidence of what can be achieved, many consider that the NPPF still seeks to prioritise housing and growth above climate change concerns.

In our reporting of Planner Live North, and in our Legal Landscape pages, you’ll read about where environmental rhetoric comes against the operational reality.

Also this month, planning minister Christopher Pincher talks to us about planners becoming strategists rather than tacticians, and of the need for speed in a technology-enabled and more consensual planning system to come.

It’s possible, of course, to

"THE SIXTH CARBON BUDGET REQUIRES A MOMENTOUS LEAP"

read talk of speeding the system as simply a charter for developers, but perhaps we will also see a newly more engagement- friendly system leading to more light being thrown onto major projects and a wider appreciation amongst the public of their role in the huge shifts ahead of us.

Finally for this month, it’s that now routine request for you to keep an eye out for the web and video links alongside relevant content in our pages. Note too that we add new appeals decisions stories online on most weekdays, with original news and comment published daily on our website.

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J U NE 2 0 2 1 / THE PLA NNER 13

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

Opinion

Roadmap to Utopia Are we looking forward to a summer in the sun with friends and family, sipping sangria by the Med? Or will that be the Solent, if Europe is still a no-go zone and Covid-19 continues to pop up in flashpoints of new variants?

Of course, we will need to make sure our phones are fully charged so we can whip out those digital ‘I’ve been jabbed’ confirmations – those magic little apps that ministers aren’t too sure they want to endorse just yet because of the unspoken fear of Big Brother keeping tabs on us. But in essence, for the luckier, slightly older members of our communities, they will be the ‘passports to normality’; our extra entrance tickets to bars, restaurants, clubs and football matches.

If the roadmap out of lockdown goes to plan, June will see a semblance of life as we knew it. Instead of showing ID to buy cider from the Co-op, we will be encouraged to show waiters the necessary electronic paperwork that says: “We’re safe to spend money in your establishment”. And those eateries need our dosh.

But how many of the old stalwarts of the high street will still be there when we venture out again en masse?

There are some substantial funds being spent to keep shopping centres alive and that money needs to hit home. Pop-up independents, unusual foodie offerings, craft markets and farmers’ stalls will have to see a longer future than a few months while the

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sun shines this summer. I’m sure some of us hope that we will simply slip back into the frenetic barrage of a Saturday afternoon in Primark. But, in reality, will a swift half in our local hostelry return as a natural activity once the novelty of meeting up with friends again wears off?

The pundits are telling us that internet shopping is here to stay and, indeed, the government’s push to make use of revised permitted development rights to ensure that every square foot of high street space is used for something – anything – means the retail offer might be constrained anyway.

And that’s all regardless of the juxtaposition of shoebox accommodation with questionable direct sunlight, emerging from a former Debenhams or John Lewis and sitting next to a late-night bar.

“IT’S TO BE HOPED THAT WE WILL SEE A TRUE SHIFT TO HEALTHIER LIFESTYLES” It’s hard to tell whether we will just slip back into our old ways. But it would be a shame if the positive habits we’ve picked up over the past 15 months disappeared overnight. The regular exercise breaks and taking time to get some fresh air, look at the trees and find breathing space are just some activities that are now part of our daily routines. Common sense suggests they won’t vanish but, hey, when did common sense get the better of peer pressure or commercialism?

Which brings us to the ‘Where would I really like to live?’ conundrum. Should it

be a small, expensive abode in a crowded metropolis where air quality is questionable, open space – if you have it – is a postage stamp at the back of the pavement and noise from the traffic is ever increasing? Or should it be the slightly less extortionately priced unit, a little farther from the centre, with room to breathe? Perhaps also offering space where you could work from home? It’s a no-brainer.

Will the end of lockdown bring us happiness and a return of life as we knew it or will it be a slide back to a dystopia? Yes, the continental holidays or long-haul ventures might be possible again with the right credentials in place. But it’s to be hoped that we will see a true shift to healthier lifestyles, more ethical and sustainable shopping and even a physical move to housing in greener locations and a less pressured commute to city centre offices.

The horrors of Covid-19 will live with us for years, but the positives could help balance things out as we move through 2021 to a utopia of sorts.

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

Quote unquote FROM THE RTPI AND THE WEB

“There is a real need for improved data-led evidence on how digital and manufacturing processes lead to high-quality, more energyefficient housing” JOSEPH DANIELS, CEO AND FOUNDER OF ETOPIA GROUP, RESPONDS TO GOVERNMENT STATISTICS ON THE ENERGY EFFICIENCIES OF NEW-BUILD HOMES.

“We’re not averse to a more localised system and one of the key themes that has come through is the importance of a more localised approach to trigger setting” PLANNING MINISTER CHRISTOPHER PINCHER ON HOW THE WHITE PAPER CONSULTATION COULD LEAD TO LOCALISED VARIATIONS OF THE GOVERNMENT’S PROPOSED INFRASTRUCTURE LEVY.

Volume housebuilders won’t be able to deliver this target on their own; the government needs to support small and medium-sized housebuilders to help meet the target, and also ensure that it delivers on its rhetoric to cut red tape and speed up ‘permission in principle’ for new homes”

“Much of industry is pinning their hopes on planning reform fixing these ridiculous processes but the truth is, there is little evidence to show the government’s bite matches it bark” RICO WOJTULEWICZ, HEAD OF HOUSING AND PLANNING POLICY FOR THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF BUILDERS, IN A SCATHING ATTACK TALKING OF SME AND VOLUME BUILDERS TOO OFTEN TREATED BY PLANNERS AS THE SAME, TO THE FORMER’S RUIN

“Our streets are not equal places, children can’t play out – cycling, wheeling, scooting and walking are dangerous, especially to the citizens most at risk”

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

CLIVE DOCWRA, MD OF PROPERTY CONSULTANCY MCBAINS, ON MHCLG FIGURES SHOWING A FALL IN HOUSEBUILDING STARTS AND COMPLETIONS DURING 2020.

“When you create space for walking, you tackle obesity, inactivity, air pollution, climate change and congestion, all at the same time. For me, walking is a sort of ‘buy one, get one, get five free.”

MARY CREAGH, CEO AT LIVING STREETS, FORMER LABOUR MP, SPEAKING AT AN BECG EVENT ON LOW TRAFFIC NEIGHBOURHOODS

“Nowhere else in the world has the property industry been subject to such punitive measures by a government. The billions of pounds looking to invest in UK real estate will be watching our government’s actions closely as the moratoriums draw to an end at the end of June.”

COUNCILLOR CLAIRE HOLLAND, DEPUTY LEADER OF LAMBETH COUNCIL, SPEAKING AT AN BECG EVENT ON LOW-TRAFFIC NEIGHBOURHOODS

MELANIE LEECH, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF THE BRITISH PROPERTY FEDERATION, ON THE BPF’S CALL TO END THE MORATORIUMS ON EVICTIONS AND OTHER ENFORCEMENT ACTION THIS MONTH (JUNE)

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

Opinion

1 BLOG

2 BLOG

Adam Scott is global creative director and founder of FreeState

Bring back the agora! A new methodology for the future high street

“The high street needs to go back to the birthplace of retail: the agora in Ancient Greece.” – Ross Bailey, retail entrepreneur, Appear Here.

Covid-19 has laid bare inherent fault lines in the disjointed and unevolved high street and town centre: streets based entirely on age-old sales models resulting in streets full of age-old middle-market big-box chains; landlords and tenants with little or no longterm social investment in place and community; offline retail competing on online retail’s terms, birthing a race to a bottom called empty and vacant.

We need a set of mechanisms designed to move us from a shareholder to a stakeholder model for the high street. First, ensure that the regeneration of any high street is framed by a vision that is flexible, commercially astute and socially useful, whereby teams are representative of all stakeholders, work with the community to investigate, design, activate and manage the project, and are contractually invested in its long-term success.

This means empowering local authorities to act on behalf of all. It’s ensuring a much richer mix of leaseholds designed to both fill vacancies in the short term and encourage a richer mix of tenants and experiential retail types in the

long term. It means an oldnew type of owner – one that genuinely operates a triplebottom-line approach, and so understands that being socially useful is one and the same as being commercially astute.

It’s a model that makes for a different calibre of landlord – present, creative, enabling.

As Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council’s epic journey demonstrates, anyone in the business of reinventing the high street faces an uphill struggle.

But the alternative is returning to what we’ve had.

In this respect, Covid-19 is a gift.

It is a worst-case scenario made real. It’s what many a British high street has been facing for 20 years. As such, it’s an opportunity to return to the marketplace of old, to the sensibility of the market trader, to a place of experience, of culture and of commerce. It’s the loss, says CBRE’s Nigel Costain, of the squeezed middle, and the resulting flight to, at one end, the rare, the niche and the pop-up, and at the other, the familiarly local.

It’s the vision and the everyday follow through, as stewarded by the local authority – planning, licensing and regeneration policies aligned. It’s understanding that retail and hospitality form the liveness of our public spaces.

Bring back the agora!

“COVID-19 IS... AN OPPORTUNITY TO RETURN TO THE MARKETPLACE OF OLD”

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Andrew Dowell is a senior planner with Ingleton Wood

London Plan: How reviving industrial land can tackle the housing crisis

A lot has happened since the ‘new’ London Plan began life in October 2016: Brexit, two general elections, the climate emergency and Covid continue to restructure our lives.

But after four years of its own turmoil, the plan was formally adopted by Mayor Sadiq Khan in March. Making London zerocarbon by 2030, protecting the green belt, and a long-term target for 50 per cent affordable homes in new developments are flagship targets. There’s a lot to unpack, from tall buildings to density designs.

Building 52,000 homes a year – downgraded from 65,000 – is the plan’s driving force.

An interesting area to explore is how we can reimagine industrial land to meet housing needs. Directions from the housing secretary in 2020 required the mayor to take a “more proportionate stance” in the balance between protecting industrial land and releasing it to areas with high demand for housing, and to remove the ‘no net loss’ requirement for existing industrial land.

This resulted in policies that seek to ensure that designated industrial sites remain the main source of land for industrial, logistics and

employment functions. But the policies also recognise that such sites can play a key role in tackling the housing crisis.

The removal of the ‘no net loss’ principle and the push for consideration to be given to releasing sites for other uses in higher vacancy areas should both promote greater flexibility.

The fundamental shift of the industrial policies creates opportunities for boroughs to adjust their thinking, and should lead to interesting mixed-use schemes in areas once considered off limits. With a clear masterplan or a plan-led approach, alternative nonindustrial uses could optimise large areas of land.

This could deliver a range of modern intensified employment and industrial uses coexisting with housing, office and town centre needs.

Ahead of the post-Covid recovery, there is scope for boroughs to support mixed-use places where people can live and work. The challenge will be ensuring the land fulfils its allocated role in local plans, but I anticipate innovative thinking between industrial and residential developers, and from new development typologies and delivery modes.

“THIS COULD DELIVER A RANGE OF MODERN INTENSIFIED EMPLOYMENT AND INDUSTRIAL USES COEXISTING WITH RESIDENTIAL, OFFICE AND TOWN CENTRE NEEDS”

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

Rebecca Pullinger is policy advocate at the Woodland Trust

Our woodlands are under threat – planning is critical to saving them

The UK’s woods and trees are an integral part of our toolkit in addressing the nature and climate crises yet they’re facing a barrage of compounding threats that could have catastrophic consequences for them and species within them.

The Woodland Trust’s State of the UK’s Woods and Trees 2021 examines the data behind the health of the nation’s woods and trees and highlights that poor woodland condition, climate change, direct loss and fragmentation, pests, diseases and pollution, and the slow rate of woodland expansion are forming a perfect storm that could spell disaster without action.

