The Planner May 2017

MAY 2017 DEVELOPMENT MANAGEMENT ONCE MORE, UNDO THE BREACH // p.22 • PLANNERS AS LEADERS OF PLACE MAKING // p.26 • FOCUS ENGLAND’S NORTH EAST // p.34 • CAREER DEVELOPMENT: PREPARING FOR INTERVIEW // p.36

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

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JANICE MORPHET ON BREXIT, INEQUALITY AND BRITAIN’S FASCINATION WITH ITS PAST

24/04/2017 09:43

DY5

DUDLEY’S BUSINESS AND I N N O V AT I O N E N T E R P R I S E Z O N E

DUDLEY HAS GREAT NEWS TO SHARE WITH BUSINESSES AS IT LAUNCHES DY5, THE BOROUGH’S BUSINESS AND INNOVATION ENTERPRISE ZONE. DY5, which officially launched in early April, offers businesses looking to invest and expand with an exciting opportunity to relocate to an exclusive waterfront location, in the heart of the West Midlands and indeed the UK. Part of the Black Country Enterprise Zone led by the Black Country Local Enterprise Partnership on behalf of West Midlands Combined Authority, DY5 joins a portfolio of sites including Darlaston and Wolverhampton North (inc i54), spread over 120 hectares. To date the zone has created 4,000 new jobs in advanced manufacturing including aerospace, automotive and engineering.

A wide range of office accommodation is available from large scale, recently refurbished units to smaller offices. DY5 can fulfil a range of needs and requirements and can do so quickly.

As well as offering high quality, low cost office accommodation at The Waterfront, DY5 is also able to offer a range of space at nearby industrial estates, with construction of brand new large scale industrial units already underway.

DY5 is unique in that it is able to offer immediate office accommodation, which means that the benefits of relocating to the enterprise zone can be reaped straight away.

class manufacturing and engineering and continue to provide the perfect economic conditions for advanced manufacturing.

Dudley in particular has a significantly higher proportion of the workforce employed in manufacturing - delivering an unrivalled advantage over anywhere else in the UK. “DY5 will deliver new industrial space for technology and service sectors as well as broaden our digital and professional base.

ALAN LUNT, DUDLEY COUNCIL’S STRATEGIC DIRECTOR FOR PLACE, SAID:

“Dudley is recognised as a great place to do business and the Midlands Engine announcement in the Chancellor’s budget further strengthens our position on a global scale.

“Dudley and the Black Country have a long history of providing world-

“Dudley is looking forward to discussing your requirements and welcoming you to the borough.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT THE DY5 TEAM ON + 44 (0) 1384 812001, EMAIL INFO@DY5ENTERPRISEZONE.CO.UK OR VISIT WWW.DY5ENTERPRISEZONE.CO.UK

LET DY5 ASSIST YOUR BUSINESS IN GOING FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH. RELOCATE TO DUDLEY’S ENTERPRISE ZONE AND BENEFIT FROM: Up to £55,000 per year business rate discount over a five year period

Close to Birmingham, an international airport and ideally situated for easy access to the rest of the UK

Low cost, high quality accommodation for office and industrial use

One stop shop for business and skills support

Improved infrastructure with a new metro line scheduled to open in 2023

Superfast broadband

Exclusive waterfront location

MADE IN THE BLACK COUNTRY, SOLD AROUND THE WORLD

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PLANNER 06 18

CONTENTS

THE

MAY

20 17

“YOU’VE GOT THE POWERS, SO YOU HAVE TO PUSH BECAUSE YOU’VE GOT NO MONEY. AUSTERITY IS THE MOTHER OF INNOVATION”

NEWS

4 Financing development and infrastructure postBrexit 6 Protecting Edinburgh’s World Heritage Site

7 London boroughs invoke Article 4 Directions 8 Planners should take on licensing function 9 Irish ministers allocate funds to large housing projects 10 May’s election gamble 11 NI councils make case for more powers

15

OPINION

14 Chris Shepley: Navigating the urban form for autonomous vehicles 16 Paul Drew: More BIMBY, less NIMBY

18 The UK is a nation out of tune with Europe, with the times and with itself, Janice Morphet tells Simon Wicks

17 Heather Kerswell: Good planning in 1912 shows how we can add five years to life

22 Planning lawyer Tracy Lovejoy looks at the concealment of planning breaches

17 Terrie Alafat: p is a start,, White p paper but bolder housing measures are required

26 More focus is needed on the role of planners as place-based leaders, says Robin Hambleton 34 Nations & Regions: North-East

QUOTE UNQUOTE

26

“THE DOG THAT DOESN’T BARK IS ‘WHERE IS THE ENGLISH PARLIAMENT?’.

AND INCREASINGLY THIS BECOMES A RIDICULOUS ANOMALY” JANICE MORPHET TALKING TO THE PLANNER ABOUT DEVOLUTION AND BREXIT

COV E R I M AG E | PE T E R S E A R L E

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INSIGHT

FEATURES

16 Gavan Rafferty: Northern Ireland and the challenge of Brexit

31 Tech landscape: Digital leadership in local government

14

36 Career development: Making the best impression in job interviews 38 Decisions in focus: Development decisions, round-up and analysis 42 Legal landscape: Opinions, blogs and news from the legal side of planning 44 RTPI round-up: News and interviews from the institute 50 Plan B: What’s in a name? Quite a lot, actually

22 MAY 2 01 7 / T HE P LANNER

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24/04/2017 14:33

NEWS

Report { FINANCING POST­BREXIT

Financing development and infrastructure post-Brexit

By Huw Morris Paul Webster has a story to worry many seeking finance for economic growth in the post-Brexit era facing the UK. The Institute of Economic Development director was recently party to talks on attracting major international investment. The business and its financiers had rival offers on the table, one involving the takeover of a refinery in the north-east of England and another from Spain. The UK proposal could overcome planning hurdles and be working in up to two years. The Spanish promised to do it in three months.

“In much of the UK, unless it’s in an enterprise zone or on a brownfield site, they shake their heads,” says Webster.

“Investors want certainty around time, building costs and operational delivery, and they need to do it quickly. The one part you can’t give any confidence or guarantee on is turning around the planning. That assurance does not come.”

Webster has a second alarming observation. In three-and-a-half years in the job, he has attended more than 100 meetings and taken part in more than 200 conference calls with the aim of

Amazon is set to become the UK's largest employer

4

smoothing inward investment nt into the UK. “The head of planning at tthe he relevant local authority has never been with en n tthere here he re w ith it h the inward investment team,” m,” he says.

“Yet when firms are looking g to invest, they need certainty that what at is being developed will be done and d quickly.

“While some town planning ning is fully aligned with the needs of inward nward investment, the vast majority ity is not.

Culturally, that needs to change.” ange.”

No new commitments Webster’s warning is timely. yA y.

After fter ft er B Brexit, re exit, the UK has a monumental task securing finance for growth, development, ment, infrastructure and ultimately ly jobs and prosperity. European Structural ural Funding has been the cornerstone off the nation’s regional policy for 40 years,, pumping £66 billion into development nt projects pro r je ect cs since 1975. Merseyside, West Wales and Cornwall are among the big beneficiaries.

The tap will run dry in the next few years.

The UK government has guaranteed backing for any Structural Fund projects approved until the UK leaves the EU, but has made no commitments after that.

Then there is the European Investment Bank. Between 2012-16, this pumped a whopping €31.3bn into a panoply of UK infrastructure projects. Last year, the figure was €5.5bn plus €1.3bn in loans for social housing. A somewhat overlooked EU funding stream is TEN-T, covering strategic investment in transport and communication networks. This €24bn programme straddles national and EU boundaries and comprises a spatial strategy for nine core network corridors with links to Asia, Eastern Europe and other global destinations – a perspective that has yet to emerge this side of the Channel.

In this context, according to Manchester University’s Spatial Policy and Analysis Laboratory (SPA-LAB), there needs to be “a greater degree of realism about what can be achieved in economic growth from

WHAT PLANNERS CAN DO The RTPI calls on local authorities to use their combined planning, economic development and regeneration powers to steer investment and lead the process of change. The Institute of Economic Development also poses a series of questions, among them: n Is the strategic planning actively

aligned to national initiatives, programmes and funding? n Does the strategic vision engage with industries to understand their future infrastructure needs? n What infrastructure in masterplans supports the opportunities created by future industries? n How do you attract EU firms looking to set up representative offices in the UK post-Brexit?

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PLAN UPFRONT The European Investment Bank put €31.3bn into UK infrastructure projects between 2012 and 2016

EUROPEAN FUNDING BY NUMBERS

rela relatively ati tive vely ly small-sca small-scale all-sc funding”. points £130 million It p oint oi n s to the £ recently rece re cent ntly ly allocated allocated cate alongside the government’s industrial strategy to gove go vern rnme ment’s t’s indu in Greater Manchester’s Gr rea eate terr Ma M anche ncheste Local Enterprise Partnership hip (LEP).

(L . This exceeds funding to other er areas, area butt is “a modest amount against when en viewed view agai in the intractability structural that of the st structura al weaknesses w characterise economy”. chara haracterise the city-region’s ci strategy highlights The industrial st coordinate planning for the need to coordin and transport housing, employment employm infrastructure.

University infrastruc ctu ture. Manchester Man Ma professor off sspatial pati pa tia a planning Cecilia Wong cites two two o caveats. cav “Government has historically “Governmen “Governm nt policy po o address failed ailed to addres ess the th relationship between housing, hous usin ing, employment sites infrastructure because of and transportt in infra narrow on a na n rrow focus us o n administrative rather economic areas.” than an ffunctional unct un c iona nall ec the importance Wong Wo ng stresses th “thinking when of “th hin inking functionally” fun uncti coordinating employment coor rdinating housing, housi sites site es and transport infrastructure. She points poin po ints to SPA-LAB research that revealed Liverpool and Greater commuting commutin co ng into Li Manchester extended far beyond their administrative boundaries.

“The functional housing and labour market geographies of the two cityregions provided a far more effective lens for strategically coordinating housing, employment and infrastructure than administrative boundaries yet economic functionality is overlooked,” she adds.

£66 BILLION European Structural Funds in the UK since

€31.3 billion – Funding from the European Investment Bank (EIB) for UK infrastructure projects between

Funding from the EIB last year

1975

2012­16

(2016)

makes the Midlands Engine and bodies it like it all the more relevant as all parts of the UK face difficult strategic questions concerning the relative emphasis given to promoting growth in major urban centres versus balanced development so we have to co-operate on a regional scale. This also highlights the need for the government’s industrial strategy to be place-based.”

All this cuts to what works, and what works will be essential to what marketing professionals call “the offer”: what UK PLC offers to international investors to keep the funding tap running. Indeed, the UK had a huge presence at MPIM, the global real estate conference in March.

British Property Federation CEO Melanie Leech says the UK government held its first pavilion to showcase the sector. Maintaining investor confidence, she says, is “particularly important for the real estate sector because we attract global investment and those investors commit for the long-term”.

Leech adds: “Our sector supports most, if not all, UK economic activity and so decisions need to be taken now if we are to Difficult strategic questions have the physical infrastructure to support Funding large-scale development is not a thriving post-Brexit UK economy.” the only issue. Leicester City Council Arcadis LLP partner and UK head of inward investment director Helen town planning Louise Brooke-Smith says Donnellan says EU Cohesion policy flagship UK policies such as the Northern provided a long-term framework, clear Powerhouse and Midlands Engine alongside objectives and priorities for development. the buoyant London and South-East must “Now we face a fragmented approach to work together to sell the country’s offer. regional and local development following “Brexit has absolutely opened it all up,” devolution and the disappearance of she says. “We have to look internationally regional development institutions and and at what is happening instruments since 2010, superseded “BREXIT HAS ABSOLUTELY around the world.”

Plugging the finance by local and urban OPENED IT ALL UP. chasm is one challenge. initiatives with WE HAVE TO LOOK Getting the strategic variable resources,” INTERNATIONALLY AND planning right to attract she adds. “This AT WHAT IS HAPPENING

AROUND THE WORLD”

that funding is another. Planning for new industries is a third.

Donnellan points to Amazon’s massive distribution centre, which opened in Bardon last year.

“Future large-scale employment developments are likely to be the distribution and logistics hubs with Amazon soon set to be the UK’s largest employer, which is creating demand for last mile delivery locations in city centres,” she says. “The growth of this sector will be significant for Leicestershire and we are playing an increasingly vital role in this growth.”

Here, Webster says, there is a tension in local government between creating jobs and attracting new big businesses.

“Amazon Web Services may set up a data warehouse in the area that will, in itself, require fewer than 40 staff.

But the bigger picture is that you have the world’s biggest cloud computing company investing more than £100 million on your doorstep, which has a knock-on effect during construction and their ongoing supply chain.”

Councils and many LEPs focus on jobs, he says, and only then look at the longer term – such as shared industry infrastructure investments that are not solely about jobs and scoping out plans for future industries.

“But this is where the UK is heading – and fast,” says Webster. “There will still be a high street, but on the horizon the biggest fish in the supply chain will increasingly shift to robotics, artificial intelligence, computer centres, life sciences, advanced manufacturing and space – industries that require fewer jobs but large capital expenditure.”

MAY 2 01 7 / THE PLA NNER

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NEWS

Analysis { HERITAGE

Protecting Edinburgh’s World Heritage Site

By Laura Edgar

An online consultation in July 2016 canvassed public opinion on how the Old and New Towns of Edinburgh World Heritage Site should be managed

The City of Edinburgh Council has set out plans to ensure that heritage protection is at the fore of the planning process.

The measures form part of a debate on the council’s 2017-2022 management plan to safeguard the city’s World Heritage Site, managed by the council in partnership with Historic Environment Scotland and Edinburgh World Heritage.

It has four main aims including promoting a sustainable approach that integrates conservation with the needs of all communities and visitors to the site.

Ian Perry, convener of the council’s planning committee, said: “The plan highlights actions under six themes to ensure that the site continues to be a thriving built environment balancing the needs of developers, the site’s heritage and the people living in it.”

An online public consultation last July about how the Old and New Towns of Edinburgh World Heritage Site should be managed asked people to consider 14 themes, with these six lowest-scoring themes addressed in the consultation: n Care and maintenance of buildings

and streets n Control and guidance n Awareness of the site’s heritage status

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good to see that the draft management plan continues to “champion the OUV of the site, acknowledging that these need to be better and more widely understood”.

Cliff Hague, chairman of the Cockburn Association, Edinburgh’s Civic Trust, told The Planner that there is a crisis of confidence in the council’s stewardship of Edinburgh’s historic environment, so the consultation is welcome. He cited more than 2,700 objections to the application to build a hotel in and around the Old Royal High School on Carlton Hill, as one example.

It is a “coherent corporate document”, said Hague, in that much of it is descriptive or a list of “unexceptional generalisations”.

“It fails to capture the sense of urgency, even resentment, about the way that historic centre of the city is being managed and the threats it is facing.” n Contribution of new development to He said two main drivers of change city centre need to be addressed – the proliferation n Visitor management of student housing and the impact of n Influence and sense of control tourism.

For Hague, both are squeezing out To safeguard the site’s Outstanding traditional communities.

Universal Value (OUV), the “THERE IS A Tourism takes many forms, plan will be used as a tool to CRISIS OF and low-rent housing influence the development CONFIDENCE IN cannot compete with hotels process to make sure that THE COUNCIL’S or the growth of Airbnb. its setting is protected and STEWARDSHIP Hague concluded by sustained. It notes that both OF EDINBURGH’S questioning whether it “is it large-scale developments too much to hope that the and small changes may affect HISTORIC ENVIRONMENT” planning and management the OUV, so the “cumulative of the World Heritage Site impact of development must will put conservation first?” be managed in such a way Leitch told The Planner that the significance of the that it is “interesting to note” site remains understood”. that the public’s sense of influence and A planning protocol has been agreed control is very low in a city with a noisy by the partners to enable a collaborative civic scene. response to the impact of development “Hopefully, the councillors selected on the World Heritage Site early in the in May’s local elections will take this planning process. One action point in on board but it also puts some onus on the draft plan consultation notes that the Scottish Government to ensure that partners will, in the long term, clarify the the forthcoming planning bill genuinely qualities that make the World Heritage strengthens the public role in planning.”

Site of OUV and produce guidance on their use in the planning process.

Euan Leitch, director at the Built n The draft plan can be found here: Environment Forum Scotland, said it is tinyurl.com/planner0517-consultation I M AG E S | I STO C K / A L A M Y

24/04/2017 17:02

PLAN UPFRONT Alzheimer’s Society has urged housing associations to sign up to its dementia-friendly housing charter

London boroughs invoke Article 4 directions Dementiafriendly housing charter launched Alzheimer’s Society, the dementia support and research charity, has called on housing associations to sign up to its new dementia-friendly housing charter and improve the lives of people living with the condition.

The charter aims to help housing professionals better understand dementia and how housing, its design and supporting services can help improve and maintain the wellbeing of people affected.

Developed in partnership with Housing & Care 21, the charter is part of the Alzheimer’s Society’s Dementia Friendly Communities programme, which aims to ensure that people affected by dementia feel understood and included in all aspects of community life.

The charity said the dementiafriendly housing charter aims to enable all professionals working in the housing sector, including planners, architects, developers, landlords and housing managers, to “embed best practice to support people living with dementia in their homes, minimise risk and enhance their well-being”. n The charter can be found on the Alzheimer’s Society’s website: tinyurl.com/planner0517dementia

The London boroughs of Hackney and Lambeth have each issued Article 4 directions that will see permitted development rights removed from launderettes and workspace.

In Hackney, the aim is to stop private developers changing businesses, warehouses and launderettes into unaffordable homes. Developers will need consent to change the use of the borough’s start-up light industrial businesses such as small breweries, and its 14 remaining launderettes.

Hackney said the measures recognise the vital role launderettes play for people on low incomes, those living in temporary housing or small bedsits, and students studying in the area.

The measures are open for consultation to all residents and businesses.

Lambeth is seeking to stop offices being turned into homes without going through the full planning system. The council said the move would protect workspace in key parts of the borough and ensure that economic growth,

Swansea mixed-use scheme submitted An outline planning application that includes shops, restaurants and residential units has been submitted to the City and County of Swansea council.

The site, comprising the old St David’s shopping centre and the LC car park, has been temporarily rebranded as Swansea

job creation and a “thriving” business community can flourish.

The Article 4 direction also aims to ensure that new housing developments are up to standard, provide affordable homes and are built in appropriate places. While it will not stop all office-to-residential conversions, it will ensure that applications go through the full planning process. The direction covers Brixton town centre, sites in and around Clapham town centre, and 10 of the borough’s designated key industrial and business areas. It comes into force in September.

Central. Rivington Land is managing the site’s development for the council.

Outline permission is being sought for the refurbishment, alteration or demolition of the existing building and structure on the site north of Oystermouth Road. This excludes St Mary’s Church and St David’s Church.

A maximum of 84,050 square metres of floor space is proposed. This would comprise retail, commercial, office, residential and leisure uses, as well as a multistorey car park. Nothing would rise above seven storeys.

A development of 40,700 square metres of floor space is proposed on the south side of Oystermouth Road. This could include a new digital indoor arena, and a hotel or residential building of up to 13 storeys.

A new pedestrian bridge over Oystermouth Road is also mooted.

MAY 2 01 7 / THE PLA NNER

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NEWS

Analysis { LICENSED TO PLAN

Planners should take on licensing function

when the planning system was already available to regulate the use of land for many different purposes. The planning system is well suited to dealing with licensing applications and appeals, and the interests of residents are always taken into account.”

The select committee recommends that planning committees should take over the licensing function, while the Planning Inspectorate rather than the magistrates’ court should decide licensing appeals.

Vincent told The Planner that having a joined-up approach that makes sure residential amenity is taken into account when deciding factors such as the hours of operation for licensed premises would benefit local residents and ensure that businesses have a single licence with which to comply.

Further to this, a single decisionmaking process would create a “more inclusive environment with a range of activities balanced for both evening and daytime use”.

For London’s ‘Night Czar’ Amy Lamé, planning and licensing committees perform an important role.

Lamé said that there are many “excellent examples of boroughs joining not only planning and licensing, but also cultural, community, regeneration, equalities and economic strategies”.

The priority is safeguarding and growing London’s night-time economy and the city’s reputation as a “world leader” for culture while simultaneously “looking out for the best interests of residents, visitors and people who work at night”.

“Together with Philip Kolvin QC, licensing expert and chair of the Night Time Commission, we are bringing together the whole industry, from club and pub owners to planning and licensing authorities, with the shared vision of transforming the capital into a truly 24-hour city,” Lamé told The Planner.

A joined-up approach

Resource capacity

Sue Vincent, councillor for Camden Council and planning lead at Urban Design London, agrees with the Lords select committee.

“Planning committees are wellequipped and forensic in their decisionmaking and they are adept at weighing up applications that may not meet policy requirements with wider public benefits.”

Vincent did express concern that the workload of planners and the Planning Inspectorate would “significantly increase” – as did the RTPI. Although the institute supports moves to improve efficiencies in local government, “were any new responsibilities to be passed to planning departments it would be essential to ensure the appropriate level of resources and training needed to perform their job effectively”.

By Laura Edgar The House of Lords Select Committee on the Licensing Act 2003 has ruled that it was a “mistake” to set up licensing committees.

In its report, The Licensing Act 2003: PostLegislative Scrutiny, the committee concluded that the act is “fundamentally flawed” and needs a “radical overhaul” including the abolition of local authority licensing committees.

The report notes that those who devised the policy thought rightly that licensing of persons and premises was not a task for the judiciary but for local government.

“If they had looked to see how local authorities regulate the responsible use of land in other situations, they would have seen that the planning system, already well established and usually working efficiently, was well placed to take on this additional task,” says the report.

The planning system has its detractors, adds the report, but it insists that planning committees are well established and have better support from experienced staff to deal with licensing applications.

The committee was “shocked” by some of the evidence it received on hearings before licensing committees, McIntosh explained, with their decisions being described as “something of a lottery” that lack formality. The report says there have been “scandalous misuses” of the powers of elected local councillors.

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering, chair of the House of Lords Select Committee on the Licensing Act 2003, said: “It was a mistake and a missed opportunity to set up new licensing committees

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“THE PLANNING SYSTEM IS WELL SUITED TO DEALING WITH LICENSING APPLICATIONS AND APPEALS”

The Licensing Act 2003: Post-Legislative Scrutiny can be found here (PDF): tinyurl.com/planner0517-licensing I M AG E S | A L A M Y / I STO C K

24/04/2017 12:04

PLAN UPFRONT

Irish ministers allocate funds to large housing projects Irish local authorities are to spend €226 million on major infrastructure projects to make privately owned sites ready for large housing developments under a state initiative.

The Irish Government’s Local Infrastructure Housing Activation Fund has been allocated to 15 city and county councils to provide large road, water and sewerage schemes to service lands zoned for housing that have remained undeveloped.

Minister for housing Simon Coveney insisted that 23,000 homes would be delivered on the newly serviced sites over the next three years.

Half the money – €113 million – will be spent in Dublin, with substantial sums also allocated to the commuter counties of Meath, Louth and Kildare.

Cork city and county will see €46 million in infrastructure spending under the initiative.

Funding proposals were submitted by 21 city and county councils, but six had their schemes rejected, with no funding allocated to Galway city or county, Donegal, Mayo, Offaly and Wexford, while 10 local authorities, mostly in the north-

west, made no applications for funding.

The money, which is 75 per cent exchequer-funded and 25 per cent from local authorities, was only available for projects that had the capacity to “deliver houses at considerable scale”, said Coveney.

In Dublin, the land “unblocked” by the new infrastructure must yield a minimum of 500 homes; outside the capital the threshold is 200 homes.

Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council will receive the largest tranche of funding, with €40 million for projects at Cherrywood, Stepaside, Kilternan and Shanganagh.

STATS

Half the money – €113 million – will be spent in Dublin

75%

Q

The money is 75 per cent exchequer­funded with 25 per cent from local authorities

RTPI Scotland: Clearer national development roadmap needed The Scottish Government should establish strategic development plans. national development priorities and The institute says an NDP would set map them out clearly in a new National out where new developments, such as Development Plan (NDP), say planners. housing, should be, how they would be Responding to the Scottish funded, and the infrastructure required.

Government’s consultation on the Stefano Smith, convenor of RTPI country’s planning system, RTPI Scotland Scotland, said: “Providing a proactive says the country needs more specific plans route-map of Scotland’s development to achieve its economic and social targets. will be beneficial to everyone who The consultation, launched in January, wants to make Scotland a successful and comprises proposals to align community sustainable country. Such a plan also helps planning and spatial planning, develop to better connect the government’s various stronger local development plans and strategies and funds – such as those on embed an infrastructure-first approach. It economic growth, infrastructure, housing, follows an independent transport, climate change, review of the Scottish “A NATIONAL PLANNING social justice and energy.” planning system, which FRAMEWORK WOULD The NDP would advised that a National be a single statutory SET OUT WHERE NEW Planning Framework DEVELOPMENTS, SUCH AS document, says RTPI (NPF) should replace Scotland, bringing HOUSING, SHOULD BE”

together and replacing the NPF and Scottish Planning Policy documents. The Scottish Parliament would need to agree to it to “ensure an open public debate”.

RTPI Scotland suggests appointing a statutory chief planning officer in each local authority; ensuring full cost recovery for planning applications (and ring-fencing fees to support their assessment); and exploring how to provide a community right to plan.

See the RTPI’s response here (PDF): tinyurl.com/planner0517-scotland

MAY 2 01 7 / THE PLA NNER

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NEWS

Analysis { GENERAL ELECTION 2017

May’s election gamble

By Huw Morris Kenny Rogers once sang about poker.