Just 7 per cent of the UK’s native woodlands are in good condition.

Everyone, from communities to planners and policymakers, must play a part.

We’re encouraging communities to create new woodlands by giving away free trees. We’re empowering them to fight for their local street trees, to put pressure on councils and housebuilders to provide green spaces on new developments.

We’re enabling councils to develop local tree strategies and get trees in the ground as part of our Emergency Tree Fund. In the first round 12 local planning

4 BLOG

Mandy Owen is a planning associate director with Boyer

Can the 15-minute city concept survive contact with reality?

authorities are benefiting; learning from this pilot process can help us understand how to invest in resources to support tree planting by councils. One of those councils is Sheffield, a great example of a desperate situation being turned round by planners, councils, communities and environmental NGOs coming together to ensure trees are valued for the many benefits they bring.

We want to see central government set legally binding targets for the recovery of nature.

The environment bill must provide the foundation for ambitious, effective and well-funded woodland policies and grants so that landowners and communities can protect, restore and create wildlife-rich, healthy wooded and treed landscapes – in towns, cities and the countryside.

We need a planning system that will protect existing woods and trees, particularly irreplaceable ancient woodland and ancient and veteran trees, and encourage woodland creation in new developments. That planning system also has to facilitate the delivery of local nature recovery strategies. The decline must be reversed and the Woodland Trust stands ready to work with those who want to see that happen.

“WE NEED A PLANNING SYSTEM THAT WILL PROTECT EXISTING WOODS AND TREES, PARTICULARLY IRREPLACEABLE ANCIENT WOODLAND AND ANCIENT AND VETERAN TREES”

The concept of a 15-minute city introduces the idea of ‘living locally’, with communities located within a short walk or cycle of where people can live, work and play.

Several local authorities are taking the idea on board, including Winchester; within its February 2021 draft local plan consultation document, it highlighted its importance in improving sustainability. This is because 15-minute cities cut car dependency and promote more sustainable modes of transport.

Other benefits include greater local interaction and better social cohesion, with communities providing a mix of housing to suit different life stages. The pandemic has made most people cherish their local area more, and the adoption of 15-minute cities has the potential to continue this trend.

It’s challenging to turn an established area into a 15-minute city, but new communities can be formed from the principle, although there will naturally be implications on future site selection. This concept highlights the importance of site location at the outset.

If there are no retail, employment, healthcare,

education or leisure services within 15 minutes’ walk or cycle ride, then the site will not be viewed as sustainable. This has knock-on effects on site viability and limits opportunities for development surrounding villages or urban areas with limited facilities, favouring sites on the edge of cities and towns where services already exist.

If local authorities support the 15-minute idea, it will increase competition on the ‘right’ sites and drive up land prices, to the detriment of small housebuilders.

Another road block is jobs. Prepandemic, key industries chose to agglomerate in city centres to reap the benefits from the concentration of population, services and labour. Covid has also shown that many jobs can’t be done from home.

Is it unlikely that, even with some degree of homeworking, those working in industries that choose to be city centre based will not have the option of living within 15-minutes of their workplace?

This idea is one that UK planning must consider. It will emphasise the importance of local communities and force a re-examination of our car dependency – which can only have a positive impact.

“THE PANDEMIC HAS MADE MOST PEOPLE CHERISH THEIR LOCAL AREA MORE, AND THE ADOPTION OF 15-MINUTE CITIES HAS THE POTENTIAL TO CONTINUE THIS TREND”

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P L A N N I N G FO R N ET - Z E R O

Net

effects THE PATH TO NET-ZERO IS A REVOLUTIONARY ONE AND WE ARE WALKING IT, SAYS ROBERT SHAW. IF WE STAY THE COURSE, WE’LL SEE TRANSFORMATIONS IN TECHNOLOGY, ECONOMY, LIVING ENVIRONMENTS AND THE VERY WAY THAT WE LIVE OUR LIVES

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I L L U S T R AT I O N | PAT R I C K G E O R G E

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P L A N N I N G FO R N ET - Z E R O

A

s we enter the third decade of the 21st century, a picture is emerging of the technologies and infrastructure that will define our lives for generations.

Out of the long shadow of the Great Recession, Covid and structural stagnation comes the prospect of an economy that respects environmental boundaries, is closer to nature and is wealthier as a consequence.

The places that we build from now on will be very different from those of the past. It’s well understood that infrastructure and technology drive the economy; they also determine spatial form and function.

In the 20th century, roads built for vehicles powered by internal combustion engines allowed people to live in places disconnected from where they worked, shopped, or played. Limited telecommunication services meant urban centres and out-of-town commercial areas were economic focal points. Globalised supply chains and transport infrastructure allowed polluting industries to move out of cities, often out of the country. The energy to supply all this was produced centrally in large, remote power stations, gas and oilfields. The watchwords of the 20th century economy were scale and functional separation.

They have served us well. This combination of energy, transport,

binding net zero target, businesses and communications infrastructure, and finance certainly have. and separation of functions, enabled Analysis by CarbonBrief shows 20th century society to address many that since 1990 the UK has already of the ills of the 19th – notably urban used these technologies to reach the overcrowding and pollution – and to halfway point to the 2050 net-zero deliver extraordinary improvements in target. But the second half will not be living standards. easy; it will require transformations But the 21st century faces different in how heat and energy is supplied challenges: achieving net-zero-carbon to homes and energy-intensive emissions within a generation, reversing industries, and removing oil from the biodiversity losses and transforming transport system. public health will not be achieved Rolling out the net-zero through incremental improvements to technologies needed for this will old technologies or by continuing to bring about new separate the human for highworld from nature. These “THE WATCHWORDS opportunities quality jobs, sustainable challenges require a OF THE 20TH growth and new combination and a CENTURY ECONOMY economic improved biodiversity. different mindset.

WERE SCALE AND Estimates by the Green Many technologies we FUNCTIONAL New Deal UK group need already exist and SEPARATION” suggest this could their costs have reduced amount to 2.7 million to such an extent that jobs in the next decade. they are being delivered They will also transform in the form of new how places look and infrastructure (see function, and their interaction with box ‘Free fall’). The growth of solar or our daily lives. battery storage, for example, has barely registered in most people’s consciousness but, as with all exponential growth, it Fit for the next century has reached a certain point and is now Climate policy, technology and exploding into view. shifting attitudes towards nature are This is vitally important for solving driving revolutions in energy, services, the climate emergency, and the effect manufacturing, transport and finance. on towns, cities and countryside will be These in turn will determine this transformational. Regardless of whether century’s infrastructure choices and government has fully appreciated the industrial strategy, and shape land use combined effect of this and the economic decisions. The choices we make will restructuring arising from the legally determine the quality of the places

Free fall: How renewable technology costs are falling Solar PV module prices have dropped in price by 89 per cent since 2010. The UK has nearly 15 gigawatts (GW) of installed PV capacity with more than 13GW of subsidy-free projects in the planning pipeline.

Onshore wind turbine prices have dropped in price by 59 per cent since 2010. The UK has nearly 14GW of onshore wind farms operating and more than 10GW at sea, according to RenewableUK. Many more offshore projects are in the pipeline, with CarbonBrief expecting them to be cheaper

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than gas by 2023.

Battery packs used in vehicles have dropped in price by 89 per cent since 2010. UK installation of utility-scale batteries has reached 1GW, with 15GW in the planning pipeline, according to SolarMedia.

Preliminary data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders shows that sales of battery electric cars and plug-in hybrids accounted for 13.9 per cent of the new car market in 2020, up from 7.3 per cent just a year earlier.

P L A N N I N G FO R N ET - Z E R O

DROP in centre

Drivers

Revolutions

Impacts and opportunities

• Who we are • Technology • Climate control • Ecosystems • A new company • values and beliefs

• Living • Working • Services • Finance • Manufactouring and industry • Movement • Learning and teaching • Shopping and exchange • Relationships with nature

• Urban structure • house types, tenure and location • Centres for exchange • Infastructure (energy, transport, communications) • Workspaces • Public spaces • Buildings • Visability • Grenn infastructure • Agriculture • Industriral processes

DROP is a means to systematically explore how a range of drivers of change are combining with social, economic and environmental revolutions in different ways to create opportunities for change.

Third Revolution Projects has used DROP with Homes England to create a sustainability strategy for its West of Ifield development near Crawley in Sussex. The urban extension will be built over several decades, and the work has demonstrated that to meet future needs and remain a place that people want to live and invest in, Hoems England must first understand how society, the environment and technology are changing. Third Revolution created the DROP conceptual framework to guide the masterplan, infrastructure decisions and sustainability strategy. It is also informing longer-term decisions on delivery and governance.

Starting with analysis of how environmental, economic, technological and social drivers of change are combining with revolutions in how people live, work,

and move about has helped the team understand risks, opportunities and frame priorities.

This provided the conceptual basis for a framework that delivers places that are futre-proofed, commercially successful and low carbon. For example, the research demonstrated that the needs of residents and businesses will be better met in neighbourhoods that: facilitate flexible working and multigenerational living; where most facilities not provided online are within a 15-minute walk or cycle, have infrastructure that

supports integration of low-carbon energy, transport and communication.

These findings have shaped the masterplan and shown the need to think differently about the types of homes, transport infrastructure, neighbourhood structure, and relationship between new development and a town centre in which the traditional retail function is declining.

It is also guiding alternative approaches to delivery: for example, the choice of delivery partner, investment strategy, and Homes England’’s own role in delivery and long-term governance.

we live and work in, and their economic success or failure.

The cost of net-zero energy technology is falling and, as it does so, the ‘backbone’ technologies of our future energy supply are coming into focus. But, as ‘21st century revolutions’ (page 22) explains, it is not a simple and predictable picture of technology X will supply energy quantity Y as and when we require it; rather, the energy supply of the future will depend on a portfolio of technologies working in concert, some cheap, some less so.

Such a portfolio of uses will be space intensive; but, being clean, most can be installed next to people and nature, even offering biodiversity benefits over standard developments. Spatial, economic and industrial strategies have always been interlinked, but net-zero is the new all-encompassing paradigm. Change will happen with or without a strategy, but the

places that thrive will be those that recognise the transformational nature of net-zero and use it to create places fit for this century.

Ignoring these technological and infrastructure changes will lead to spatial plans that prioritise the wrong kinds of infrastructure and land use choices. It will lead to poor decisions when applications are presented to committees and opportunities missed for realising mutual benefits.

Understanding them is therefore crucial, but local plans should not assume that town and country must be replanned around them. More than half a century ago, in the most comprehensive town planning experiment ever attempted, the entire country was replanned around the car. Although this delivered

phenomenal economic growth and helped solve many of the problems of the 19th century, it inadvertently created the problems of this century.

It is not possible to foresee all eventualities but tools such as the DROP framework (above) provide a starting point for spatial and economic planning.

DROP systematically researches the interactions between the economic, social, environmental and technological drivers of change; the revolutions they are bringing about in how we live, work and interact with nature; and the opportunities that arise from these.

There are myriad technologies out there. Some are universally applicable in the new world, but many will be contextual and location-specific. The 21st century evidence-base provided by DROP forms the basis for asking a series of deeper questions aimed at determining the right options for an area, such as: What sorts of places do we want to create?

Are we trying to use new technologies

I M AG E | S H U T T E RSTCOK

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P L A N N I N G FO R N ET - Z E R O

and infrastructure to solve problems while perpetuating dysfunctional ways of living and interacting with the natural environment; or do we want to use them to create places in which people and nature flourish?

Which technologies and approaches will help us achieve ‘win-win-wins’ for communities, places, and nature?

To get more specific: Do we simply want to replicate carbased places using BEVs instead of internal combustion engines, or do we want places in which most facilities are within an easy 15-minute walk or cycle?