Regular players of the game say it is all about the art of knowing when to hold them, fold them or raise the stakes.

Theresa May has played some hand.

There is a myth the prime minister called a snap general election. True, her cabinet did not know until the morning of the announcement and neither did anyone else in the Westminster village.

However, suppliers of key services to the government had been put on notice a fortnight before the announcement.

Nobody picked up the signs because nobody was looking.

“While Theresa May’s stated intention was to provide greater clarity and stability by calling a general election, in the immediate term the move inevitably puts a question mark over policy and creates further uncertainty across the built environment,” says UK Green Building Council chief executive Julie Hirigoyen.

Sudden or not, the election

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no attention. Rightly or wrongly, most of the election campaign will be seen through the prism of Brexit. In reality, it is throttling many issues. announcement highlights two strands Some commentators see the election of challenges for planning, one of them as an opportunity to remove uncertainty procedural, the other the strangulating ahead of negotiations with the EU. This effect of Brexit. is highly optimistic, particularly when The first is associated with purdah the agenda for various negotiations and the convention that no major or have yet to be thrashed out. Anybody controversial decisions are taken in the concerned with the built environment run-up to a ballot. The most immediate will pause for thought if, to paraphrase impact is parliamentary scrutiny of the another Rogers’ song, they see what draft Airports National Policy Statement condition their condition is in. and who will chair the relevant Brexit is casting a giant shadow over committee. Delays look inevitable for at many challenges. The housing crisis, least one if not both of these. A decision skills shortages, investment in major is also due on election day on the development, infrastructure delivery Richborough Connection Development and rising materials costs among many Consent Order. The tea leaves are unclear others were fiendishly complicated about whether this goes before Brexit. They are all ahead on time or not. the more serious now.

"RIGHTLY OR All election The canaries in the WRONGLY, MOST announcements prompt a coal mine are not looking OF THE ELECTION good so far. A survey of stampede by all professions CAMPAIGN and interest groups arguing Royal Institute of British WILL BE SEEN that it should be a ballot Architects members in THROUGH THE about their concerns. In February showed 61 per PRISM OF reality, the average voter pays cent of respondents had BREXIT" seen projects delayed or put on hold as a result of Brexit, with 37 per cent saying schemes had been cancelled. For planners, that’s a lot of work not coming their way.

A cursory glance at various market surveys conducted by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) across construction, residential and commercial sectors in the past year reveals that while the shock over Brexit has abated, activity is either flat, hedging its bets or only tentatively playing its cards.

“Uncertainty continues to cloud the outlook and weigh on market sentiment,” says RICS parliamentary affairs manager Lewis Johnston. The election, he adds, does “very little to change that prognosis in the near term and, if anything, we are likely to see continuing deferral of major investment and hiring plans”.

I M AG E S | G E T T Y

24/04/2017 15:43

PLAN UPFRONT

NI councils make case for more powers Extra powers for councils could be on Sean McPeake, chief executive of the the cards if the Stormont parties fail to Northern Ireland Local Government reach a deal to restore devolution.

Association (NILGA) said: “Quite clearly The UK Government will come under the situation in the NI Assembly will be pressure to consider passing additional volatile for some time. The 11 councils in responsibilities – including powers over the north are in situ to deliver economic regeneration schemes - to growth, co-ordinate and "THE SITUATION deliver public services. We the new 11 super councils if IN THE NI the Assembly is mothballed want to be able to help ASSEMBLY WILL indefinitely, it has emerged. plan local economies and BE VOLATILE FOR regenerate our areas.”

The councils’ umbrella SOME TIME" body has already met UK A letter from NILGA’s secretary of state James senior team to Mr Brokenshire, who has agreed Brokenshire said: “(Our) to further discussions. all-party, all-council The plan would form an political leadership is alternative to full-blown Direct Rule, ready, able and willing to do everything with local government subsuming some it can to ensure that you are aware of the of the existing responsibilities of the cohesion, efficiency and innovation of regional departments. local government in Northern Ireland.”

Khan vows to halt ‘shocking’ closure of London pubs The number of pubs in London has fallen by 25 per cent, prompting mayor Sadiq Khan to “do everything in his power” to halt the decline.

Khan has released figures revealing that London has lost 1,220 pubs since 2001 – an average of 81 closures a year.

Two London boroughs reported a loss of more than half of their pubs, with Barking and Dagenham citing a loss of 56 per cent and Newham 52 per cent. Other badly affected boroughs include Croydon with 45 per cent, Waltham Forest with 44 per cent, Hounslow reporting a 42 per cent and Lewisham at 41 per cent.

Hackney, by exceptional contrast, saw an increase of 3 per cent since 2001.

The figures are from an audit of London’s public houses, which is the first strand of the mayor’s Cultural Infrastructure Plan for 2030.

Khan’s night czar, Amy Lamé, has launched a public consultation on culture and the night-time economy, which

contains guidance on how boroughs can use the current London Plan to protect public houses from closure.

This encourages boroughs to implement the ‘agent of change’ principle, which puts the onus on developers that build properties next to pubs to pay for soundproofing, ensuring residents and revellers can coexist peacefully. n Culture and the night-time economy: www.london.gov.uk/closingtime

Extending Borders railway to Carlisle to be considered Extending the Borders railway will be one of the options considered by a new study looking at improving transport provision in the south of Scotland, across all modes including road, rail and public transport.

Government agency Transport Scotland has announced the award of the contract to Jacobs UK Ltd. The study starts later this month (April) and is expected to take about seven months to complete.

The findings will feed into the forthcoming revitalisation of the administration’s so-called Strategic Transport Projects Review, which will look at future transport proposals for the whole of Scotland, including the Scottish Borders.

Transport minister Humza Yousaf said: “This study will take forward that commitment by considering how we improve accessibility in the Borders, link communities to key markets through strategic transport routes, and identify where improvements to transport links are required.

“We want to build on the existing Borders railway by considering whether it should be extended to Carlisle. The study will also look at how we improve access from the Scottish Borders to key markets into Edinburgh, Carlisle and Newcastle.

MAY 2 0 1 7 / THE PLA NNER

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LEADER COMMENT

Opinionn A model of consistency?

Chance would be a fine thing – In all likelihood, this will be the last edition of The Planner you receive before the general election. Wow, now there’s a sentence that feels strange to be writing in late April of 2017. As we go to press it’s less than a week since anyone knew such an election was in the offing, yet here we are with the country again preparing itself for the political pandemonium and purdah associated with June 8th – specifically, the one event our prime minister firmly ruled out, but which is now firmly ruled back in.

There are plenty of reasons for Theresa May’s election call. All have their roots in the Brexit referendum that has so destabilised the country’s politics, and all are overtly political in origin. Not that any of this should have mattered. Despite Brexit, indeed precisely because of this kind of event, didn’t we have a shiny new Fixed Term

Martin Read Parliaments act to prevent exactly this kind of thing?

Indeed we did. Except, it would seem, for some pretty big holes in the legislation that made it absurdly easy to overrule on the very first occasion it came to be tested.

The act was meant to guarantee fixed five-year parliamentary terms and thus the kind of consistency and reliability that both policy-makers and markets crave. And of course, five years is something you hear a lot about in planning, most

notably in the government’s attempt to ensure each local planning authority has in place rolling five-year local plans and the need to demonstrate five years’ supply of housing.

Politics plays its part in the reasons why local plans have proved so difficult to establish locally, but the overall aim behind the policy remains sound: the establishment of regularity and consistency across authorities to help politicians, planners, property developers - indeed, anyone invested in planning their local environment.

And now the government that desires consistency of operation at local level has thrown everything up

"PRECISELY BECAUSE OF THIS EVENT, DIDN’T WE HAVE A SHINY NEW FIXED TERM PARLIAMENTS ACT TO PREVENT EXACTLY THIS KIND OF THING?"

in the air. It’ll be deep into autumn before routine is re-established, with the neighbourhood planning bill just one item now in limbo.

As things stand, the polls suggest the high likelihood of another Conservative administration. But from a planning perspective it would certainly count against consistency if planning minister Gavin Barwell, defending one of the smallest majorities in the country, was defeated.

Another planning minister out of office so soon, just as he’s getting a reputation for fully embracing his brief?

Surely there’s good to reason to hope not?

Former foreign secretary David Miliband said recently that the difference between the world’s biggest powers and those that aspire to similar status is in the reliability and consistency that those bigger powers demonstrate year after year.

Let’s hope that, once June is over, we can all look forward to more of exactly that in the years ahead.

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Average net circulation 19,072 (January-December 2014) © The Planner is published on behalf of the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) by Redactive Publishing Ltd (RPL), 17 Britton St, London EC1M 5TP. This magazine aims to include a broad range of opinion about planning issues and articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the RTPI nor should such opinions be relied upon as statements of fact.

All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced, transmitted or stored in any print or electronic format, including but not limited to any online service, any database or any part of the internet, or in any other format in whole or in partww in any media whatsoever, without the prior written permission of the publisher. While all due care is taken in writing and producing this magazine, neither RTPI nor RPL accept any liability for the accuracy of the contents or any opinions expressed herein. Printed by Southernprint

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MAY 2 0 17 / THE PLA NNER

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CHRIS SHEPLEY

O Opinion Navigating the urban form for autonomous vehicles I was reading the other day about drones. According to an enthusiastic expert, they will replace all those delivery vans, soonest, and clear the streets for the rest of us. Each van presumably contains several loads. So if each load is stuck to a drone I envisage, in our cities, a sky thick with flying parcels, the sun obscured by the products of John Lewis. We’ll all be wearing crash helmets. But if the carpet currently in our hallway, awaiting collection by a neighbour inconsiderate enough to be out when the delivery man called, were to fall from a drone onto my head, it would be the end of this column. A new meaning for the term ‘carpet bombing’.

Others, of course, say that these deliveries will be made by driverless cars, or ‘autonomous vehicles’ (AVs).

This is an area that could have profound implications for transport and urban form, yet there seems to be surprisingly little debate about it within the profession.

Maybe this is because there is still a lot of uncertainty. This, say some, could be the biggest revolution since the invention of the car itself. But, say others pointing to recent accidents, revolutions sometimes don’t happen.

Research (at Massachusetts Institute of Technology) says AVs might enable every passenger to get to his or her destination at the time they need to be there with 80 per cent fewer cars. But others (Samaras, Carnegie Mellon University) think AVs will expand the driving population, make mobility more attractive,

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“IS ALL THIS SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE – CAN WE GET THE PETROLHEADS OUT OF THEIR HABITS?” and increase traffic by 14 per cent. This is the sort of thing that makes planning hard.

The introduction of AVs will be a gradual process, and we have a bit of time to think about it. But in some visions the end state is dramatic, with private ownership of vehicles almost redundant – you simply finger an app and the thing turns up for your pleasure. After a journey (taking the algorithmically calculated optimal route) spent lounging on the integral sofa, you disembark and it

glides off to give satisfaction to the next passenger. Other visions are less radical, with a degree of private ownership remaining.

Some things are clearish, however. Vehicles will be able to travel closer together and therefore make better use of existing road space. The average private car at present spends 95 per cent of its time parked; with AVs, there could be much less demand – even no demand – for car parking in city centres, thus freeing up masses of space for other uses; nor in the ultimate scenario any need for parking at home.

But there may be a need for parking areas outside town to store the things when not in use.

Life will, at least in theory, be safer, and it may be possible to do away with a great deal of signage and street clutter.

Optimists think many streets

might be decommissioned and turned into new parks or play areas.

It’s also suggested that all this will tend to increase urban sprawl, since it will be so easy to travel and to use the time well; but then we planners may have something to say about that.

Then there are the threats.

Is all this socially acceptable – can we get the petrolheads out of their habits? What about insurance – who’s to blame if you run me over while you’re asleep in an AV? And will the Russians hack the system and generate pile-ups on the M6?

And how does this relate to public transport systems?

Maybe, in an integrated system, AVs will deliver people to the nearest rapid transit system rather than penetrating cities.

My skills in bouncing pebbles across water have been widely admired, and this piece is a similar surfaceskimming exercise. But we do need to get a wider debate going about this, pretty soon.

It may not happen until some way into the future; but the future is our business.

Chris Shepley is the principal of Chris Shepley Planning and former Chief Planning Inspector I L L U S T R AT I O N | O I V I N D H O V L A N D

24/04/2017 09:45

Quote unquote FROM THE RTPI AND THE WEB F E E D B AC K

Jerry Birkbeck – As a more or less retired planner and landscape architect, a comment by Alice Charles from Geneva (‘RTPI Members Working Around the World’, p.46, Planner April 2017) resonated very much with my thoughts on planner training.

She mentioned how if she had the chance she would change planning education “to ensure courses provide students with adequate training in design, construction and engineering”. A very sensible suggestion and one that needs to be taken up by the principal professions working in the built environment - architecture, civil engineering, landscape architecture and planning.

It is clearly evident that many planners working in development control in particular and local planning in general have a poor appreciation of the basic principles of good design and construction.

Surely a prerequisite of achieving an understanding of what helps to develop a “sense of place”?

When I trained as a town planner at the then Lanchester Polytechnic in the mid to late 1960s design and construction was a fundamental part of the course. However by the 1970’s that changed to a more social science perspective.

What is frustrating is that at Birmingham City University all four disciplines are on the same campus but there appears to be little interaction between them. Although the Architects and Landscape students have a shared involvement in their early work.

I believe that planners are not so involved. This is a nonsense if this indeed the case. To begin to achieve “quality design” I would recommend that the presidents of RIBA, ICE, LI and RTPI meet to ensure that this is the target for undergraduate education and becomes standard

across the UK. Working together to achieve quality in the environment and set high design standards is absolutely essential.

Jerry Birkbeck Retired planner and landscape architect

Dan Jestico – London mayor Sadiq Khan has rightly made improving air quality a priority and announced a 2019 start date for London’s ultra-low emission zone. It is hoped that this will help to reduce vehicle emissions by 50% by 2020.

Cities are the perfect places for electric vehicles. The electrical infrastructure required for charging points is in place and a government subsidy is available for these vehicles, although our cycling infrastructure needs improvement.

Through the use of apps and wearable monitors, air quality data is increasingly transparent to building occupiers. This can influence how people travel to work and how they view their working environment, potentially acting as a differentiator to tenants. The King’s College air quality website can show which sites in London have better air quality, although there is probably a way to go before this data starts affecting land or property values.

As outdoor air quality improves, we are likely to see more city centre schemes adopting natural ventilation strategies instead of air conditioning, resulting in a virtuous circle of reduced carbon dioxide emissions from our buildings.

Urban greening is not going to solve air quality problems any time soon. The solution lies in vehicle use.

Dan Jestico, director of sustainable development, Iceni Projects

“The dog that doesn’t bark is ‘Where is the English Parliament?’.

And increasingly this becomes a ridiculous anomaly” JANICE MORPHET TALKING TO THE PLANNER ABOUT DEVOLUTION AND BREXIT

“30 per cent of sound plans subject to an ‘early review’, all related at least in part to housing matters” PLANNED AND DELIVER, A REPORT BY PLANNING CONSULTANCY LICHFIELDS

“‘Sustainable’ has become so overused as to be devoid of meaning” CLIFF HAGUE, CHAIRMAN OF THE COCKBURN ASSOCIATION, EDINBURGH’S CIVIC TRUST, TALKING TO THE PLANNER ABOUT EDINBURGH’S DRAFT MANAGEMENT PLAN

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

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

O Opinion

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Paul Drew, director for design, Iceni Projects

More BIMBY, less NIMBY

Did the housing white paper go far enough? enou Let’s just say it didn’t herald a brave new world of high-quality homes for all. With the paper out for consultation until May and the dust having settled on the immediate reactions, what does it actually mean in terms of the design of housing?

Quality, not just quantity, matters.

It’s all very well to say that communities should have their voices heard (they should). But if local people are to have a say in the design of new housing, they should also have a say in where these developments will be. Communities across the country are crying out for new homes. As planners and developers, we should take a proactive approach – less NIMBY and more BIMBY (beauty in my backyard).

Government advice on neighbourhood planning and bimby. org.uk provide useful guidance to local communities. This empowers them to collaborate and shape development in their neighbourhoods, through identifying areas for potential development.

The BIMBY approach is a design manual that can feed into local planning policy to impact how, and where, an area grows. But there is one major weakness with the BIMBY toolkit. It jumps from identifying land to deciding on characterful features of a forthcoming development. This leaves a large gap in the middle where substantial design issues must

Gavan Rafferty is a lecturer in spatial planning at Ulster University

Northern Ireland and the challenge of Brexit

also be resolved. Stitching a new development into an existing neighbourhood is not purely based on decoration – there are overarching design principles that need careful consideration. Things are not pretty if you get the bikes, bins and cars wrong.

This is where Building for Life (builtforlifehomes.org) conveniently arises. It is the most robust design tool we have. The white paper rightly recognises it as a key design tool to shape quality places, with 12 principles against which new developments should be assessed.

What it doesn’t do is help communities from the outset, mostly being framed for applicants and local authorities at pre-application stage. Perhaps a high-quality scheme could come forth without community involvement, indeed many do. But we see so much low-quality housing and such long approval times that could be avoided with community collaboration from the outset.

In order for communities to holistically shape the development and expansion of their neighbourhoods, bimby.org and Building for Life can work together.

This approach helps empower local communities while increasing their planning and design awareness. It allows them to be proactive about development rather than staunchly opposing it.

If there are to be amendments to the NPPF, addressing the links between community need and design is a foundation to build on.

“THINGS ARE NOT PRETTY IF YOU GET THE BIKES, BINS AND CARS WRONG”

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2 BLOG

BLOG

What wi will a post-Brexit Northern Ireland look like? Some 44.2 per cent of Northern Ireland voters wanted to exit Europe, forecasting a future free of European bureaucracy. Meanwhile, 55.8 per cent voted for this part of the UK to remain in the EU, wary of ‘hard borders’ and economic stagnation.

Political division remains with us – thankfully not to the same degree as in the not-so-distant past. For example, even while the economy rebounds, more so-called ‘peace-walls’ have been erected and many communities remain segregated.

Yet Northern Ireland has benefited greatly from a peace process underpinned by a strong commitment from both British and Irish governments. This commitment, too, has been given added strength by all of the British Isles being part of the EU, with no hard borders.

But globalisation presents a dilemma. On one hand, greater connectedness has helped the coordination that tended to be commonplace within nations to transcend upwards across nations. On the other hand, Brexit and Trump’s election indicate that populism is on the rise and liberalism is losing ground.

Is it because we live in such a hyper-connected world that some people feel their identity and economic prosperity are under threat? I am curious about

how the rise of place-based thinking of localism and regional devolution is coinciding with nationalistic rhetoric.

Place-based approaches allow us to experiment with collaborative ways to put communities at the heart of place-shaping to address complex social-economic issues. But what happens if the emphasis on place-based empowerment is replaced by provincial and regressive thinking?

Does it create the conditions for supporting populist thinking that opposes ‘the elite’, and could it be manipulated to legitimise exclusionist, protectionist and insular nationalistic perspectives?

It could pose political and planning challenges for shaping a liberal and progressive future. But planning must challenge spatial injustices and promoting a cohesive society.

Northern Ireland has never had a ‘proper’ conversation about how we build a shared narrative about the relationship between people and place. Brexit is not making this easier. While planning and environmental law will remain ‘as is’ after the Great Repeal Bill, the province’s future is less certain.

Local politics will continue to shape the constitutional questions as we emerge from Brexit. But the new planning system also has a role to further sustainable development, improve wellbeing, and to create shared space.

“I AM CURIOUS ABOUT HOW THE RISE OF PLACE­BASED THINKING IS COINCIDING WITH NATIONALISTIC RHETORIC”

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

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

3

Heather Kerswell is the founder of HK Associates and former chief executive of Mole Valley District Council

Good planning in 1912 shows how we can add five years to life

‘Shangri‘Shangri-la in Surrey, where living to 100 iis easy’ was the headline on 19 February’s Sunday Times article on Whiteley Village, near Walton-on Thames. Research by Cass Business School had shown that residents moving to Whiteley Village, even though from poorer socio-economic backgrounds, receive a substantial longevity boost.

Women can expect to live as long as the wealthiest in the land, and men as long as the norm.

Whiteley Village has a disproportionate number of centenarians. and aims to be “the best place to age in Britain”.

Whiteley Village was created from money left in 1907

by William Whiteley (of Whiteley Stores, Bayswater).

The 91-hectare site, chosen to be a “bright, cheerful and healthy spot” was bought in 1911. Architect Frank Atkinson designed a spacious layout to a very legible plan, influenced by Howard’s Garden City, of hexagons, circles and radial paths towards a central statue of Enterprise.

The plan showed cottages for 300 people and community buildings – a village hall, two churches and an infirmary, placed to create vistas along the axes. To avoid an institutional appearance, seven of the day’s top architects, such as Sir Ernest George, Ernest Newton and Aston Webb, each designed a section.

The quality of their buildings is

4 BLOG

BLOG

Terrie Alafat CBE is chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Housing. She will be speaking at the RTPI Planning Convention on 17 June

White paper is a start, but bolder housing measures are required

such that they are all now listed.

Can good planning really help people to live longer? For Chandra McGowan, CEO of the Whiteley Homes Trust, the key is that residents are active in their community. They are independent, care for each other and run a huge range of activities.

The overall design is a critical factor in this sense of well-being as it helps residents to feel good about their home and village, and because its deliberate connectivity encourages activity.

Whiteley’s £1 million legacy enabled the Whiteley Homes Trust to buy an excellent site and maintain buildings and spaces. These are now major assets that underpin plans for expansion.

Whiteley Village should inspire the planning of a new generation of retirement villages, particularly for people of limited means.

New trusts could raise capital by appeal, and design beautiful places with top-quality dwellings and facilities that allow residents to be active through the many years of older age we can expect.

Whiteley is expanding, with more cottages, spacious flats, more home support for residents and a new care centre for those needing temporary intensive care – all paid for by an explicitly commercial scheme for self-funding residents. It will be fascinating to see how the diverse community evolves over the next century.

“WHITELEY SHOULD INSPIRE THE PLANNING OF A NEW GENERATION OF RETIREMENT VILLAGES”

The ho housing white paper signalled a significant change in direct direction – it’s time for bold measures to tackle the problems the government has committed to solving.

It very clearly moves away from an almost exclusive focus on home ownership and places emphasis on increasing multitenure house building over the long term. This is a shift that is both welcome and overdue.

The recognition of the role of local authorities is a big plus – both in terms of enabling others to build homes and their own role as housebuilders. We were delighted to see a willingness to remove barriers facing councils in the white paper and in the words and actions of the housing minister and DCLG officials.

And in Gavin Barwell we seem to have a housing minister who is passionate about our sector and willing to listen.

But long-term questions remain. We need to find a way to build more homes that people can afford, and we still don’t really have any concrete commitments to get us there.

We recently completed our yearly analysis of the balance of government housing investment and the results were concerning.

Just £8 billion of the £51 billion earmarked for housing until 2020/21 will directly fund affordable housing – just 16 per cent. Some of the remaining £43

billion may indirectly support the building of affordable homes, but it includes no direct funding.

The majority will support starter homes, first-time buyers and the private market. It’s hard to imagine how we can build the genuinely affordable housing we need while this remains the case.

Meanwhile, our projections suggest 250,000 of the most affordable rented homes could be lost between 2012 and 2020. The government’s own figures show that the number of social rents fell by more than 120,000 between 2012 and 2016, primarily as a result of right to buy and housing organisations converting social rents into higher affordable rents. Our projections show this loss of our cheapest rented homes will continue over the next four years.

A number of welfare policies also undermine the government’s commitment to create a country that works for everyone.

Our research shows that the lower benefit cap could put 116,000 families at risk of homelessness. Research by the BBC revealed some families with just 50p a week to pay their rent.

We are calling for the policy to be reversed.

The housing minister is right to say there is no silver bullet to solve our housing crisis. Although the government’s commitment to tackle it has been backed up by positive action, there’s so much more to do.

“WE NEED TO FIND A WAY TO BUILD MORE HOMES THAT PEOPLE CAN AFFORD”

MAY 2 0 1 7 / THE PLA NNER

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THIS ISLAND POSITION WITH BREXIT LOOMING AND INEQUALITY GROWING, THE UK SEEMS TO BE A NATION OUT OF TUNE WITH EUROPE, WITH THE TIMES AND WITH ITSELF, JANICE MORPHET TELLS SIMON WICKS

The past is rarely as we prefer to recall it. Take the ‘golden age’ of UK planning, when planners – empowered by the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act – sought to rebuild a battered nation in the generation after the Second World War. “I’m not sure I remember it as a brave new world,” Janice Morphet insists. “I grew up in Islington in the postwar period. There were still bombsites. A lot of places were filthy […] The buildings were damp and smelly.”

Postwar Britain was austere. But there was a sense of possibility. “Something in me thought it would be nice if they could be brought back as they were,” Morphet recalls.

Planners, politicians and civil servants also had designs for improvement and achieved great things in the aftermath of war. But in their pursuit of the new, they may too readily have forgotten the old. Morphet’s father, a coppersmith “interested in local history”, had taught her that this was something to savour.

“Before Columbia Market was demolished, he took me to see it and said it shouldn’t be.” She continues: “We always used to watch John Betjeman on TV [between 1959 and 1976, the poet made eight documentaries for the BBC about British heritage]. It was just something I was familiar with, thinking it was important.”

Now a doyenne of British planning, Morphet

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has been a public sector planner in London and a county council chief executive in the East Midlands; a government policy adviser; an RTPI trustee and a noted academic. She has seen and studied public policy, local government and national politics from the inside out.