How do we use the increasingly interdependent energy, transport and communications systems to conceive of different land use patterns?

Do we continue separating clean energy infrastructure, such as solar farms, from green infrastructure and the natural environment, or do we plan them as part of a system?

How do public, private and community sector roles differ by scale, technology or infrastructure types, and by their need to integrate multifunctional uses within and beyond individual projects?

The starting point is to accept that net-zero drivers of changes will revolutionise every aspect of society and economy and result in quite different spatial choices. The specific questions we ask – and the answers we get – will ultimately be place-specific, considering landscape capacity, history, culture, ecology, geology and, of course, resources.

This is where planning is so important.

21st century evidence bases that understand the core drivers of net-zero legislation, that will hold government’s feet to the fire and demand long-term thinking, and the myriad energy, transport, and communications technologies that are emerging will lead to spatial plans that support prosperous communities and healthy environments.

Those plans are how conflicts between uses can be managed, quality can be designed in and mutual benefits achieved from infrastructure projects.

In these times of dramatic technological and social change, all our institutions are having to adapt. Planning is no exception.

History shows that planning is most relevant at times of great change; those involved need to step up to the challenge.

Rob Shaw is managing director of Third Revolution Projects, a town planning, future thinking and sustainability consultancy

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21st century revolutions ROB SHAW SURVEYS WHAT PRESENT GROWTH AND DEPLOYMENT IS TELLING US ABOUT THE FUTURE OF ENERGY SUPPLY AND CONSUMPTION, AND THEIR POSSIBLE RAMIFICATIONS FOR OUR LIVING SPACES

A

s the cost of net-zero technology goes down, so does the price of its implementation, leading to virtuous cycles reinforced by innovation.

However, not all the net-zero technologies will share such characteristics.

Wind, solar and battery storage, supported by demand management, are becoming the backbone of energy systems by virtue of having no fuel costs, scaleability and global suitability. Heat pumps and electric vehicles could follow similar paths.

Nuclear, wave, tidal and district heating face challenges which may keep them marginal. Nuclear is expensive, burdened by delays, lack of standardisation, stop-start policy support, and high waste management and decommissioning costs. Wave and tidal could be

invaluable in some locations, as could hydro and district heating, but none is sufficiently scalable and universal to achieve the low costs of the backbone technologies. They are still important: if the backbone technologies can serve most of an economy’s energy needs cheaply, then it probably doesn’t matter if the final 20 per cent needed to cover grey windless days is expensive.

Electrification of transport should secure significant emissions reductions this decade. Innovative business models from companies with access to cheap capital are starting to offer factory built zerocarbon homes and area-wide utility and mobility services, all connected by the internet of things. But to reach net-zero, buildings will need to be brought up to the highest energy standards. This will be disruptive, requiring mobilisation

Wind energy will be the backbone of energy supply; electric vehicles are clean but do not reduce congestion

of capital, innovation and policy. But it will also deliver the economic boon of exceptionally large numbers of low and high-skilled jobs – and no geographic bias.

Electrification of home heating will need to accompany energy efficiency.

Technologies behind heat pumps are advancing, but they are still better suited to already efficient buildings. If retrofit efforts are only partly successful, then alternatives like district heating will also be needed to distribute heat from local energy centres Electrification of industrial processes, combined with green hydrogen made from renewable electricity, is next in line. As renewable generation becomes cheaper they will ultimately offer more attractive returns than the alternatives.

Biodiversity gain The backbone technologies of wind and solar are making energy systems supply-

led – in that generators supply power when it’s windy or light rather than in response to demand – which presents challenges for an economy reliant on secure energy supplies.

Batteries and real-time demand management address this to some extent, but a fully functioning zero-carbon system requires a portfolio of sources that generate at different times of day and year; and will need some of the more expensive options described above.

This decentralised system is also spacehungry and will often be close to people rather than concentrated in distant power stations with fuel supply spread across the planet. With growing demand for land for housing, infrastructure, agriculture and nature, continuing to separate uses will not always be possible or even desirable.

Renewables can be space hungry, but they are clean, so developments can be combined with improvements to biodiversity and access to nature. Solar farms are often criticised for displacing farmland, when in reality many incorporate grazing land and can provide remarkable improvements in biodiversity.

Natural England’s Biodiversity Net Gain tool typically shows habitat and hedgerow gains of several hundred per cent. But it can be taken further. Agrivoltaics introduces several crop varieties, with solar photovoltaics positioned on frames over the top. Hydraulics allow the panels to move automatically to provide shade, light and protection.

Achieving even a modest biodiversity net gain is a big challenge for many residential and commercial developments. The emerging markets for biodiversity net gain credits, combined with proximity to energy generation, present exciting opportunities for colocated housing, industry and renewables, where gains in one benefit the others.

Strategic planning can help to realise

these multifunctional benefits.

Renewable energy generation will transform global industrial geography.

Since the first industrial revolution, coal, oil and gas have been extracted in situ and transported in a globalised supply chain.

The location of manufacturing facilities has been determined by where the cost of labour, energy and transportation is lowest. In a world where ultra-cheap solar and wind generators are the energy mainstays, manufacturing processes are automated and additive manufacturing (3D printing) reduces the need for scale, the drivers of labour and transportation become less important relative to energy costs and availability. The incentive to offshore manufacturing facilities will reverse and, as energy intensive industries become electrified, they will be attracted to countries like the UK with abundant resources. Those areas of the country close to offshore wind connections will be well placed to benefit from this trend.

Additive manufacturing could also transform construction. Many limitations of off-site manufacture, particularly the high cost for smaller projects on constrained sites, could be overcome by on-site manufacture using mobile facilities, while achieving high-quality, energyefficient buildings delivered at speed and with fewer vehicle movements.

For transport, battery electric vehicles (BEVs) are clean, but do little to cut congestion. Indeed, future autonomous vehicles could lead to towns overwhelmed by cheap on-demand private transport.

Even without this, BEV infrastructure could lead to poor-quality spaces. Provision for BEVs needs to be considered alongside modal shift to avoid perpetuating congestion and car dependency.

Developers will be aware that allowing electricity demand to meet unconstrained heating and transport needs will lead to problems with development viability.

Flexible working resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic presents an opportunity by reducing the pressure of daily commuting. People will be looking for more from their local centres and the 15-minute community. They will want flexible workspaces supported by facilities more typically confined to town centres now. Homeworking during the pandemic has shown the benefits of better equipped local centres that can be reached by foot as well as car.

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INTERVIEW: CHRISTOPHER PINCHER

TRANSITION M AN AS THE GOVERNMENT’S WHITE PAPER PROPOSALS EDGE TOWARDS THE LEGISLATION STAGE, HOUSING AND PLANNING MINISTER CHRISTOPHER PINCHER TELLS MARTIN READ HOW HE HOPES TO OVERSEE THE INTRODUCTION OF A MORE CONSENSUAL AND LESS ADVERSARIAL SYSTEM

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ne thing I hope I’ve brought and will continue to bring to this role is the experience of managing a transition,” says Christopher Pincher, who prior to politics worked for the management consultancy firm Accenture .

“So, the transformation we will undertake – from the present planning system to the new – will be as short and as smooth as possible, while recognising that it’s not going to be done overnight.”

It’s a particularly busy time for the housing and planning minister, who has nevertheless managed to find a 30-minute slot in his schedule to speak to us. He is assessing consultation responses to Planning for the Future while defending in Parliament the government’s contentious decision not to help leaseholders left with bills for cladding as a result of its fire safety bill. In the brief time between our interview and The Planner going to press, the intent for new planning legislation was announced via the Queen’s Speech – including a new measure to simplify and enhance the framework for environmental assessments for developments – while Pincher himself spoke at the RTPI’s Planner Live North event.

Pincher is confident that, when they become law, the government’s new planning rules – underpinned by an enabling technological revolution – will transform the sector for those who practise within it.

Of the consultation, he talks of taking on board feedback about funding the newly digitalised system, maximising engagement and how the proposed new infrastructure levy will eventually work. With the latter, local variation is the hot topic.

“We said we are proposing a national standard, a national trigger, but that we were not averse to having a

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INTERVIEW: CHRISTOPHER PINCHER

more localised system taking into account local markets and geographies; and one of the key themes to come through is the importance of a more localised approach to trigger setting,” Pincher explains.

“We recognise that we need to capture land value based upon its developable value, to ensure that proper value accrues to local authorities. The trigger points for what that value should be could potentially differ in local authorities because of different markets. And that ought to ensure that land value locally can be properly captured at its optimum, translating into affordable rental housing or other appropriate infrastructure that the local authority thinks is necessary to support housing.”

As for zoning, Pincher is tight-lipped about specifics but allows that government is “thinking carefully around the nature of zoning”, with more work going into defining the proposed renewal zone.

“There’s been a lot of feedback on what we were getting at with the renewal zone – a difficult and possibly nebulous concept to get your arms around, so we’re going to think very carefully about how that might more effectively meld into regeneration, particularly when you’re looking at bigger inner-city spaces, some bigger town centre spaces where you’ve got to do more road mapping and masterplanning.”

Digital revolution Key to so many of these reforms is a fundamental change to the technology

underpinning the new Engagement “I PERSONALLY planning system. fully digitised system THINK WHAT WE’RE Abased It’s here where Pincher on map-based plans PROPOSING HAS evokes his former life in will, Pincher contends, THE OPPORTUNITY be far more engaging and management consultancy OF TRANSFORMING accessible to the public, and for Accenture, where THE WAY he worked for 18 years indeed “a system which PLANNERS DO and during which time engages the public much THEIR JOB, information technology was more broadly and widely MAKING THEM “my bread and butter”. than the present one does” STRATEGISTS In particular, how has been another theme RATHER THAN does government settle to emerge from the white TACTICIANS” on a system that is both paper consultation. Pincher sufficiently standardised to concedes there is much allow for comprehensive work here to be done. roll-out yet protected from “Right now just 3 per changes in technology? cent of people get involved “I wouldn’t claim I’m an expert in the in individual planning applications, and latest march forward in IT,” Pincher says, that falls to as few as 1 per cent of the local “but if you’re able to use open-source data, population when it comes to plan making. if you are clear about the standards which It’s a very, very small number of people.” you expect, I think you can build a system Pincher expects the government’s which will do the job we require it to do.” map-based plan tech approach to be “The present system uses technology in transformative, expanding the planning a sense, but it really is digitalising paper system’s natural reach. in PDF form. That means the system is When I ask about how the new system pretty unnavigable and time-consuming might better engage with a non-resident for professionals in local authorities and population, he is enthusiastic about indeed in PINS; it is a very clunky system.” the possibilities.

Pincher emphasises that local “I’m not trying to get ahead of myself authorities will be involved in the process here, but you can imagine a day when of determining this new digital future. a lot of this stuff can be on your phone.

“We’re not proposing at all to invent That should be much more engaging and this in a Petri dish without local authority accessible to the people you’ve mentioned, involvement; we need pathfinder the more transient population. There’ll authorities who can help us with that work be opportunities as a result of these to digitise their systems.” proposals and the digitalisation to get more people involved, and that can only be to the benefit of a final plan and the community’s buy-in to it.”

High streets We talk about the regeneration of high streets, where recently introduced new PDRs allow for more residential development. Doesn’t this put the vibrancy, and indeed the essential purpose of a high street, under threat?

“We have to recognise that over the past 30-odd years local high streets have had a triple whammy,” says Pincher.

“Out-of-town shopping centres creating a draw away from traditional town centres… the Amazon effect… and now Covid. We need more people living in them, and one reason we’re introducing PDRs is to try to get more people living in town centres as they used to when people literally lived above their shops.