She may well be a polymath. But she wears it lightly – Janice Morphet is engaging, open, and, above all, humane. A concern with social justice appears to have underpinned her career from her early days as an assistant planner in Enfield to her forthcoming appearance at June’s RTPI Planning Convention, talking about innovations in local authority housebuilding.

But she’s also a sought-after European and British public policy expert whose new book – Beyond Brexit? – is a 170-page dissection of Brexit and its potential consequences. Morphet’s sense of history, though personal, is not merely nostalgic; it’s framed with detail and context.

When quietly damning about the forces driving the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union, she is worth listening to.

PHOTOGRAPHY | PETER SEARLE

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I N T E R V I E W : J A N I C E M O R P H ET

“I’M NOT SURE I REMEMBER IT AS A BRAVE NEW WORLD. THERE WERE STILL BOMBSITES. EVERYWHERE WAS DAMP.”

MAY 2 0 1 7 / THE PLA NNER

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I N T E R V I E W : J A N I C E M O R P H ET

“A colonial view” Morphet argues that the desire to escape Europe springs from a “colonial view of the world” that evokes a time of prestige and privilege. But, as the realities of postwar Britain included bombsites, so colonial Britain was propped up by heavy doses of poverty and exploitation. In the present, the reality of Brexit Britain will be an exceedingly complex negotiation that we may be culturally ill-suited to conduct.

Morphet makes the point that Westminster’s adversarial politics are at odds with the more collaborative approaches that have emerged in the proportionally representative democracies that pepper Europe.

“Many have coalition governments,” she says. “This has made them effective at making working arrangements and coming together around the things that they can. I think we are going to find it very difficult in negotiation; our EU colleagues have much more experience of this.”

What’s more, Morphet argues, our politicians and media have maintained what amounts to a systematic fallacy about the EU. Beyond Brexit? is an effort to generate an informed discussion. “Really what I wanted to do was set something out about the options. I wanted also to write a bit about what would be the same [post-Brexit], what would be lost and what would be foregone.

“I wanted to bring people back to the present, to consider that the European community isn’t completely mesmerised with the UK and that they are discussing things now which will come in the next programme which we won’t be a part of.”

Morphet confesses to being baffled by the voting of older people in the EU referendum, but understands that some feel Britain “is not as great as it was”. This, combined with the dismantling of support for people “at the margins”, has created vulnerable constituencies ripe for exploitation by an “unholy alliance” of “Brexit bullies” in politics, business and the media.

So we have a nation out of tune with the present; out of tune with Europe; out of tune with itself. “It is time to wake up from this island position,” she declares.

C V

HIG HL IG HT S

J A NI C E MOR P HET Born: Welwyn Garden City Education: BSc Sociology, Birmingham City (1969); Town Planning Diploma, Westminster (1973); MA Management Studies, Greenwich (1979); MA Politics and Government, London Metropolitan (1980); PhD Public policy and politics, Bristol (1992); MA English Literature, Open University (2008)

Timeline:

1969­1971

1975­1986

1996­2000

2006­2010

Planning asst,Enfield

Various positions, Tower Hamlets

Chief executive, Rutland County Council

Member, RTPI General Assembly

1971­1972 Assistant research officer, Dept of Environment

1972­1974 Senior planner, Surrey County Council

1974­1975 Senior planner, Islington

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1986­1990 Professor and head of planning, Birmingham Polytechnic

1990­1994 Director of technical services, Woking

1994­1996 Secretary, SERPLAN

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2000­2005 Adviser on local government modernisation, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister 2005-present Visiting Professor, Bartlett School of Planning, UCL

2006­2012 Member, Olympic Delivery Authority planning decisions committee

2011­ 2012 Member, DCLG sounding board on Territorial Impact Assessment (TIA)

Territorial equity If there’s been a common thread that runs through Morphet’s life and work, it would probably be a consciousness of “territorial equity”.

This she defines roughly as “access to services. It’s around overcoming the disadvantage of distance.

For example, broadband issues. It’s about the quality of public services for everyone.”

It’s a core EU principle, enshrined in the 2009 Lisbon Treaty along with social and economic equity as a guide for policy and, significantly, land use. Morphet cites the current government’s commitment to extending grammar schools as an example of a “sticking plaster policy” that ignores the principle of territorial equity. “If you look at those areas which are most economically disadvantaged, they generally have poorer public transport and poorer services.”

Potentially the biggest loss from Brexit will be the continent-wide spatial planning that is underpinned by the Lisbon Treaty’s principles of equity. The “territorial cohesion” that emerges from this provides a framework for member states to integrate policies in a way that contributes to the development and competitiveness of the EU. In short, cohesion and equity ensure that money and resources go where they are most needed in the EU. “It still amazes me no end about Cornwall,” shrugs Morphet.

Her own experience has shown that even a small investment in place can shift perceptions.

“When Eastenders started [in 1985], people in I M AG E S | PE T E R S E A R L E

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Austerity - mother of innovation

“WE ARE GOING TO FIND IT VERY DIFFICULT IN NEGOTIATION BECAUSE OUR EU COLLEAGUES HAVE MUCH MORE EXPERIENCE OF THIS”

Tower Hamlets were thrilled,” she recalls.

“Similarly when St Katharine Docks opened – again it was the same feeling that somehow the place had become worth visiting.”

East London then was a “last resort” place to which council tenants tended to be “shifted”.

People with skills had left, others had been decanted to the postwar new towns. Disused spaces were strewn with weeds. Local authority estates were in decline – a failure not so much of intention as management.“One day every council estate was new and everyone thought it was lovely. How did it go from that to a sink estate?

Why wasn’t it managed? Places don’t just become like that. It happens over time and it’s our responsibility to be alert to that.”

In 1980s Tower Hamlets, initiatives such as community gardening began to create a “more calm and finished fabric” offering “a subliminal benefit”. With regeneration, East London became a place you might consider visiting or even living.

However, renewal, combined with the shutting down of local authority housebuilding, has created a crisis of affordability. The principle of territorial equity is crumbling.

It’s this that is driving Morphet’s latest research into how enterprising local authorities are addressing the shortage in affordable housing (see 'Austerity –mother of innovation', above). A blend of austerity politics, policy shifts and the absolute necessity of becoming self-funding is driving a more entrepreneurial approach to local authority

“It galls a lot of councils to pay rent to private landlords who are renting back to them former council flats sold under Right to Buy,” says Janice Morphet. “Some are building, such as Barking and Dagenham, some are buying off the open market. Then the council is still paying rent but they’re paying it back to themselves.

“Because of the change in local government finance in 2020 lots of councils want to develop income streams and property is a means to do that. Mixed developments with some retail space generate council tax, rents and business rates, and they’re assets.

“Two changes have made some difference. The first is the powers given to local authorities under the 2011 Localism Act sections 1-7. Councils can now open companies. Second, you have new internal financial reporting standards over the whole of the OECD. Now there’s just one set of accounts (there were previously two) and the accounting framework is the same as the private sector. So partnership will be easier.

“Currently I’ve got 175 local authorities engaging in some kind of provision – though not all are building. For example, Islington and Manchester are using pension funds. Enfield and Barking and Dagenham have big loans from the European Investment Bank.

Islington and Barnet are setting up registered providers and lots of councils have done PFI. “On the other hand, Barnet, Croydon and Birmingham have created their own housing companies. You get a loan from the Public Works Loans Board and lend that money to the housing company at a lower rate than a bank. The company builds for rent or sale and buys all its services from the council. Money from sales and rents goes into the company and directly to the council, which owns it.

“You’ve got the powers, so you have to push because you’ve got no money. Austerity is the mother of innovation.”

housing provision than we have seen before.

“Private housebuilders say they don’t want to build more houses,” Morphet explains. “They’re comfortable building 140150,000 a year. Basically they don’t feel that they want to or have the capacity to build the volume of housing the government has identified. And they don’t pretend to do that. We do need new entrants into the market and some councils are very frustrated.”

Everywhere somewhere For a woman who is “technically” retired, Janice Morphet is exceedingly busy. There’s a recently completed English Literature PhD, a book about Brexit, research into housebuilding.

The last demonstrates how things have changed since the postwar consensus around the role of the public sector.

Nowadays the boundaries between public and private are more blurred. Each, she suggests, can learn from the other in tackling the territorial challenges posed by a Britain moving irresistibly towards Brexit.

Some things don’t change, however. At least one of planning’s eternal verities ought to remain untouched by Brexit, in principle if not in practice: “My strapline is really making everywhere somewhere.” n Janice Morphet will be speaking at the RTPI Planning Convention on 17 June www.theplanningconvention.co.uk n Beyond Brexit? is available from Policy Press: www.policypress.co.uk/beyond-brexit/ n Read the full version of this interview online at tinyurl.com/ planner0517-morphet

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D E V E LO P M E N T M A N A G E M E N T

RECENT HIGH COURT DECISIONS HAVE THROWN THE SPOTLIGHT ONCE AGAIN ON THE ISSUE OF CONCEALMENT OF PLANNING BREACHES. PLANNING LAWYER TRACY LOVEJOY LOOKS AT THE LENGTHS TO WHICH SOME LANDOWNERS WILL GO TO HIDE UNAUTHORISED DEVELOPMENT

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

Some people just don’t play by the rules, as development control planners know only too well. Among their responsibilities is the task of tracking down unauthorised developments and deciding whether or not to take enforcement action.

They must do so under the terms of the 1990 Town and Country Planning Act, which provides a strict time period within which any non-consented development must be identified and enforced against.

After this point the development becomes lawful and the developer can obtain a certificate stating g this. works The system work rks fairly well and frees up the movemen movement ment of land – providing everyone is hone honest. But what

has frustrated planners – one so impressive that it was hitherto is that under the described in some quarters as a law landowners have been ‘castle’. For four years he hid the able to game the system house behind hay bales. Upon “THE by deliberately concealing its unveiling in 2006, Reigate ARGUMENT development and still getting and Banstead Council served an THAT a certificate of lawfulness. enforcement notice requiring OFFICERS The relevant question has demolition. It took almost 10 ‘SHOULD HAVE been: as a simple matter of years for Fidler to accept the KNOWN’ IS NOT fact has a breach existed, notice and knock his castle down.

A DEFENCE undetected or ignored, for In Welwyn, the Supreme AGAINST A the requisite period of time?

Court decided that, because of PEO OR A In 2011, two extreme the extent of his deceit, Beesley WELWYN­LIKE cases changed In could not take advantage of the g the game. g RESULT” time limit for enforcement. The Welwyn Hatfield Borough purpose of having a time limit Council v Secretary of State would be defeated – there was for Communities and Local simply no opportunity for the Governmentt (SSCLG), Alan LPA to enforce within the time period. That Beesley obtained planning permission decision was followed by the Court of Appeal for an agricultural barn in the green belt. in Fidler.

From the out outside, the structure looked just These two cases also led to legislation that like a barn, with h profiled metal sheeting allows planning authorities to apply to the and a roller-shutter door. But on o the inside magistrates court for a planning enforcement it was a fully functioning house with ith a order (PEO) if there has been deliberate study, lounge, three bedrooms and even concealment of any element of the breach a gym. In 2006, four years after taking up of planning control. Authorities are free to residence, Beesley applied for a lawful choose whether to rely on the rule in Welwyn development certificate.

In the case of the Fidler v SSLG, Robert or to apply for a PEO. in the green belt At the moment, any deliberate concealment Fidler also built a house h of an unauthorised breach is risky and the argument that officers ‘should have known’ is not a defence against a PEO or a Welwyn-like result. It will be interesting to see how this area develops and whether the officers’ diligence in probing landowners’ excuses will play any part in dealing with the assessment of concealed breaches.

In the meantime, here are five other extreme breaches that have incurred the wrath of planning officers and the courts since Messrs Beesley and Fidler’s breaches were first detected – and one that made the grade.

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SECRET CONVERSIONS The conjoined cases of Bonsall v SSCLG and Jackson v SSCLG, decided by the Court of Appeal in 2015, both involved barns converted to homes without permission.

Nigel Jackson made two applications for lawful development certificates on the basis that the first floor of his barn had been used as living quarters for four years. A Westminster City Council officer visited the barn following a complaint about residential use. Jackson denied this and convinced the officer not to enter the barn because of building work. The officer decided that the breach was installation of lights and windows without permission and told Jackson to apply for planning permission for these. Jackson stated on the application form and supporting documents that the barn was being used for agricultural purposes only.

David Bonsall turned an agricultural barn in Rotherham into a dwelling apparently without being observed by neighbours.

He had all supplies and building materials

delivered and billed to other addresses, and did not install windows or weatherproof the outer walls. He used industrial rather than domestic roof cladding and kept surrounding vegetation overgrown. The inspector commented that this was in “stark contrast” to the luxurious internal fittings.

Bonsall asked his visitors to park half a mile away at the village pub. He did not apply for Building Regulations approval, register for council tax, or register the building with a postal address or on the electoral roll. He took deliveries at his business premises nearby. He was so successfully secretive that even his own tenant of the neighbouring stables did not know that he lived next door. The courts upheld the inspector’s decision that all this amounted to deliberate deception or concealment.