INTERVIEW: CHRISTOPHER PINCHER

C U R RI CU L U M V I T AE

Christopher Pincher Born: Walsall, West Midlands Education: London School of Economics; reading history Career highlights

1993

Management consultant with Accenture, working in industries from retail to financial services

2010

First elected as Conservative MP for Tamworth

2011

Member of the Armed Forces Bill Committee

2010 - 2015

Member of the Energy and Climate Change Committee

2016

Assistant Whip

2017

Comptroller of HM Household

2018

Government Deputy Chief Whip

2019

Minister of State at the Foreign Office for Europe and the Americas

2020

Minister of State at the Ministry of Housing and Planning

Local perspectives Christopher Pincher has been MP for the West Midlands constituency of Tamworth for 11 years.

I wonder what local activity he looks at with fresh eyes now that he’s planning minister.

“There’s not much space left to build,” he says of Tamworth. “The thing I’ve noticed more are the brownfield site opportunities there are

and how I think PDR opportunities can benefit a town like mine to more gently densify, which in turn will take the stress off what green areas there are – we don’t have much green belt in Tamworth.”

The importance of supporting local infrastructure has also become clearer.

“If we are going to

“We need people in town centres so that they can become leisure spaces as much as retail spaces. The PDR toolkits, which since 2015 have resulted in something like 60,000 additional units, [together with] the changes that we’ve made to allow demolition and rebuild, easier switching of uses – with controls like defined footprint sizes and vacancy tests – will ensure that where you have a vibrant town centre or shopping space, we’re providing more people to live in those areas.”

Planners as chief placemakers?

Pincher talks of planners being capable of fulfilling the newly created roles of chief placemakers, but also of other potential inhabitants of the role, other users of a place with “skin in the game”.

He refers me to the work of Create Streets director and chair of the Building Better Building Beautiful Commission Nick Boys Smith, who is now leading on the role’s implementation and the way chief placemakers will interact with the government’s proposed Office for Place.

And he talks of planners being allowed to be “much more strategic”.

“I personally think what we’re proposing has the opportunity of transforming the way planners do their job, making them strategists,” argues Pincher, “rather than being piecemeal administrators of the present system, where you deal with things as they come along and have to administrate them through a rather laborious process.”

“My message to someone thinking

develop homes of significant number, and we can do that here outside of Tamworth borough, then making sure the infrastructure is there to support those new developments is very important. Getting the infrastructure levy right is something I have seen with more open eyes over these last 15 months.”

about going into planning is that you’re going to have a toolkit which will give you a fantastic fulfilling career as a planner, and as a strategist. And you’ll have the space, because of the digital programs we want to introduce, to do that kind of design work rather than have your day filled with too much tactical administration.”

Looking to the future It’s an optimistic parting message. How, I wonder, has his opinion of the profession changed since he took on the role?

“There are many things that have stuck with me, but one is the time it takes to make serious and meaningful change; the remarkable amount of time and patience that’s required in planning to do the job that has to be done.”

Ultimately, Pincher is confident of overseeing the introduction of a planning system whose speed will in turn reduce potential conflict.

“I’ve learned how adversarial development has become over a period of years, he tells me. “I think that’s partly the product of the system as it has developed over time. And what I would hope, with a system which is more map-based, simpler to navigate and more engaging for communities, is a system which is more consensual.

I hope that, when I finally move on to do other things, the system we have built and implemented will be far more consensual and far less adversarial.” n Martin Read is editor of The Planner

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refrigeration and food waste; he incomparable American social n – dependency on cars and the transition to philosopher Lewis Mumford once wrote electric vehicles, including the extra demand that “When cities were first founded, an for renewable energy and the need for charging old Egyptian scribe tells us, the mission infrastructure, meanwhile noting that for every of the founder was ‘to put the gods in electric car seventeen SUVs were sold last year their shrines.’ The task of the coming city is not meaning that average emissions per vehicle have essentially different: its mission is to put the highest been on the rise since 2016; concerns of man at the centre of all his activities.” n – the miserable failure to find a way to make the So what are the highest concerns of humankind? existing housing stock energy efficient; The great American essayist Wendell Berry speaks n – the need to reform farming, change our diets, of health, pleasure and freedom, adding that it is improve soils for carbon absorption, and re-forest preposterous to believe these can be gained – still huge tracts of Britain, planting millions of trees. less sustained – in a diseased world.

To meet these imperatives and shape the And we do now live in a diseased world: the productive and sustainable circular economy we prevalent systems of economy, industry, of human urgently need, planning must obtain the status, settlement, of farming – even of ways of living both powers, financial and other support to transform our individually and as cultural norms – are ill at ease spatial geography and infrastructures, retrofit homes with the climate and the living world we share the and build new ones. planet with.

Since we might still call it Following Joe Biden’s ‘town and country planning’, election, a surge in the PLANNING SHOULD BE it must also serve to increase Green vote in Germany and INTEGRAL TO EFFORTS access to nature, oblige smarter elsewhere in Europe, and the farming practices, grow blue UK government’s hopefully TO SAVE THE PLANET, and green infrastructures and beyond-rhetoric enthusiasm SAYS JONATHAN SMALES. massively extend and enhance for ‘Build Back Greener’, valuable habitats, regenerating November’s climate change BUT FIRST IT NEEDS TO the living world around us. summit in Glasgow – COP26 – BECOME A ‘RENAISSANCE The scope is national, takes on renewed significance. bio-regional, city, town, It’s starting to feel like it might DISCIPLINE’, ONE IN neighbourhood and village. It’s have traction and not just be WHICH ITS PRACTITIONERS no small task and, therefore, another talking shop. as American urban designer At the risk of playing to RADICALLY CHANGE THE Daniel Burnham observed, we the crowd, town and country WAY THEY PRACTICE THEIR must “make no small plans”. planning always was an David Partridge, senior important profession. In a PROFESSION partner at developer Argent climate emergency – yes, once told me that the Greta’s right, our house challenge is no longer “How really is on fire – it has new can the planet support our lifestyles, but what imperatives and must become a renaissance lifestyles can the planet support?”. discipline[itals] ; not just a profession but a supreme Spatial geography, major infrastructures, the political craft, too. It’s time for a step change. A design of land uses and places, of streets, blocks global climate out of control and the alarming loss and plots, has a critical influence on how we live as of biodiversity are existential threats and there is no well as the quality of our everyday lives. How easy role for business as usual. or otherwise is it to use renewable energy, live in Shifting from coal to gas got Britain off to a flying an energy efficient home, shop locally, eat local, start in the reduction of greenhouse gases, but we seasonal food, walk, cycle? have now arrived at the tough stuff including: Sustainability guru John Elkington, known n – the super-rapid roll-out of offshore and onshore for his work on the ‘triple bottom line’ of social wind, solar and biogas energy generation (nuclear and environmental, as well as economic, being too expensive and slow) and the provision of accounting, wrote in Green Swans about the local grids and battery stores in support of these; need for “exponential sustainability”. Elkington n – embodied carbon-accounting which is not and colleagues at Volans argue for ‘10x thinking’: included in our national carbon emissions so we are multiple and cumulative improvements in the effectively exporting climate change accountability performance of everything that impacts on climate to other producing countries; and nature, leading to a tenfold improvement. n – farming, food processing, packaging,

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FUTURE PLANNING

“Ultimately, any true green swan will help – simultaneously – to regenerate the natural, social and economic worlds. An existentially taxing, civilisational task. But we have left ourselves no alternative.

The upside is that, for the foreseeable future, this will be by far the biggest opportunity for adventure, growth, and evolution in the tightly coupled stories of humankind, capitalism, and our home planet, Earth.”

John Elkington, writing in Green Swans

It requires what Volans calls, “breakthrough business models”. It is not for the faint-hearted, nor for anyone who does not want to live on the planet as if they intended to stay.

Exponents of the exponential Exponential sustainability has no prospect of success without planning. By planning I don’t just mean making more plans – what many suspect is the default habit of public bureaucracies. I mean growing our capacity to create meaningful plans, to engage with key stakeholders, to take people on the journey, to build trust to underpin big decisions, to grow strategic capacity to execute plans with appropriate governance, expertise and processes.

We need to revolutionise our ability to govern firmly but elegantly and wave goodbye to the lame developer-and-highways-charter modern planning has become, producing stale, cookie-cutter homes in places devoid of character, still less beauty, or meaningful sustainability. Planning has literally been killing the planet. Now it must help mend it.

But there is a nettle that needs to be grasped: planning carries leaden baggage. It is in some ways the antithesis of a political and economic worldview that theologically needs ‘the market’ – that miraculously uninhibited and assuredly wise allocation of free-market capital – to be seen to lead the way in most if not all things.

Even if we could shake off images of Soviet tractor factories and five-year plans, of the painful truths of Yes Minister and memories of the crass overreach and appalling judgement of New York’s ‘master builder’ Robert Moses and his mini-me’s in many British towns and cities, it is self-evident that planning has allowed havoc to be wreaked.

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“WE DO NOW LIVE IN A DISEASED WORLD: THE PREVALENT SYSTEMS OF ECONOMY, INDUSTRY, OF HUMAN SETTLEMENT, OF FARMING ARE ILL AT EASE WITH THE CLIMATE AND THE LIVING WORLD”

It has contributed grandly, if perhaps unwittingly, to the climate and living world emergencies, spawned cardependency, and smeared banality across our revered green and pleasant land, all while nonetheless failing to provide enough good homes to house us well. Conceding that planning has bad form is a prerequisite to its rebirth.

We’ve just not been very good at it.

So, what’s to be done?

Given how fast we need to move to arrest catastrophic climate change and adapt to its inevitability, all while regenerating the natural world and reducing gross inequality (without which we cannot succeed with either of the aforementioned goals), what must planning be and do?

On the opposite page are ten essential actions that, I think, planning and planners must pursue. n Jonathan Smales is founder and chief executive of Human Nature, a campaigning business that aims to create “exceptionally sustainable developments, places and communities”, and a former managing director of Greenpeace.

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FUTURE PLANNING Human Nature’s proposed Little Haldens scheme aims to be “the greenest and most elegant new place in England”

Rebirth and regeneration: The 10 imperatives for town and country planning models of deliberation, exciting design; empower and enthuse, as if we were successful businesses.

4

1

Smash the silos. Regenerate planning under Joanna Averley nationally and combine with the National Infrastructure Commission, Climate Change Commission, Natural England, Design Council/CABE, public health to create a new Place, Infrastructure, Nature and Climate Change Department (PINCC). Add, transport, too, and mirror this national change at the local level.

Integration of function is essential.

2

Values, purpose and principles. We need to create and distribute understanding of climate change and natural emergencies among elected representatives and public servants to match those in the upper echelons of business. There are encouraging signs that business has begun this transition of purpose and capacity; the public sector has a far more complex task but is nonetheless lagging behind.

3

Engagement. Voters and local citizens are our customers.

Let’s engage them, using

Establish the Remarkable Places Transition programme. Set up an equivalent of the French Ecole Nationale d’Administration at our finest universities, a blend of public service MBA, development economics, political economy and design, governance and process, team building skills and personal development.

Politicians, community leaders, developers, engineers, designers, agents and business leaders in the built environment should pass through a wider range of accessible programmes. This will grow common values and purpose, destroy silos and generate the capacity to deliver change at speed.

5

Hire more city and local planning authority architects and urban designers. Great places have great designers; they don’t ‘design’ everything, of course, but plant the seeds for organic change that cumulatively becomes massive. Who is the Jan Gehl of Birmingham, the Jane Jacobs of Leicester?

6

Green the hell out of cities.

American environmental writer Stewart Brand said: “Let’s green the hell out of cities so that we can protect what is left of the countryside.” He might have said regenerate the countryside but otherwise he’s got to be right. Let’s begin radical greening of streets, roofs, parks, waterways, homes, energy infrastructure and more.

7

Carbon and environmental accounting in all local plans.

Once highways departments have been integrated with planning and design functions, we must introduce Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) accounting for all plans and in annual reviews. This is what the best businesses do; it is what all public authorities must now do.

8

Total footprint. SDG accounting must incorporate total and lifecycle carbon and environmental footprinting. It is no longer enough to think only or even primarily about settlement pattern connectivity and ‘good design’.

We must examine and consider embodied carbon in the materials we use, the food we eat and waste, the products we consume. “We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us,” said Winston Churchill. How much more true is this of place?

9

The carbon bonus. Introduce a bold carbon tax tied directly and explicitly, via hypothecation, to fund reinvented places, homes, transport and renewable energy generation. A Green New Deal indeed.

10

The walkable neighbourhood. Made fashionable by Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo as ‘la ville de quart d’heure’, the walkable neighbourhood with its accessible, close-grained mix of uses is key to exponential sustainability.

Walking and cycling are the new alpha means of movement: social, colourful, inherently clean, good for health, good for community and great for city commerce.

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CASE STUDY: RTPI AWARDS

Preston was named the UK’s most improved city in the 2018 Good Growth for Cities Index

AN URBAN AWAKENING A RESOURCEFUL APPROACH TO UNLOCKING DIFFICULT SITES AND ATTRACT NEW INVESTMENT INTO PRESTON CITY CENTRE IS PAYING OFF HANDSOMELY, THANKS TO AN AWARD-WINNING PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN PRESTON CITY COUNCIL AND HIVE LAND & PLANNING. MATT MOODY REPORTS

Award: Silver Jubilee Cup and Excellence in Plan Making Practice Winner: Preston City Living Strategy Submitted by: Preston City Council and Hive Land & Planning

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In 2011, Preston was at a crossroads.

Since 2000, the council had been planning a regeneration of the city centre that it hoped would stem its post-industrial decline. But in the aftermath of the financial crash, the £700 million project collapsed, leaving the city to bear the brunt of austerity without a crucial coveted Silver Jubilee Cup for its City source of inward investment.

Living Strategy (CLS), created in partDespite these challenging circumnership with the consultancy Hive Land stances, the 2010s saw a dramatic rever& Planning. sal in Preston’s fortunes as it was named the UK’s most improved city in the 2018 THE DOUGHNUT EFFECT Good Growth for Cities Index. Much Since the low point of 2011, the counhas been made of the council’s applicil has worked to build a robust policy cation of community wealth-building framework formed of the Preston Local principles to the local economy – an Plan 2012-2026, the Central Lancashire approach now widely Core Strategy 2012, and the known as the ‘Preston Preston City Centre Area model’ – but its planning Action Plan.

"OFTEN THOSE department has also An urban extension to CONVERSATIONS played a huge role in the the north-west of the city, CAN START TO city’s resurgence. partly underpinned by UNLOCK THINGS. This year, the team was ONCE YOU’VE GOT A more than £400 million in recognised at the RTPI DIALOGUE GOING, A infrastructure funding proAwards, taking home the LOT CAN BE DONE" vided through the Preston,

CASE STUDY: RTPI AWARDS

W H AT T H E JUDGES SAID “The planning team who worked on the Preston City Living Strategy have taken a proactive approach and have acted beyond boundaries to make positive and impactful improvements to the city,” said the judges of the RTPI Awards for Planning Excellence as they awarded the Jubilee Cup for overall winner to Preston and Hive.

“The team introduces innovative mechanisms to involve and engage with the local community, as well as de-risking the deliverables. The human rights impact assessment is a unique addition to the strategy, that leaves no one behind, setting a really positive tone for how planning can benefit all in a variety of ways. This project is highly relevant to the levelling up agenda for the North and the experience is transferable across the UK. The judges applauded this project as an exemplary case of innovative planning and a worthy winner of the Silver Jubilee Cup.”

quickly on this", says Crellin, "and as a small team, that meant we needed external capacity.”

BREAKING BARRIERS

South Ribble and Lancashire City Deal, led to a “huge upswing” in the number of homes being delivered in the city’s outer areas – but the job wasn’t done yet, says Stuart Sage, director at Hive.

A ‘doughnut effect’ emerged, where development of a number of allocated brownfield sites in the city centre had stalled even as suburban Preston was booming, leaving “a real risk that the policies and vision of the local plan would remain undelivered”.

There was recognition within the planning department that a more proactive approach would be needed to tackle the problem, says John Crellin, assistant director at Preston City Council and head of city growth and regeneration. But as a district council in a

two-tier authority area, the department was limited on budget and capacity.

Fortunately, conversations with the Homes and Communities Agency (later replaced by Homes England) about how to approach the problem coincided with the agency’s housing zones initiative, introduced by then-housing secretary Eric Pickles in 2014, which allowed local authorities to bid for funding to develop brownfield sites.

Housing zone status for inner Preston was secured in 2016 with an initial aim of delivering seven stalled sites, bringing with it £165,000 in capacity funding.

This funding enabled the council to form its award-winning partnership with Hive. “We needed experience and knowledge at a high level to deliver

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The partnership built on the success of the inner Preston housing zone, with the award-winning City Living Strategy (CLS). Identifying 48 residential sites in the city centre with a capacity of 3,500 new homes, the team undertook detailed site analysis to create a comprehensive evidence base. The CLS provides a model for council-led interventions that de-risk development and accelerate delivery, including brokering agreements between landowners and developers, and providing advice on technical and planning matters. In short, it’s about identifying problems and using targeted intervention to “break down the barriers” to delivery.

At one site, Crellin recalls, the identified issue was land value. “The landowner had a completely unrealistic expectation of the value of the site, and as a result development of it had stalled for years – decades, almost.”

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5.5 MILLION SQUARE FEET To put that into context, that equates to the creation of approximately 6,700 new jobs*.

In 2020 we secured planning consents for more sq ft than ever before.

So, to you; the consultants, the local authorities, the landowners and the countless others that gave us their support, helping us secure consents for over 5.5 million sq ft, we would like to say, ‘thank you’. *HCA Employment Density Guide November 2015, 3rd Edition

BO TOGETHER BO CLEVER

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06/05/2021 11:32

CASE STUDY: RTPI AWARDS The Exchange, Pole Street

LIVING IN THE CITY Three of the best Preston city centre developments enabled through the City Living Strategy.

Cannon Street – developed by FCD Planning consent was secured in March 2021 for a range of one and two-bedroom apartments, with the top floor to be converted into a luxury penthouse. The block will also benefit from additional amenities and outside space, such as balconies and terraces. It is anticipated that the new homes will be completed by this autumn.

The Exchange, Pole Street – developed by Heaton Group Planning permission has been granted for 200 high-quality apartments. The development will deliver a mix of one and two-bed apartments and ground-floor commercial space in a newly constructed building extending up to 15 storeys.

Development began in April 2021.

Union Lofts, Guildhall Street – developed by Etc Urban Developments In the heart of the city, this project is close to the historic Winckley Square and has planning consent for 18 apartments. The project has been successfully delivered with all the apartments sold.

An interior at Union Lofts, Guildhall Street

The team intervened by commissioning some valuation work at the site (with the landowner’s permission), which fed back a more realistic figure, before introducing a developer and brokering a conversation. The intervention was a success, and development is scheduled to begin later this year.

Often the solution lies in “providing enough confidence and direction for the two parties to work together”, says Crellin. “It’s about getting out there, finding out what the issue is, and asking if the council can help. Sometimes the answer is no, but often those conversations can start to unlock things. Once you’ve got a dialogue going, a lot can be done.”

WORKING IN PARTNERSHIP The team also received praise for distilling its list of potential sites into a

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priority shortlist and creating a ‘CLS prospectus’, detailing potential development opportunities, along with any assistance it could offer.

“When time is precious and resources are precious, knowing where to focus and what to prioritise is key,” says Sage.

The prospectus was launched via webinar in October 2020, with more than 100 attendees that included developers, landowners and registered providers.

“Lots of local authorities announce that they’re open for business, and then the trail goes cold… with the prospectus, we’re able to say to potential investors: ‘If you want to invest in Preston, these are the sites’. It sounds obvious, but it’s been really important.”

Partnership with the private sector has proved crucial to the success of the CLS so far. “We knew that there was growing private sector interest in Preston, so it was about embracing that and channeling it in a positive way,” says Sage. In line with the council’s wider community wealth building philosophy, the team has sought to work with local SME developers where possible. “Once you get the strategy right and create

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Serial winners In addition to the Silver Jubilee Cup and the award for Plan Making Practice, Preston City Council was also a joint winner with Plymouth of the award for Local Authority Planning Team of the Year.

Unable to choose between them, judges ‘commended’ both instead of selecting a single winner.

Click the image to watch the moment when Preston and Hive were announced as the winners of the Excellence in Plan Making Practice Award.

that certainty, the market really tends to respond. Smaller developers have been a big factor in driving the CLS.” It hasn’t been necessary so far, but the team is open to the possibility of a more interventionist approach, particularly to overcome viability issues, to which brownfield development can be vulnerable. The council is also “eyes wide open” to public funding opportunities arising through government initiatives too, but, as Crellin notes, they’re often limited and competitive, and “you’re not always successful”.

That said, the CLS evidence base means it has sites ready to target when new funding streams, such as the Towns Fund, come forward.

The team also won praise from the awards judges for their consideration of human rights within the CLS. “I think, as a council, we’re generally pretty sensitive to that sort of thing,” says Crellin. “There are a lot of advantages that city centre regeneration brings for deprived communities. The recognition confirmed that we were developing a strategy of the right type, in the right part of the city.” n Matt Moody is section editor for The Planner

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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

Design review panel overruled in paragraph 79 refusal An inspector has refused plans for an isolated home near Dartmoor National Park despite noting its ‘very good design’, commenting that he ‘struggled to see’ how the scheme was ‘so remarkable or excellent as to reach the very high bar’ of NPPF paragraph 79.

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Andrew Parkinson is a barrister at Landmark Chambers

( “I have some sympathy for the appellant here. ‘Outstanding’ is not defined in the NPPF. However, paragraph 79(e) does not require the design to be unusual. The policy states that the design must be ‘truly outstanding or innovative’. A design can be outstanding, even if it is not innovative or dissimilar to designs seen elsewhere. The requirement for a design to be both ‘outstanding’ and ‘groundbreaking’ was not carried across from paragraph 11 of PPS7 into the NPPF.

LOCATION: Bickleigh AUTHORITY: South Hams District Council

INSPECTOR: Neil Pope PROCEDURE: Written submissions DECISION: Dismissed REFERENCE: APP/ K1128/W/20/3253743

made it “truly outstanding”.

Inspector Neil Pope acknowledged that the appellants’ “multidisciplinary team” had given “thoughtful consideration” to the scheme’s design, and that it had been evolved

based on advice from the independent Design Review Panel, which had gone on to endorse it. The materials to be used would be “largely sympathetic” to the palette of the local landscape, he found, and the proposed layout would “provide a very pleasant living environment”.

However, although he agreed that the proposal was designed “to a very good standard”, he “struggled to see” how the scheme would be “so remarkable or excellent as to reach the very high bar of being a truly outstanding design”.

He agreed with the council’s officers, who had commented that the scheme was “not unusual in terms of architectural aesthetics”.

Pope went on to describe the scheme’s low-carbon

( “In any event, the inspector found that the development would not comply with the second test set out in paragraph 79(e), as an ‘overtly residential’ development would be at odds with the existing countryside character. This demonstrates the importance of considering both tests, and that some sites are unlikely to meet the second test, however outstanding or innovative the design."