BEHIND THE BLACKOUT In the 2012 case of White v Wealden DC, Mr White sought a certificate of lawfulness for an agricultural building that had been partly converted to a dwelling. His application was refused on appeal because of his extensive efforts to conceal the use.

This included, for example, blacking out the windows to prevent light being seen from the house.

But it was in preparation for a site visit by local planners that White’s deception intensified: he removed dimmer switches and halogen lights and replaced them with tube lights.

His clothes were already kept in boxes and these were stacked up in preparation for the visit. He put his bed and personal items like pictures and lamps into his van. He stocked up on animal bedding and feed, and left them in his bedroom. He also put rabbit hutches in the living room. Needless to say, the planning system saw through the ruse.

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‘YET ANOTHER BUILDING’ In 2016 the High Court upheld a planning enforcement order against Roy Coles because of deliberate concealment. Coles had applied for a lawful development certificate for the residential use of a building (a single-storey cottage) on a site where various buildings had previously been built without planning permission.

Lichfield District Council had previously received a complaint about “yet another building” but appeared to have trouble

identifying the building during site visits.

Unable to uncover evidence of a breach, the authority took no action. Coles and his wife gave the impression they lived at their previous house, the Dairy Annexe, by referring to it as their address in correspondence with the council (saying it was the generic name of their estate).

They didn’t go on the electoral register or pay council tax. The district judge held that in light of the complex planning history of the site, the conduct was enough for a planning enforcement order to be granted, even if it may not have engaged Welwyn.

In the High Court, Mrs Justice Laing noted: “In Welwyn, the Supreme Court decided, obiter, that there was an implied proviso to this apparently unqualified immunity [in Section 171B of the 1990 Act]. The immunity does not apply if the developer has engaged in positive deception in matters integral to the planning process which had been directly intended to undermine and did undermine that process.”

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D E V E LO P M E N T M A N A G E M E N T

NO POSITIVE DECEPTION

THE WRONG FORM OF WORDS Likewise, the High Court upheld a PEO in the case of Tanna v LB Richmond upon Thames (2016). Here, the point related to the whether the planning authority should have known earlier about the breach.

Even though the judge was scathing about the enforcement officers’ “gullibility” and “foolishness”, he decided that on balance that the district judge was entitled to accept the PEO. The case involved an outbuilding in residential premises that was used as an independent dwelling. The landowner registered the building for council tax and there was a sign on the property pointing to a ‘flat’. The building was also fully fitted out as a self-contained flat. However, up until the point when he applied for a lawful development certificate, Tanna told a number of lies. These were: n 2007: The building was being used by his

builders for its facilities and for overnight security staff. n 2008: The building was just a shed. n 2010: It was used for storage in connection with residential use of the main property. The intention was to use it as a site office and facilities for workers. n 2011: The sign describing the building as a flat was so emergency services could locate the building if a fire broke out. n 2013: He was required to register the building for council tax now that it had been named by the sign. The building was empty but had been occupied by builders and security staff.

What about cases where the inspector or court did NOT think the deception was enough to remove the immunity from enforcement after the four-year period?

One such example was Leon v Hertsmere BC (2016). The appeal was against a decision by the planning authority to issue an enforcement notice and refuse a lawful development certificate for the conversion of a garage block to a flat. The inspector did not accept that there had been positive deception that would prevent the landowner from relying on the time limit for enforcement.

The planning authority could not identify any false statement by the landowner or any failure to respond to a request for information. They argued that the following amounted to positive deception. n The design of the building, as the

entrance door and rear windows were hidden away at the side. But the authority was unable to point to a suitable alternative design and the appellant provided an explanation that the inspector accepted. n The landowner had intended to breach planning control when the planning application was made or when the garage was built. This was, however, insufficient to prove positive deception from the start.

n Failure to pay council tax on the flat, to notify the council’s street naming department, to notify building control or to register for electoral tax. These were considered passive omission rather than positive deception.

The landowner pointed to other matters where he had been more open about the residential use and the inspector felt these were consistent with his conclusion that there had been no positive deception.

Tracy Lovejoy is a planning lawyer at Bromsgrove District Council. The views in this article are her own and not the council’s.

Follow her on Twitter @tracylovejoy4

Robert Fidler beside the illegally built 'castle' he was ordered to demolish

In 2014, he submitted an application for a lawful development certificate based on four years of residential use. Summing up, Mr Justice Collins said: “In respect of his replies to a planning contravention notice in September 2013 he, as he put it, accepted that describing the outbuilding as occupied on occasions and ad hoc by builders and night security men was a wrong form of words. ‘Wrong form of words’ was in reality a downright lie.”

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LE A D E R S H I P I N P L A N N I N G

PLACE PRINCIPALS C H R I ST E R L A RS S ON I M AG E N E WS ØRE S U N D

PLANNING PROFESSIONALS AND ACADEMICS NEED TO FOCUS MORE ATTENTION ON THE ROLE OF PLANNERS AS LEADERS IN PLACEMAKING, SAYS ROBIN HAMBLETON

successful leaders bring their own personalities and enthusiasms to the task and develop their own leadership style. There is no fixed model.

Nevertheless, leadership analysis can advance understanding of how progress is made, and lessons can be identified.

But what is leadership? A long-established view, now past its ‘sell-by’ date, sees it as a top-down affair in which senior people issue instructions to subordinates. This tends to picture leaders as heroic figures, charismatic individuals with a vision and followers.

A contrasting view, facilitative leadership, emphasises the importance of leaders listening to diverse views and building coalitions. In this model leadership is not about ‘knowing the answers’ and encouraging others to follow. Rather, it is the capacity to spot talent and release collective problem-solving capacity.

My own definition of leadership is ‘Shaping emotions and behaviour to achieve common goals’.

This definition draws attention to how people feel, and it emphasises the collective construction of common purpose.

At next month’s RTPI Planning Convention speakers will explore ways in which planners can contribute to the creation of more prosperous and more inclusive communities. One theme to be spotlighted is how to develop the role of planners in civic or place-based leadership.

Since becoming RTPI president, Stephen Wilkinson has stressed the importance of outgoing public leadership in advancing the cause of inclusive city and regional planning. In January he told The Planner: “Building substantial new developments is a highly complex process and, ultimately, the planner is an essential part of that process, bringing people together to change places.

“So if there’s one skill deficit we need to address it’s about leadership.”

There is, indeed, a leadership gap. This is partly because planning theory has consistently failed to consider the role of leadership in delivering effective city and regional planning.

Leadership in placemaking This is a startling omission when it is clear that It is incontestable that place-less power has grown planning professionals often refer to the role of significantly in the last 30 years or so. By this I leadership in bringing about high-quality urban mean the exercise of power by decision-makers development. And there are who are unconcerned about many good examples of planners the impact of their decisions on as civic leaders – my recent book “LEADERSHIP IN communities in particular places.

(Leading the inclusive city) has Planners are place-based A CITY MEANS TO 17 inspirational stories drawn leaders. In an important sense INTEGRATE AND from 14 countries.

MODERATE DIFFERENT they can contribute – with others What I found was that – to checking the exploitative OPINIONS”

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THE REALMS OF PLACE LEADERSHIP

Political – people elected to leadership positions by the citizenry.

(2) Public managerial/professional – public servants appointed by local authorities, governments and third sector organisations to plan and manage public services, and promote community well-being.

(3) Community – civic-minded people who give their time to local leadership activities.

(4) Business – local business leaders and social entrepreneurs with a stake in the long-term prosperity of the locality.

(5) Trade union – trade union leaders striving to improve the pay and working conditions of employees.

Planners operate in the ‘innovation zones’ – the areas of overlap between the realms of leadership. They can play critical bringing different ac t ca role o e in b g gd e e t perspectives pe spect ves together. toget e .

Progressive planning in Portland Portland, in the US state of Oregon, has an international reputation for progressive planning. A city of 610,000 in a metropolitan area of 2.4 million, it has a long-standing commitment to sustainable urban development.

“Over the past eight years, Portland has shifted its focus to not only advance traditional planning and sustainability, but also to more fully understand issues related to equity, displacement and social justice,” says planning and sustainability director Susan Anderson.

Anderson (pictured right) and her team worked closely with then mayor Sam Adams to create the Portland Plan, adopted in 2012.

This bold and innovative citywide document

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POLITICAL LEADERSHIP PUBLIC MANAGERIAL/ PROFESSIONAL LEADERSHIP

COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP

TRADE UNION LEADERSHIP

ECONOMIC FRAMING

(1)

Potential innovation zones

GOVERNMENT FRAMING

SOCIO­CULTURAL FRAMING

tendencies of place-less power.

My research has identified four main forces that frame the space for local agency: environmental, economic, socio-cultural and legislative. But how is effective leadership exercised within this frame?

In any given locality there are likely to be five realms of place-based leadership reflecting different sources of legitimacy.

BUSINESS LEADERSHIP

ENVIRONMENTAL LIMITS

Emerging leadership themes Making Equity Planning Work (1990), co-authored by a city planning director (Norman Krumholz) and an academic (John Forester) is a book on equity planning that offers useful insights into civic leadership. With the election of President Trump, it is attracting renewed interest in the USA. Krumholz, formerly planning director for Cleveland, Ohio, says: “To be effective, planners need powerful friends and allies, and coalition-building must be an essential part of their strategy if they actually want to accomplish anything. Coalition building is key.

“But I offer two lessons to modern-day planners,” he adds.

“First, they must want to do equity planning and not focus simply on physical planning and managing big data. Second, they must

puts equity at the heart of strategy and provides a framework for housing, economic development, environmental and transportation plans. For example, the city’s commitment to social equity was embodied in its 2035 Comprehensive Plan and its Climate Action Plan.

New mayor Ted Wheeler is building on the work of his predecessors and playing an important role in the network of American cities opposed to divisive policies proposed by President Trump. For example, shortly after taking up office in January he reaffirmed the importance of Portland’s role in the Sanctuary Cities movement. “Under my leadership as mayor, the city

of Portland will remain a welcoming, safe place for all people regardless of immigration status,” he said.

Anderson says planning can play an important role in advancing social and environmental justice.

“Effective leaders are able to share their vision, engage people meaningfully, mobilise resources and work to empower people from throughout their community to reach shared objectives,” she says. “Navigating the political, neighbourhood and business forces is essential, along with collaborating with public and private sector champions’.” n Portland Plan 2012 www.portlandonline.com/ portlandplan/

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want to try to protect the poor and their neighbourhoods and be willing to take some political risks in the process.”

Three lessons emerge from these analyses of leadership:

(1) Values in planning matter. Spatial planning, if it means anything, is about serving the public interest ahead of serving the interests of private capital. At a time when authoritarian forces in society appear to be gathering, the importance of planners standing up for progressive thinking relating to social, environmental and economic equality is more important than ever.

(2) Leaders matter. Local leaders are familiar with what matters most to local people. Planning professionals are well placed to advocate for intelligent policies that strive for just results while caring for the natural environment on which we all depend.

(3) Planning scholars should give more attention to leadership in planning. Do this, and articles that draw lessons from successful place-based leadership would become a mainstay of The Planner in coming years. n Robin Hambleton is Emeritus Professor of City Leadership at the University of the West of England. His book, Leading the Inclusive City. Place-based Innovation for a Bounded Planet is published by Policy Press: http:// policypress.co.uk/leading-the-inclusive-city-1

n Robin and Christer C Larsson will be speaking speakin at the RTPI Convention on 17 June.

Going green in Freiburg Dynamic municipal leadership has established the German city of Freiburg as a world leader in sustainable urban development. The city – population 230,000 – has promoted a culture that combines a commitment to green values with a buoyant economy built around – among other things – renewable energy.

Wulf Daseking, (above), Freiburg’s director of planning from 1984-2012, played a vital civic leadership role in advancing sound city planning. “We discussed the objectives of the city with the inhabitants very intensively,” he says. “We create a culture of discussions.

Leadership in a city means to integrate and moderate different opinions.”

The leadership of directly elected mayors

Low impact, high sustainability in Malmö In 1994, civic leaders in Malmö, Sweden, faced a formidable challenge.

Traditional industries like shipbuilding were in steep decline and the established economic structure of the city was, in effect, collapsing.

Elected leaders, with support from officers, responded imaginatively.

Under mayor Ilmar Reepalu, a vision was developed that imagined Malmö as a thoroughly modern, environmentally aware city.

The initial emphasis was on responding to climate change through a programme of eco-friendly regeneration of the old industrial area. As new residents arrived in the city, a commitment to social sustainability and inclusion emerged to sit alongside environmental sustainability.

“The structure of the city is crucial to our approach to climate change,” says Malmö’s planning director Christer Larsson (above right). “Through careful planning designed to ensure mixed-use developments close to railway stations we can reduce the need for car travel and improve access for residents to job opportunities.”

A Comprehensive Plan for Malmö was adopted in 2000 and updated in 2014, to grow the city with the smallest possible environmental impact by emphasising “inward expansion”. Highquality development clusters around public transport nodes, and the plan aims to create an appealing city that is socially, environmentally and economically sustainable. Larsson believes that planners can make a valuable contribution to civic leadership: “Good planning involves facilitating a process where different views, opinions and interests are integrated into a balanced result, creating new buildings, public spaces and living environments.” n Comprehensive Plan for Malmö. Summary in English tinyurl.com/planner0517-malmo

has had a significant impact on quality of life. Daseking formed a particularly strong relationship with Social Democrat Dr Rolph Böhme, Freiburg’s mayor from 1982-2002.

Community activism is, arguably, the driving force in the politics of the city, and the commitment to green values and collective purpose is highly developed.

Daseking believes that planners need to come up with a clear vision and excellent ideas for progressing that vision – but to always remember that someone might have better ideas: “You have to be open and demonstrate that you are listening. People must have trust in you!”

Planners, he says, should develop an emotional bond with place. They should, he says, “stay put” for a time because it can take years to bring ideas to fruition. “Planners

have to be long-distance runners,” he says. “Continuity, sensibility and a tireless dedication are very important qualities, but to be successful planners need to have the courage to work with local political leaders to take the longer view.” n The Freiburg Charter for Sustainable Urbanism 2012 www.academyofurbanism. org.uk/freiburg-charter

IMAGE | ALAMY

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LANDSCAPE

Tech { L A N D S C A P E

P31 TECH P34 REGIONAL P38 DECISIONS P42 LEGAL P50 PLAN B P51 EVENTS

SLAYING THE DIGITAL DINOSAURS A NEW REPORT BY THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT INFORMATION UNIT PAINTS A PATCHY PICTURE OF THE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION OF LOCAL AUTHORITY SERVICES – THERE’S PLENTY OF SUPPORT BUT PIECEMEAL IMPLEMENTATION AND CONCERNS ABOUT DIGITAL EXCLUSION Local councillors are not ‘digital dinosaurs’ but a vocal minority for whom digital exclusion is a major issue may be holding back the digitisation of local government services.

Furthermore, digital development in local authorities is held back by the piecemeal creation of software platforms – a lack of investment in development of standard software is a major hurdle.

New research by the Local Government Information Unit (LGIU) found that ‘legacy’ IT in local authorities is so complicated and

I M AG E | G E T T Y

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they are so difficult to sell to that ‘bleeding edge’ technology providers are reluctant to invest the time and effort in creating and selling tools to councils.

“Today local authorities will to a greater or less extent have a mixture of ‘Big IT’, proprietary solutions, legacy software, middleware (software ‘glue’ enabling different systems to bind to each other), open platforms and open source,” states the report. “This has created a complex environment where hundreds of services and lines-of-business right across local

councils are operated by a diverse array of technology products which are procured or developed separately with little consideration for the need to line or coordinate operations.”

Few senior leaders “have a complete idea about their organisation’s technology capabilities, relegating IT in many authorities to a non-strategic category”. Councils themselves have a have a “reputation of failing to engage systematically with new ideas”. Meanwhile, scaling a successful product from one

MAY 2 0 17 / THE PLA NNER

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LANDSCAPE

Tech { L A N D S C A P E Top 3 challenges for the future 57%

Q

SOME FINDINGS

47% 44% 38% 33%

55%

16% 16%

Councillors positive about greater automation in public services

14%

Q

13%

authority to another is “extremely challenging” – particular in an era of biting cuts to service budgets.

It may seem a bleak picture, but there is cause for optimism, according to the report. The government itself is providing better strategic support nationally through initiatives such as the industrial strategy, digital strategy and government transformation strategy.

On top of this, the report reveals that the majority of local councillors were “digital enthusiasts” with “an overall positive view” about big data, automation and the future well-being of their area.

The digital divide Start of the Possible: Digital Leadership, Transformation and Governance in English Local Authorities was commissioned by the LGiU with support from Essex, Kent and East Sussex County Councils.

Written by Theo Blackwell, London Borough of Camden cabinet member for finance, technology and growth, the research aimed to probe the attitudes of local councillors towards digital services and their understanding of the potential of technology to alter service delivery.

Some 808 councillors from 278 councils across all English regions completed the 17-question survey. Fifty-five per cent of respondents represented district council wards, 17 per cent unitary authoritIes, 13 per cent metropolitan and 12 per cent were representatives of county or London

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boroughs. Almost one in three had served four or more terms.

The survey covered five areas: n Outlook on technology n Transformation plans and digital strategies n Application of technology and challenges n Needs and support n Leadership and governance Overall, the survey found clear backing for digital to be included in thinking on devolution. Councillors also expressed a desire to be better supported to understand technology and its transformative potential.

Concerns tended to focus on the digital divide – lack of connectivity and potential exclusion of those who are not tech-savvy or tech-enabled. Councillors were also worried about data sharing arrangements, particularly with the private sector.

As one councillor from the east of England put it: “The more the digital transformation proceeds, the more we shall have a two-class system of those who are able to access it and those who are left behind. That is a very bad thing.”

Another, from a South-East unitary authority, made the point that “We will move into a tick-box society if we lose sight of the fact that everyone is different. People count, and those who need our help most are the least able.”

Writing in the foreword, report author Theo Blackwell said: “I see today’s digital technologies helping to reform public

64%

Councillors positive about the advance of ‘Big Data’ in public services

64%

Q

Councillors who agree that digital technology will positively impact on the well­being of people in their area over the next 10 years

services in three main ways: first, through use of technology directly with agile working, innovation in design, culture and delivery; second, how technology can support better decision-making and investment; finally, imagining what the future of public services look like and enabling more innovation.”

He added: “For this to happen we need to support digital leadership right across our cities and counties in order to make public services more effective and make a difference to the people and communities they represent.”

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RTPI/MPA Conference Proposed solutions Blackwell proposed a series of steps that can be taken to address the challenges identified by councillors and accelerate the digital delivery of local authority services.

Most involve authorities working in partnership.

1. Support multi-authority chief officers and digital innovation teams with the following principles: n Better collective buying from the open market n Adopt common standards: service design, coding, data and infrastructure n Invest together in innovation - reducing risk but building scale n Sharing products: approaches, business cases, design, business processes and code – while remaining local and responsive in character and focus.

2. Establish council or multi-council scrutiny investigations into digital transformation.

Minerals Planning - Enabling Growth 24 May 2017 | NEC Birmingham With the Government's focus fixed on enabling economic growth, this year's conference will consider how the proposed agenda will affect the minerals sector. Join us to debate recent case examples and discuss the designation and implementation of the Mineral Safeguarding Areas.

Book now £150+VAT

020 3553 9736 rtpiconferences.co.uk/minerals

3. Digital transformation and GovTech innovation to be a future question posed in devolution and growth deals.

4. Identify leading councils and promote actions and behaviours. Extend Government Digital service leadership programmes to local government, including elected councillors.

5. Outcomes-based review of centrallocal government spending on GovTech initiatives for local public services. Focus on intermediaries helping ‘scale-ups’.

The LGiU’s chief executive, Jonathan CarrWest, said: “Much has been written about the shift to digital in local government and public services more generally. Such a shift represents an opportunity, almost uniquely, to drive down costs while simultaneously improving outcomes. But that’s not just a question of doing the same things better online, it’s about using digital as a way of thinking and connecting, of driving a cultural and relational attitude that changes how we think about what local government does and how it interacts with the communities it serves.” n Download Start of The Possible from the LGiU website: https://www.lgiu.org.uk/ wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Start-of-thepossible.pdf

Planning Law Update Conference 29 June 2017 | London This one-day conference will provide a thorough, thought provoking examination of key legal issues and will help delegates to navigate the labyrinth of the current UK planning system.

It will address and critically assess major policy changes, new legislation and a number of VLJQLȴ FDQW PLQLVWHULDO DQG MXGLFLDO GHFLVLRQV Case law

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MAY 2 0 17 / THE PLA NNER

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Nations & Regions focus { THE NORTH EAST

Growing pains Think of the north-east of England and most people will think of heavy industry. The region has a large and sparsely populated rural area to its west and north, but is perhaps best known for its chemicals industry around Teesside, Nissan’s car plant near Sunderland, and a developing renewable energy sector.

The North-East has 2.5 million residents and covers the counties of Northumberland and Durham and two conurbations: Tyne & Wear (Newcastle, Gateshead, North Tyneside, South Tyneside and Sunderland) and Tees Valley (Darlington, Hartlepool,

MAJOR PROJECTS

Middlesbrough, Redcar & Cleveland and Stockton-on-Tees).

There are six ports, with Teesport being England’s second largest, and international airports at Newcastle and Durham-Tees Valley.

Devolution in the region has been unpredictable. Tees Valley is set to elect a mayor in May to lead a combined authority armed with powers over local transport and investment. The mayor’s key task is likely to be to lead regeneration in an area that has been hit by steelworks closures but which remains among the UK’s largest industrial clusters.

An attempted devolution deal for the rest of the region collapsed last year when several councils got cold feet. Newcastle, North Tyneside and Northumberland are

continuing the effort to develop a joint devolution proposal.

Enterprise zones have benefited the region, with a focus on new ways to grow its economy. The first is based on offshore renewable energy at Blyth, the Centre for Offshore Wind and Renewables in North Tyneside and Sunderland’s A19 Corridor, the UK’s first designated area for ultra-low carbon vehicles. A second zone covers 10 separate sites concerned with passenger vehicle manufacture, subsea and offshore technology, life sciences and healthcare, and creative and digital services.

With a revival in its economy, the NorthEast now has to catch up on housebuilding, which fell back during the recession, to accompany the new businesses it has attracted and hopes to attract.

IAMP, Sunderland A Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project, the proposed International Advanced Manufacturing Park (IAMP) will be a 100 ha centre for advanced manufacturing and supply chain industries. North of Nissan’s factory, it will offer 260,000 square metres of development land with a transport interchange, shops and 150-bed hotel.

To cope with the increased traffic, Highways England will build a gradeseparated junction between the A184 and the A19, due for completion in 2021. www.iampnortheast.com

Dissington Garden Village Northumberland County Council has approved a new garden village on green belt land on the Dissington Estate in Ponteland, six miles north-west of Newcastle, despite local opposition.

Should it proceed, the scheme will have 2,000 homes on a 210 ha site, as well as enough employment space to create the equivalent of one new job per household.

Tyne & Wear Metro expansion Regional transport authority Nexus plans to expand Tyne & Wear’s Metro system using underused or disused rail track linking to Washington, Blyth, Bedlington, the Cobalt business park, and Newcastle’s western suburbs.

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Interview: Renewal and renewables Martyn Earle is an associate planner with Barton Willmore and chair of the RTPI North East “It seems to be busy here, in local authorities and in consultancy,” says Martyn Earle. The activity extends to planning policy, too. For example, North Tyneside is at the examination-in-public stage of its local plan and Durham at issues and options. “Generally,” says Earle, “the big cities are busy.”

The region has “been coming out of recession with new employment sites in North Tyneside and projects like Narec Distributed Energy at Blyth, which tests renewable energy equipment”.

North Tyneside currently has two major strategic sites, with 3,500 homes at Murton, which was long safeguarded but not used, and Killingworth Moor with 2,000 homes.

“We’ve not had that before, as there has been a historic undersupply when people did not build during the recession but growth is now driving higher demand.”

Newcastle has even set up a special planning team to deal with strategic residential land, Earle says, and while volume housebuilders have dominated the market hitherto, “others are now coming to the fore and consultants are leading big projects in a way we’ve not seen for a few years”.

Older industries like shipbuilding may still be found on a smaller scale but “increasingly sites like that are going for regeneration and areas along the A19 are doing better, with the Cobalt business park being the main example”.

The North-East’s push into renewables has not all been straightforward.

Earle says: “I would have said five years ago that renewables was going somewhere and we were seeing development happen but changes in government policy make it very difficult to get permission for onshore wind farms so it’s now only really offshore or near shore.”

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The North East Valuable skills Despite its image as an economic laggard, North-East planning departments lack capacity much as those in most of the parts of the country, both in development management and planning policy. “There is a skills shortage here in planning as much as there is in any other region,” says Ian Cansfield, senior vice-president of the RTPI North East.

Significant housing and industrial developments are planned and the region’s emphasis on encouraging the renewable energy industry might attract planners interested in its possibilities. In Tees Valley there is a prospect of working with a new combined authority with substantial devolved powers.

One unusual source of planning jobs is the presence in Newcastle of the HQ of the Marine Management Organisation (MMO), which licenses, regulates and plans marine activities to ensure they are carried out sustainably. The MMO is involved in planning matters that have a bearing on the coastline and offshore areas. The MMO devises England’s marine plans, which inform sustainable use of marine resources and help marine users to find locations for their activities.