Read the full comment on our website bit.ly/planner0621-para79

energy strategy as “not innovative”, despite his acknowledgement that it “had not been implemented in any building in the UK in the form and manner proposed”. Notwithstanding its “very good design”, he ruled, the scheme would “erode the unspoilt green open qualities of the site” and would appear as “an unexpected and unnecessary visual intrusion”, failing to enhance its setting.

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

The appeal concerned a two-hectare parcel of land in Devon, 390 metres from the edge of Dartmoor National Park, but not of itself subject to any landscape designations. The appellants sought permission to build an eight-bedroom home on the site under NPPF paragraph 79(e), which allows isolated homes in the countryside if they achieve “exceptional” design quality through being either “truly outstanding or innovative”.

The scheme’s contemporary design featured an irregularly shaped plan form comprising two “wings” linked by a wider central section.

The remainder of the site would be improved through woodland and wildflower planting which, along with bat and bird boxes, would deliver a net gain in biodiversity. The appellants’ design statement indicated that the scheme was the result of a “genuine collaboration of disciplines”, and that this “holistic” approach to design, with elements that “cannot be separated or disaggregated”,

EXPERT COMMENT

40 or so appeal reports are posted each month on our website: www.theplanner.co.uk/decisions. Our Decisions Digest newsletter, sponsored by Landmark Chambers, is sent out every Monday. Sign up: bit.ly/planner-newsletters

Aberdeenshire Traveller site is approved after eight-year Scottish ministers have granted permission for a Gypsy and Traveller site in Aberdeenshire after calling it in for a second time, citing the ‘significant hardship’ that would befall residents if permission was refused owing to the lack of alternative sites in the area.

LOCATION: St Cyrus

Rule 6 party’s defence of its business persuades inspector Plans for 134 homes next to a grade I listed events venue in Suffolk have been rejected, after the business successfully convinced an inspector that the scheme would violate the ‘agent of change principle’ at a 10-day inquiry.

The appeal concerned a former poultry processing plant in Suffolk, next to Haughley Park, a grade I listed house and grounds that operates as an events venue. The appellant sought permission to build 134 homes on the site.

Haughley Park Limited (HPL), the operating business, appeared at the inquiry as a rule 6 party. It explained that as well as hosting an average of 48 weddings a year, regular large-scale events have taken place at the venue since 2007, including an annual music festival and car show. HPL raised concerns that the appeal scheme could affect its business, citing the ‘agent of change principle’ at NPPF paragraph 182.

Inspector Tom Gilbert-Wooldridge agreed, finding that the business could be forced to adapt “to reduce or avoid conflict with future residents” in terms of noise, which could “greatly curtail its operations”. HPL also convinced the inspector that use of the access drive by residents could give rise to “genuine highway safety issues”. Gilbert-Wooldridge also considered the heritage value of the listed 17th century house. In weighing the scheme’s heritage effects LOCATION: Haughley against its public benefits, he found the council’s AUTHORITY: Mid Suffolk District evidence of unacceptable Council harm “compelling”.

In the planning INSPECTOR: Tom Gilbert-Wooldridge balance, the inspector PROCEDURE: Inquiry decided that although it was “unusual that the DECISION: Dismissed reasons for refusal have increased since the first REFERENCE: APP/ application”, the adverse W3520/W/20/3258516 impacts he had found “clearly outweighed” the scheme’s “no more than moderate” benefits.

AUTHORITY: Aberdeenshire Council INSPECTOR: Mike Shiel PROCEDURE: Called-in decision DECISION: Allowed REFERENCE: NA-ABS-047

The site has been subject to a planning battle since being set up without consent in 2013. After initially resisting the development, Aberdeenshire Council voted to grant retrospective permission in 2016, but Scottish ministers called in the decision and refused permission, citing flooding concerns raised by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA).

Residents were given a deadline to vacate the site, but instead submitted new retrospective applications.

The council again voted to grant permission, but SEPA

maintained its objections, and the application was again called in by the Scottish Government. Reporter Mike Shiel considered the two applications, which sought permission for a nine-stance touring site and an adjacent 10-stance permanent site, together through written submissions.

He found that the council had “failed to provide suitable sites in Aberdeenshire, and as a result, the Gypsy/Traveller community has made its own provisions” at the site.

The developments did not comply with local policy, but material considerations including “lack of readily available facilities” for Gypsies and Travellers in the area and the “significant hardship that would be caused to families currently living on the site” outweighed this non-compliance.

Shiel recommended a permission limited to 15 years. Although the Scottish ministers largely accepted the reporter’s findings, they decided a 10-year permission was more appropriate as it would align with the local plan period.

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In the early 2000s, thenowner Imperial College London put forward plans for a science park and thousands of homes, but these were rejected. Closed in 2009 the college was purchased by developer Telereal Trillium in 2015, the firm submitting plans to convert the college buildings – variously designated at grade II, grade II* and grade I – into homes and community space. It also sought permission for 40-and

20-home schemes on two nearby sites.

Inspector David Prentis decided that the college conversion scheme (appeal A) would amount to a ‘positive reuse’ preserving the listed buildings, notwithstanding some conflict with the Wye neighbourhood plan.

He also considered how the three schemes would affect nearby Stodmarsh Nature Reserve, which is

Riverside regeneration scheme’s benefits outweigh WHS harm The housing secretary has approved one of two linked regeneration schemes in Brentford after a virtual inquiry, ruling that the proposal’s package of benefits outweighed ‘moderate’ harm to the Kew Gardens World Heritage Site across the river.

In 2015, property developer London Green acquired two sites in Brentford – a 13-storey tower vacated by the Metropolitan Police in 2013, and a riverside plot occupied by a 1980s office and an adjacent arts centre.

The developer and the council signed a ‘memorandum of understanding’ in 2015 outlining plans for partner developer Bluescape Ltd to build a seven-storey building offering 193 new flats on the

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riverside site, and for another 105 flats and a new home for the arts centre to replace the former police station.

LOCATION: Wye AUTHORITY: Ashford Borough Council

INSPECTOR: David Prentis PROCEDURE: Inquiry DECISION: Split decision REFERENCE: APP/E2205/ W20/3259450

The main issue at the inquiry was heritage impact, and representatives from Historic Royal Palaces, Historic England, and Kew Gardens all attended. In his report, inspector Michael Boniface had advised that although the scheme would cause “moderate” harm to the “highly significant” Kew Gardens World Heritage Site on the other side of the River Thames, its package of benefits, which included the provision of housing and a new arts centre, carried decisive weight.

In his own decision letter, secretary of state Robert Jenrick noted that although the scheme would only provide 20 per cent affordable housing – half the borough’s strategic target of 40 per cent and less still than the 50 per cent

internationally protected.

Natural England had indicated the schemes would need to achieve “nutrient neutrality”. Noting the methodology for calculating “nutrient budgets” should consider previous use and occupancy, Prentis found appeal A would result in only a “relatively low increase in population”, the increase in nutrient emissions thus able to be successfully mitigated.

But he was not persuaded by mitigation measures proposed for appeals B and C, leading to a split decision.

London-wide target – the council had accepted this as the “maximum viable amount” on the basis of an independent viability assessment. Jenrick agreed with his inspector, allowing the appeal.

LOCATION: Brentford AUTHORITY: Hounslow Borough Council

INSPECTOR: Michael Boniface PROCEDURE: Called-in decision DECISION: Allowed REFERENCE: APP/ F5540/V/19/3226900

I M AG E S | A L A M Y /

An inspector has approved plans to convert the 15th century Wye College into homes and community space, while rejecting the appellant’s plans to build more housing nearby, citing nutrient neutrality requirements relating to nearby protected sites.

SHUTTERSTOCK / ISTOCK

Nutrient neutrality concerns lead to split decision over historic college

DECISIONS DIGEST{

SUBSCRIBE to our appeals digest:

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Bath scheme can include student flats despite objections

Plans to redevelop brownfield land in Bath to provide 104 flats and 186 units of student accommodation would not prejudice the delivery of housing in the city, an inspector has ruled, approving the scheme despite nearly 500 objections. bit.ly/ planner0621-students

Grandiosity of grade I listed townhouse justifies wall hangings

An inspector has approved Viscountess Rothermere’s plans to install upholstered wall hangings at her grade I listed Westminster townhouse, finding that the proposal would reflect the property’s “grandiose” nature. bit.ly/ planner0621-hangings

Jenrick allows school despite its design deficiencies

The housing secretary has approved plans for a secondary and SEN school in Sutton, despite noting that the scheme fell short of a policy requirement for “exemplary design” he decided should apply, and that some classrooms would have no natural light. bit.ly/planner9621-

Jenrick approves green belt crematoriums after court ruling

The housing secretary has reapproved plans for two separate crematorium schemes in Staffordshire, after his predecessor Sajid Javid’s 2017 ruling was quashed by the High Court. bit.ly/planner0621-crem

Classical country house fails paragraph 79’s second limb

Plans for a large new home in Hampshire “in the great classical tradition” have been rejected by an inspector, who decided that the scheme fell short of the second limb of NPPF paragraph 79(e) despite its “exceptionally good” design. bit.ly/planner0621-limb

Motorway services allowed after a 25-year conflict

An inspector has approved a new motorway service area to serve the A1(M) in North Yorkshire after considering two potential schemes at a joint inquiry, disappointing a local campaign group that had fought plans to develop the site three times since 1997. bit.ly/ planner0621-mway

Pub conversion denied following 10-year battle

A community group’s decade-long battle to save a 239-year-old pub from its multimillionaire owner’s plans to convert it has won the backing of an inspector, who found that it could still reopen as a viable business despite having been closed since 2011. bit.ly/planner0621-pub

New Forest home allowed despite falling short of paragraph 79

Homes approved on employment land after £1.2m marketing failure

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An inspector has approved plans for 155 homes on land strategically allocated for employment use since 2006, commenting that “the time has come to accept” that market forces were against the council’s vision. bit.ly/planner0621marketing

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An inspector has approved plans for a new home on brownfield land in the New Forest national park despite deeming it to have fallen short of the standards of NPPF paragraph 79, praising its “sense of delight that is missing from much new development”. bit.ly/planner0621-newforest

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Legal landscape OPINION

Big statements about carbon emissions, but zero legal effect?

The government is talking a good game on reducing emissions and meeting net-zero targets. What’s happening in the planning courts presents a rather different picture, say Jenny Wigley and Alex Shattock

On 20 April, the UK that the UK’s zero-carbon government announced its plan will help save the planet, sixth Carbon Budget - a plan without stifling development. to cut emissions by 78 per But developers and cent by 2035 (and to netclimate change activists zero by 2050), amounting to rarely walk hand in hand. “the world’s most ambitious In the increasing number of climate change target” which climate battles played out would be “enshrined in law”. in the Planning Court, the This came two days before growth-and-jobs argument a virtual climate summit, appears to be winning. This attended by 40 nations might be because, despite the including the UK. government’s It was reported strong words, that at the summit “DESPITE THE the existing legal “the prime obligations on GOVERNMENT’S minister will climate change STRONG urge countries to do not have WORDS THE raise ambition on EXISTING LEGAL many teeth; tackling climate OBLIGATIONS ON section 19(1A) change”.

CLIMATE CHANGE of the Planning But in remarks and Compulsory DO NOT HAVE to world leaders, Purchase Act MANY TEETH” the prime 2004 says minister suggested development that, in his view, plan documents tackling climate must have change is about policies that “growth and jobs” rather than contribute to climate change “expensive bunny-hugging”. mitigation and adaptation, but So which is it? A worldsays nothing of the required beating reduction in carbon content of those policies. The emissions – or growth and Climate Change Act 2008 jobs? It is understandable similarly says little about the that we are getting mixed legal consequences of failing messages from central to meet it. government. It is true that The Planning Court has we hope that these two also been cool about zeroseemingly irreconcilable carbon arguments. Since the positions can be reconciled: Heathrow decision in the

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Supreme Court, several cases with a zero-carbon flavour: claimants have struggled.

In both R (Hewitt) v Oldham MBC [2020] EWHC 3405 (Admin) and Abbotskerswell Parish Council v SSHCLG [2021] EWHC 555 (Admin), it was argued that the effect of the grant of permission on emissions targets was not given the attention it deserved by the decision-maker. In both cases, the argument was rejected.

In Hewitt the court held that consideration of carbon emissions can be left to the reserved matters stage. In Abbotskerswell the court said it was for the decision-maker to determine the adequacy of the data on emissions in an environmental statement.

Similarly, in R (Finch) v Surrey CC [2020] EWHC 3566 (Admin) the court held that in respect of an oil well site, the end-user emissions (ie, actually burning the oil) did not need to be assessed in the environmental statement: and in R (ClientEarth) v SSBEIS [2021] EWCA Civ 43, the Court of Appeal held that it was for the decision-maker to determine the acceptability of carbon emissions in the grant of a power station DCO. Finally, in April the

Planning Court refused on paper the first climate change challenge to the adoption of a local plan, Bioabundance Community Interest Company v South Oxfordshire District Council, a case that we are both instructed in on behalf of the claimant.

Without more focused statutory requirements on development decisionmaking, it is difficult to see how the courts will have a meaningful role in enforcing the steps necessary to get anywhere close to reaching climate targets – ‘legally binding’ or not.

Jenny Wigley QC and Alex Shattock are barristers with Landmark Chambers.

In brief The government is making bold statements about meeting net zero carbon goals.

In reality, it seems to be prioritising growth over environment – can the two be reconciled?

Recent cases in the planning courts suggest that we shouldn’t expect the courts to protect environmental interests over commercial and industrial ones.

EVENTS

CASES

LEGISLATION

NEWS

ANALYSIS

NEWS High Court spurns bid to continue virtual planning meetings A High Court judge has dismissed a legal challenge that sought to continue local authority remote meetings beyond 6 May. Under the Coronavirus Act 2020, planning committee meetings have been authorised to be held virtually during restrictions implemented to stem the spread of Covid-19, as have other local authority meetings. This ended on 6 May. The Association of Democratic Services Officers (ADSO), Lawyers in Local Government (LLG) and Hertfordshire County Council had sought to extend this.

On 28 April, the president of the Queen’s Bench Division, Dame Victoria Sharp, and Mr Justice Chamberlain dismissed the challenge, saying the decision whether to permit some or all local authority meetings to be conducted remotely is “not the courts” but for Parliament.

The RTPI believes that a change in the law is needed to guarantee that virtual planning meetings in England can continue.

Chief executive Victoria Hills called on the government to introduce primary legislation as “a matter of urgency” to allow virtual meetings to continue while also exploring how a hybrid model could operate.

The government has called for evidence on remote meetings, which can be found here. bit.ly/planner0621-meetingevidence Read the full story here: bit.ly/planner0621-highcourtvirtual

Council refused chance to appeal judicial review outcome Sevenoaks District Council has pledged to protect the green belt after it was refused permission to appeal over a judicial review decision against a planning inspector’s reasons for refusing its local plan.

In October 2019, inspector Karen L Baker expressed “significant” concerns about several aspects of the plan. Her main doubt related to a “lack of constructive engagement” with neighbouring authorities to resolve the issue of unmet housing need and the absence of cross-boundary planning to identify how this need could be accommodated.

The council “strongly” disagrees with this conclusion. In April 2020, the council launched a judicial review against Barker’s recommendation to withdraw its local plan, which failed in the Planning Court in November 2020.

The council sought to challenge the ruling in December 2020, but was informed in April that it had not been successful.

Later in April, Sevenoaks District Council issued an article 4 direction to ensure that a green belt site in Shoreham being sold for development is protected.

The council said it has discovered that land is being sold as individual plots and that marketing information suggests that the site has the potential for development. As it is a green belt site and in an area of outstanding natural beauty (AONB), it says planning permission for new residential development is unlikely to be granted. To guarantee that it continues to enjoy protection, however, the council has served article 4 directions to restrict the activities that can be carried out without planning permission.

Julia Thornton, cabinet member for planning at Sevenoaks District Council, said: “We have committed to our residents that we will do everything possible to protect our much-cherished environment. Serving these latest article 4 directions clearly demonstrates that we are delivering on this promise.

“Green belt sites are protected and any proposal to build on them is extremely unlikely to be granted planning permission. People considering these sites should be warned – they are effectively being offered agricultural land.”

The council, which has issued article 4 directions on sites in Cowden, Edenbridge (Hever Road), Penshurst and West Kingsdown (St Clere Hill Road) because they were being sold as individual plots for development, has also reported the sales to KCC Trading Standards for investigation.

LEGAL BRIEFS Jenrick urges pragmatic approach to Covid-19 outdoor structures

The communities secretary has called on councils to ensure that government guidance on outdoor structures is applied proportionately and consistently to support businesses reopening after Covid-19, says Local Government Lawyer. bit.ly/planner0621-outdoor

Seafront skate park on hold as judicial review launched

Skateboarders in Swansea will have to be patient, after a judicial review was lodged over a new £360,000 skate park project on the seafront, Wales Online reports. bit.ly/planner0621-skateboard

South Oxfordshire plan challenge refused again

A second High Court judge has refused a campaign group permission to apply for judicial review against South Oxfordshire District Council’s decision to adopt its local plan, Local Government Lawyer reports. bit.ly/planner0621-southox

Drawing error invalidated planning permission, judge agrees A planning inspector was right to reject an appeal over a building where a drawing error showed it lower than its intended height, the High Court has ruled. Local Government Lawyer reports. bit.ly/planner0621-height

Trent Won, Cil Nil

Simon Ricketts considers solicitor Alison Trent’s successful High Court challenge over a CIL demand notice, “a wake-up call for CIL collecting authorities”. bit.ly/planner0621-cil

Town centre planning: what’s the point?

Zack Simons of #planoraks explores what Class E to residential permitted development rights mean for planning policy in town centres. bit.ly/planner0621-planoraks

Guidance on Planning Legislation, Language and Terms

An RTPI East of England webinar on 14th June bringing those in public and private planning administration to explore planning language, legislation and terms. bit.ly/planner0621-language

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NEWS RTPI news pages are edited

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

Your chance to shine become a leading voice in the planning debate

What positions are available?

The RTPI is looking for nominations for the following positions BOARD OF TRUSTEES n Chair n Vice-President for 2022 (will become President in 2023) n Honorary Treasurer n Trustee for Scotland n 3 Chartered Trustees – Corporate The Board is responsible for the management of the affairs of the Institute and promoting its objectives bit.ly/planner0621trustees GENERAL ASSEMBLY (GA) n 14 Chartered Members n 2 Associates n 1 Legal Member or Legal

Associate Member n 3 Students/Licentiates

RTPI members in the UK and from around the world are being encouraged to put themselves forward for a range of vacancies on the Institute’s Board of Trustees and General Assembly.

Following a year during which we all faced unprecedented challenges, the RTPI says it wants to hear from a diverse selection of members with ‘bold and practical’ ideas that will help it to deliver value for members and contribute to its continued success.

RTPI Chief Executive Victoria Hills says that this year’s elections are a great opportunity for members to have real influence on the direction of the RTPI. “2020 was a year like no other, both on a global level and for the RTPI. We saw the world change at record speed and with it, the planning profession and the Institute.

“But now is not the time to stand back. The current situation

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is constantly changing and we need to be visionary and adapt quickly to new situations as they arise.

“That’s why we want to hear from members from a wide range of sectors, geographical locations and backgrounds, who want to contribute to the big discussions and decisions that impact the profession.

“Good planning is fundamental to the future of society and, by putting yourself forward, you could be at the forefront of the decisions that shape quality places and spaces.”

This year, as part of the elections, vacancies will also be advertised for positions on Regional Management Boards around the country and on National Executive Committees, which are tasked with creating the pathway to achieve the corporate strategic goals for different areas of the RTPI’s work. n For details on all vacancies and how to apply, visit bit.ly/planner0621-elections

GA is the debating chamber of the Institute, meeting three times a year bit.ly/planner0621generalassembly Various positions are also available on the RTPI’s Regional Management Boards and National Executive Committees.

Elections 2021: timetable 22 June: Nominations open for all RTPI elected positions: 28 July: Nominations close: 20 August: Voting opens 20 September: Voting closes

Editorial E: rtpinews@rtpi.org.uk

RTPI (switchboard) T: 020 7929 9494

Registered charity no.

262865 Registered charity in Scotland SCO37841

MY VIEW ON… ONE YEAR OF CHANGE Immediate Past President Sue Manns FRTPI gives an update on the RTPI’s work on diversity over the past 12 months Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity (EDI), both within the planning profession and in the way that we engage with communities, was at the heart of my Presidency in 2020 and so launching the RTPI’s first EDI action plan – CHANGE – just over a year ago was something very special.

Now, as I enter my final year as the first EDI Board Champion, I am delighted to be able to report back to members on the progress that we have made in delivering the actions set out in CHANGE. The six themes which guide the programme provide a road map towards our goal of a genuinely representative planning profession that is reflective of the diversity of the communities that we serve and is well equipped

to lead the way in tackling the many challenges that we face as a society, affecting both our shared future and that of generations to come.

COVID-19 has made this a difficult year and while we have taken some important steps forward on EDI, it’s important to acknowledge that we have a lot more to do.

In the forthcoming 12 months, among other actions, we will be building on our work with members, stakeholders and partners to develop a robust and persuasive business case for EDI for the profession.

We are committed to CHANGE, but we also recognise that there is no quick fix – so we are committed to

updating you at least annually on how we are doing and on the opportunities available for you to get involved. n Read Sue’s full update on the first year of CHANGE at bit.ly/planner0621-yearofchange

POSITION POINTS

NEIGHBOURHOOD PLANNING

RICHARD BLYTH, RTPI HEAD OF POLICY, PRACTICE AND RESEARCH The RTPI welcomes extra funding from the government, announced recently, to help empower communities to decide where they want new homes, shops and offices to be built, what those buildings should look like and what infrastructure should be provided.

In our response to the planning white paper, we stressed the importance of neighbourhood planning in a reformed planning system, pointing out that it can help to tailor development to local needs, increase communities’ knowledge of the planning system and, in some cases, improve attitudes towards development.

It is particularly encouraging to see that the government is focusing its attention on underrepresented areas – it is a startling fact that only 5 per cent of completed neighbourhood plans are in urban areas and only 6.7 per cent of neighbourhood planning areas are in the most deprived parts of the country.

For more on the new funds, visit bit.ly/planner0621-neighbourhood

DIGITAL PLANNING IN NORTHERN IRELAND

ROISIN WILLMOTT, DIRECTOR OF RTPI NORTHERN IRELAND The changes ushered in by the implementation of the Planning Act (NI) 2011 represented a significant step forward in the design of the planning service in Northern Ireland to deliver sustainable development for communities. However, now is a good time to review how the system is being implemented and where improvements can be made.

One area where only limited progress has been made is in the introduction of a streamlined, fully-electronic planning application submission process. A standardised, digital approach to uploading maps and plans for applicants, and a system which allows for better communication between statutory consultees must now be explored.

However, these types of projects cannot be taken forward without adequate resourcing.

Financial support to increase the number of public sector planners, funding for specialist knowledge and investment in more efficient technologies would help to support the shift in Northern Ireland from a largely reactive, regulatory planning system, to a proactive and strategic digital planning system fit for the 21st century.

Read more from Roisin at bit.ly/planner0621-ni2011 I M AG E S | RT P I

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NEWS

Entries open for RTPI’s regional planning awards Entries are now open for this year’s edition of the RTPI’s Regional Awards for Planning Excellence.

The awards celebrate planning at a local level, in all nine of the RTPI’s English regions: East Midlands, East of England, North East, North West, South East, South West, West Midlands, London and Yorkshire.

Submissions are also now open for the awards schemes of RTPI Cymru, RTPI Northern Ireland and RTPI Scotland.

Award categories vary across the regions and nations, but all shine a well-deserved spotlight on notable projects and planners, including Young Planners with less than 10 years of professional experience.

RTPI’s Head of English Regions Sarah Woodford said: “The regional awards ceremonies are a highlight of the year,

Winners from the RTPI’s Regional Awards 2020 (clockwise from top left): Great Central Square, Leicester (East Midlands), Pennington Wharf, Leigh (North West), Wolverhampton Interchange (West Midlands), Climate Innovation District, Leeds (Yorkshire)

as we recognise the teams, projects and individuals that have transformed our local economies, environment and communities.​ “And, as an added bonus, all regional winners will automatically be entered into the RTPI’s national Awards for Planning

Conduct and Discipline Panel decisions The March Conduct and Discipline Panel found that a member has breached the Code of Professional Conduct.

The complaint alleged that our member had failed to take due care when discharging their duty to their clients and others by writing to a planning committee with incorrect information.

The member had failed to properly research an unusual and technical matter and in doing so provided, as a fact, incorrect information to the planning committee in order to gain planning permission for their

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client. This could have had a major effect on the neighbouring landowner.

The panel agreed that this had resulted in a breach of clause 14 of the code, which requires members to act with due care and diligence, and agreed to reprimand the member without naming them in this report.

In addition, Mr Michael Firth of Newcastle has had his membership terminated for failing to provide his CPD record and professional development plan. He was suspended in August 2020 and was required to provide these documents

I M AG E S | RT P I

during the six-month suspension, but they were not submitted.

As a result, Mr Firth is no longer a Chartered member of the Institute and cannot use the postnominals MRTPI. n If members have any

queries concerning the Code of Professional Conduct they should contact Ruth Richards, the Institute’s Complaints Investigator ruth.richards@rtpi.org.uk n For more information about the work of the RTPI’s Conduct and Discipline Panel, visit bit. ly/planner0621-conduct

Excellence, the longest-running and most coveted awards in the UK planning sector.” n Entries to these awards are open via the RTPI website until 2 July. For more details, visit bit.ly/planner0621-regional

NIPA council appointment RTPI Head of Policy, Practice and Research Richard Blyth FRTPI has been appointed to the Council of the National Infrastructure Planning Association (NIPA).

NIPA was established in 2010 with the aim of bringing together individuals and organisations involved in the planning and authorisation of large infrastructure projects.

Richard will use this opportunity to champion the vital role of planners in future debates on national infrastructure planning. n bit.ly/planner0621-nipa

PLANNIN AHEAD

G

Key dates for 2021 The full programme has been announced for the RTPI’s Minerals Planning JUNE Conference 2021 which will consider the importance of minerals in planning for a green recovery.

This year’s conference, delivered jointly with the Mineral Products Association, will take place on 15 June via online platform Hopin.

Speakers featuring in a packed lineup (pictured on the right, clockwise from top left) include n Simon Gallagher (Director of Planning, MHCLG) n Carolyn McKenzie (Director of Environment, Surrey County Council) n Richard Greaves MRTPI (Chief Planning Officer, Essex County Council) n Nigel Jackson (Chief Executive, Mineral Products Association) n Lonek Wojtulewicz MRTPI (Policy Lead for Minerals and Waste Planning, MHCLG) n Kirsty Kirkham (Director, BSG Ecology)

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15

Plenary sessions across the day will explore some of the opportunities and challenges for minerals planning that may emerge from the proposed reforms to the planning system, and consider how minerals planning can help combat climate change and deliver biodiversity net gain.

The RTPI would like to thank No 5 Chambers for its generous support of this event. Barristers Richard Kimblin QC and Nina Pindham from No 5 Chambers will give an essential legal update as part of the programme. n Tickets for this event are just £50 plus VAT. For more information, visit bit.ly/planner0621-mpc

MEMBER NEWS Congratulations to the following planners who were elected to Chartered membership of the RTPI on 26 March 2021.

East Midlands Katie Ferguson Jonathan Protheroe Jeevan Thandi Janine Fogden East of England Daniel Goodman Emma Worby Man Chi Lo International Yi Ching Wong Darius Ardeshirian London Chloe Brown James Bylina Frederick Clarke Michela Leoni Emma Mounsey Poppy O'Flanagan Ashley Rabot Hannah Swainston Emilios Tsavellas Zoe Welman Nuala Wheatley James Fryatt North East Mark Gabriele Paul Hopper Ian Nesbit Hannah Summerly Wafer Hannah Woodall

Jennifer Brow North West Philippa Davey Jodie Farnill Alexandra Gavin Hannah McGuinness Paul Ede Scotland Rachel Mushet Catriona Little Gregor Southall Jourdan Alexander South East AndrewBull Olivia Gorham Christopher Kirk Luke Veillet Emma Kathryn Gillespie South West Matthew Woodhead Harry Plotnek West Midlands Daniel Taylor Joshua Veeranna Catherine Crosswaite Yorkshire Sean Rawling Louie Sneddon Rachel White

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A selection of jobs, across both the public sector and private sector, locations throughout the uk, covering: regeneration, conservation, town planning, development control, policy, enforcement and all disciplines within the planning arena.

To find out more and to search the latest opportunities, visit theplanner.co.uk/jobs

Town Planner Officer Salary: Daily rate Location: London

Senior Planning Enforcement Officer Principal Planner

Salary: £33,782 to £38,890 & car allowance Location: Cambridgeshire

Salary: Grade 09 £37,890 ­ £40,876 pa Location: Cardiff

Central Lancashire Local Plan Planning Officer Salary: POA £31,346 ­ £33,782 pa

Strategic Planner

Salary: Band 6­7, £25,991 to £32,782 pa Location: Great Yarmouth

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Lead Policy Advocate – Infrastructure Salary: £35,000 ­ £40,000 pa Location: Lincolnshire

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To ad ve rt is e please email: th e p l a nn er jo bs @ r eda c ti ve.c o.uk or c al l 02 0 78 8 0 6 2 32

Senior Planner Salary: Competitive Location: Based across a selection of locations throughout the UK

Planning Officer (Development Control) Temporary 12 months Maternity Cover Salary: Grade SCP 26 – 28 £30,451 ­ £32,234 pa

Principal Aviation Officer

Principal Planner (Major Applications)

Salary: £41,618 ­ £45,780 pa Location: London

Project Lead (Site Promotion and Planning Policy) Salary: Attractive salary + excellent benefits

Salary: £40,869 ­ £48,819 pa Location: London

Senior Planning Officer – Research

Salary: Grade I (SCP 28 – 32) £32,234 ­ £35,745 Location: Stafford

theplanner.co.uk/jobs jobs Laundry List DPS(June21).indd 3

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Activities

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CONTENT THAT'S WORTH CHECKING OUT

A digest of planning-related material. Each month our work takes us around the internet in search of additional detail for our stories, meaning we invariably come across links to items we think you’ll find educational, entertaining, useful or simply amusing. Here’s our latest batch – mouse over each item for more.

What’s caught our eye A homage to Howard 29 April marked 100 years since the opening of Welwyn Garden City. What better way to celebrate than with a statue of its founder, Ebenezer Howard?

Here’s a short film about the statue, commissioned by the Welwyn Garden City Centenary Foundation and sculpted by Ben Twiston-Davies (scroll down for the video).

Take a peek, too, at this Gaumont newsreel footage of the opening of WGC way back on 29 April 1921. bit.ly/planner0621-wgc

Everything you ever wanted to know about Hull but were afraid to ask The Hull Data Observatory carries a huge range of constantly updated socioeconomic information about Hull – the latest data on demographics, deprivation, health, housing, employment, and so on, as well as area profiles, maps and the People’s Panel, an ongoing consultation with residents. Take a look. bit.ly/planner0621-hull

Education of the Future Public Health Spatial Planning Workforce Friday 2 July, 2-3.30pm Online panel discussion chaired by The Planner contributor Michael Chang and featuring RTPI president Wei Yang and Prof Maggie Rae, president of the Faculty of Public Health, among others. What’s the relationship between spatial planning and better public health? Book your place via Eventbrite. bit.ly/planner0621-health

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A gull’s-eye view of England’s holiday heritage Written by Historic England’s tourism history expert Allan Brodie, England’s Seaside Heritage From the Air features more than 150 photographs from the organisation’s Aerofilms archive and records England’s seaside heritage at the peak of its popularity, from the 1920s to the 1950s. See spectacular images of Blackpool, Weston-superMare, Burnham-on-Sea, Clacton-onSea, Ramsgate and more.

Liverpool University Press ISBN 978-1-800-85964-7 bit.ly/planner0621-seaside

Cynhadledd Cynllunio Cymru Tuesday 8 June, 9am-4.40pm Welsh Planner Live is a one-day virtual conference that considers how to Plan the Wales We Need. Sessions look at town centres, transport, placemaking, tourism and how planning can protect language – delivered in both Welsh and English, obviously. Find out more and book tickets here. bit.ly/planner0621-wales

LANDSCAPE

A natural bounty As we go to press, our deputy editor Simon Wicks is preparing for a week in the Cairngorms National Park where he’ll be photographing wildlife and checking out the Cairngorms Connect rewilding project. He’s put together a wild reading list for the trip. Check them out yourself.

Green and prosperous land: A Blueprint for Rescuing the British Countryside by Dieter Helm. Harper Collins ISBN 008304475

A celebration of planning excellence

Minerals planning conference 2021: Planning for a green recovery 15 June 2021, 9am-3.45pm Three main plenary sessions look at planning reform, net gain and netzero in relation to minerals planning.

The speakers include MHCLG’s head of planning Simon Gallagher and Surrey County Council’s director of environment Carolyn McKenzie. Find out more and book tickets here. bit.ly/planner0621-greenrecovery

The Peregrine

by J A Baker.

Harper Collins ISBN: 9780008216214

What we’re planning

An Indifference of Birds by Richard Smyth. Uniformbooks ISBN 9781910010228 Working with Nature: Saving and Using the World’s Wild Places by Jeremy Purseglove.

Profile Books ISBN: 9781788161602 Regeneration: The Rescue of a Wild Land by Andrew Painting Birlinn Ltd ISBN: 9781780277141 Share your green reading suggestions: editorial@theplanner. co.uk

The deadline for entries to the RTPI Awards for Planning Excellence in the English Regions, Wales and Northern Ireland is 2 July. Many regional winners go on to win national RTPI Awards for Planning Excellence, too. Find out more – see previous winners and get your entry in here. bit.ly/planner0621englishregions

You’ve got the music in you The Music Cities Awards acknowledge the most outstanding applications of music for economic, social, environmental and cultural development in cities and places all around the world. Find out more and enter here. bit.ly/planner0621musiccities

July, August and September will see us continuing our environmental theme as we build towards COP26. We’ll be looking at the transition from fossil fuels and its spatial effects; the problem with green belts; rewilding brownfield; zero-carbon housing; and the Cairngorms Connect rewilding project. We’ll also be taking in customer and self-build housing, planning reform and RTPI award-winners. Keep in touch: editorial@theplanner.co.uk

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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 PLN.JUNE21.052.indd 2

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

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