RECENT SUCCESSES

Signposts RTPI North East is run by a regional management board, chaired by Martyn Earle, and including a young planners’ representative. A regional activities policy committee, which includes representatives of other institutes, is fed into by a number of small steering committees for Planning Aid, Young Planners. Members and PR, CPD and Policy. In 2016, the CPD committee organised 11 conference days, including events on planning law and the technicalities of planning.

n RTPI North east web pages: www.rtpi.org.uk/the-rtpi-near-you/rtpi-north-east/

The Word, South Tyneside – The National Centre for the Written Word – The Word – is the centrepiece of the South Shields 365 Town Centre Vision, a £100 million series of projects to revitalise South Shields town centre. Opened in October 2016, the venue includes a library, exhibition space, children’s craft space and digital media tools to promote creativity.

Wynyard Gardens and Visitor Centre improvements – Part of a £5.3 million redevelopment of a grade II listed stately home and hotel north of Stockton-on-Tees, the development includes a new visitor centre, £1.6 million walled rose garden, and one of the North-East’s largest glasshouses.

It was overall winner of the RTPI North East Awards for Planning Excellence 2016.

STEM Centre, Middlesbrough College – Middlesbrough College’s £12 million STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) Centre brings education, training and local businesses together in one building, and is intended to help put the region at the forefront of training in the oil, gas, manufacturing and engineering trades. The centre won the chair’s award in the RTPI North East Awards for Planning Excellence 2016.

n RTPI North East 2016 Annual Review (PDF) 2016 annual Review: www.rtpi.org.uk/media/2281249/ rtpi_ne_review2016final.pdf

n RTPI North East 2017 CPD programme: www.rtpi.org.uk/media/2043447/rtpi_ne_2017_ programme.pdf

n North East events: www.rtpi.org.uk/the-rtpi-nearyou/rtpi-north-east/events/ Events include: Planning Law Autumn Update (9 October), the Technicalities of Planning (2 November), Delivering Healthy Sustainable Communities ( 12 June), and the annual Cycle Challenge (19 May)

n North East Local Enterprise Partnership www.nelep.co.uk

n North East Combined Authority www.northeastca.gov.uk

n Tees Valley Combined Authority

The Curve, Teesside University – This £22 million environmentally friendly building at the centre of the Teesside University’s ‘campus heart’ development links the campus’s north and south sides and provides 1,476 sq m of flexible learning space. Commended in the RTPI North East Awards for Planning Excellence 2016.

https://teesvalley-ca.gov.uk

n Marine Management Organisation www.gov.uk/government/organisations/marinemanagement-organisation

n Email: northeast@rtpi.org.uk n Twitter: @RTPINorthEast n Find your RTPI region: www.rtpi.org.uk/the-rtpi-near-you/

Next month:

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C Career { D E V E L O P M E N T HOW TO SUCCEED AT JOB INTERVIEWS

In a competitive job market, getting an interview is an achievement in itself. Now that you’ve got the employer’s attention, how can you ensure that you make the best impression in person? Matt Moody gathered some perspectives

1.

LAUREN EDWARDS is a planning management consultant at Oyster Partnership.

GREG DOWDEN is an associate director at Indigo Planning.

PREPARE FOR SUCCESS

been on the same university course as Preparation is the key to success for job someone at the company. If you trust interviews. Proper research will calm them, sending them a message might your nerves, help you answer questions reveal some inside information – but confidently and enable you to impress don’t get caught up in office politics.” the interviewer with pertinent It’s important too to know what you’re questions. For planners, both applying for and why you want it. “For preparation and research are aspects of some local authority contracting roles, it the job itself, so it’s even more could be as basic as a 10-minute ‘chat’ to important to demonstrate them at make sure you’re the right fit for the interview. team,” adds Edwards. But other How should you go about it? interviews might involve competency “Interviewers are impressed when exercises, or more commonly you could candidates come armed with be asked to talk the interviewer through knowledge about the company,” says your CV. Lauren Edwards, planning management “At junior level, employers might ask consultant with recruiter Oyster about university modules or why you Partnership. “Very rarely will they want to get into town expect you to memorise planning. For more senior facts like when the consultancy positions you’ll company was founded, “PLANNING IS A but it’s still good to know SMALL WORLD. IT’S be expected to talk specifically about things like this information.”

WORTH SCOURING For Greg Dowden, LINKEDIN FOR YOUR fees, targets and business generation. If it’s a local associate director at INTERVIEWERS authority position you’ll Indigo Planning, you need OR PEOPLE ON need to know the area. to go the extra mile to THE TEAM YOU’RE Know the role and what is stand out. “Just HOPING TO JOIN” expected of you.” memorising the website At some larger companies, won’t impress us,” he interviews are designed to stresses. “You’ll stand out focus primarily on personal for more if you’ve qualities. “Our initial interview days researched using secondary or tertiary involve activities with role playing, sources – it shows a genuine interest in teamwork and thinking on your feet,” both planning and working for us.”

Dowden explains. “We’re looking for Knowing the company’s staff and leadership skills, your ability to interact what they do can give you an edge. with others, calmness under pressure “Planning is a small world. It’s worth and your sense of humour. These can’t be scouring LinkedIn for either your practised or prepared, so it’s important to interviewers or people on the team get yourself into a positive ‘can do’ frame you’re hoping to join,” says Edwards. of mind beforehand.”

“There’s a good chance you’ll have

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Easier said than done, perhaps. But, says Edwards: “Remember, you’ve been invited to interview for a reason.”

On a purely practical level, she says a timely arrival is important. “Try to enter the office around 10 minutes before your allotted time. Getting there an hour early won’t impress anyone, but absolutely do not be late!”

ESSENTIAL TIPS: n Search Google News for the latest

information on your potential employer. n Leave examples of your work with the interviewer – but make sure they’re not confidential.

2.

PERFORM AT INTERVIEW Take your cue from the interviewer, says Dowden. “The way they open and guide you through the interview will give you a good idea of how formal or informal they expect you to be.”

Before you even speak, your interviewer will assess you through non-verbal signals, says Edwards. “First impressions are really important, so make sure you make a strong introduction – smile, keep a good posture, have a solid handshake and make eye contact.”

Edwards also advocates a conversational approach to the interview, if the format allows.

“Talking should be as close to a 50/50

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JOBS

split as possible. You should be trying to find out about the job just as much as the interviewer is finding out about you.”

Informal interviews can throw up unexpected questions that you may struggle to answer immediately. But you can use these to your advantage, says Dowden. “Stay calm, take a deep breath and give your best answer.

How you deal with this is often just as important as the answer you give.”

Asking questions shows that you are engaged and interested – they can also steer the interviewer towards your strong topics. In more formal interviews, however, you might be expected to wait until the end for questions. “There’s a good chance some of your questions will get answered during the interview, so keep making notes throughout so you don’t draw a blank at the end,” advises Edwards.

This is your “time to shine”, says Dowden, so it’s crucial to prepare questions that will impress. “The questions section tells me just as much about you as the interview itself,” he says. “I’m looking for intelligent questions that show you’re genuinely interested in working for us. But the roles are reversed. You can judge how interesting our answers are for yourself, and it’s prime time to fill in any gaps in your knowledge of the company.”

Make Planner Jobs your first port of call for town planning jobs, careers advice and the latest people news from across the sector.

Visit jobs.theplanner.co.uk

ESSENTIAL TIPS: n Accept an offer of a drink –

taking a sip can give you extra thinking time if you’re faced with a tough question. n Criticising your current company or colleagues is unprofessional – talk positively where you can.

3.

FOLLOW UP The French call it L’esprit de l’escalier – even if you feel the interview went perfectly, there’ll always be something you think of afterwards that you wish you’d said.

Is there anything that can be done?

“It’s certainly acceptable to send an email afterwards with some extra thoughts – within reason,” says Edwards “Directors and heads of department have busy schedules, so don’t badger them. But a single email with a few questions, some extra thoughts or even examples of your work can be worthwhile.”

Dowden recommends a request for feedback. “[It] shows that you care about the result of the interview.” he says. “The real question when it comes to following up is ‘How soon is too soon?’. You should only ask

when you know the outcome of the interview.”

Edwards agrees that following up too soon can seem “desperate and annoying”, but not that you should only follow up after the company’s decision. “It’s best to leave it two to three days. Even though some companies don’t provide feedback, you are entitled to ask for it.”

If you’re offered the job – congratulations! The hard part is over, but the question of accepting and negotiating remains. “Make sure you accept or decline in a timely manner,” says Dowden.

“Prolonging this process will come across as unprofessional.”

Edwards agrees: “Be considerate – bear in mind the company will almost definitely have a second choice candidate. It’s fine to ask for a few days to think about your decision, but you should agree a deadline and stick to it.”

ESSENTIAL TIPS: n When negotiating salary, be

honest about past earnings – your new employer will find out as soon as they receive your P45. n Always ask for feedback – if you don’t receive an offer you can use the advice to improve at your next interview.

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DiF { D

DECISIONS IN FOCUS

Decisions in Focus is where we put the spotlight on some of the more significant planning appeals and court cases of the last month – alongside your comments. If you’d like to contribute your insights and analyses to future issues of The Planner, email DiF at editorial@theplanner.co.uk COMMERCIAL

Scottish ministers get star-struck by studios scheme ( SUMMARY Scottish ministers have approved a large-scale film and TV studio scheme against the advice of a reporter after deciding that his concerns were outweighed by the development’s nationally important economic and cultural benefits. ( CASE DETAILS The proposal, south of the Edinburgh bypass in Midlothian, is for a large development including film and TV studios, a film school and student accommodation, an energy plant, and associated infrastructure.

The appeal was assessed by reporter David Buylla, who recommended that it should not go ahead, citing its potential impact on other developments proposed in the emerging Midlothian Local Development Plan, including housing, business, and a relief road.

But Scottish ministers approved the scheme contrary to his counsel, ruling that its benefits are of national importance.

Buylla’s report cited the

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South East Scotland Strategic Development Plan (SESSDP), which identifies the area as a strategic development location. The plan includes 1,600 homes and 15 hectares of employment land, including biotechnology and knowledge-based industries.

The area would be served by a proposed relief road, the A701. Buylla opposed the appeal on the grounds that it would endanger the delivery of the road, and therefore the entire development, and because of the potential cumulative effects of the two developments, which had not been modelled together. ( CONCLUSION REACHED Ministers agreed that the existing proposals and the integrity of the local plan are important, but did not agree that allowing the appeal would threaten them.

They suggested applying a Grampian condition to the A701 to prevent work on the film studio starting until the road’s route had been secured in writing, and a planning obligation for financial contribution to its development.

They agreed with the reporter that the cumulative effects of the two developments are not quantifiable and so contrary to the development plan, but ruled that the potential

A plan to redevelop grade II* listed Fulham Town Hall has been dismissed

benefits outweighed this concern, considering the socio-economic benefits of creating at least 900 fulltime equivalent jobs. The appeal was allowed.

V I E W O N LI N E FO R F R E E Appeal Ref: PPA-290-2032

HERITAGE

Fulham Town Hall scheme would harm historical gravity ( SUMMARY An inspector dismissed plans to redevelop grade II* listed Fulham Town Hall, ruling that harm to the building’s historical interest outweighed the scheme’s various public benefits.

( CASE DETAILS The building, opposite Fulham Broadway Tube station, was built in 1890 and enlarged in 1905 and 1934. It ceased use as a town hall in 1965 and since then has been used as council offices and a temporary film set. Inspector David Nicholson noted its highquality baroque façade and interior fittings, along with its symbolic role in reflecting “the democratisation of London during a period of burgeoning civic pride”. The intactness of these features saw it upgraded to grade II* status in 2012.

The appeal proposes extensive works to convert the ground floor into a retail arcade including a café, a museum on the upper floor, and 18 flats – at market rate, but with an I M AG E S | A L A M Y / I STO C K

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Plans for an HMO student home were turned down because of fears they would upset the neighbours

off-site affordable housing contribution of £500,000.

Nicholson noted the benefits of the proposal, including extensive repairs and the provision of public access to the building, as well as potential harm to the building’s intactness through the loss of interior details including an original staircase. He conceded that if the building must undergo a change of use to revitalise it, alterations would be inevitable. He also noted the high quality of the submitted drawings and likely high standard of the alterations.

But he also observed that the building is not designated “at risk” and did not appear to be deteriorating “particularly rapidly”. Indeed, it had been underused but preserved for more than 50 years and still had its listed status upgraded. For this reason, he ruled there is “no reason to accept the first scheme that comes along”, and that alternative Optimum Viable Uses (OVUs) should be considered.

Two other possible uses were considered at the inquiry – a hotel conversion proposed by the council, and continued B1 office use. Nicholson ruled that the appeal proposal is not the OVU, but noted various problems with the alternative proposals as well, including viability, and lesser (but not insignificant) harm to the building’s historic interest. ( CONCLUSION REACHED Nicholson decided that even if the appeal proposal had been deemed the OVU for the building, the harm to its historical and architectural assets would be unacceptable, and that this must carry more weight than the potential public benefits

of the scheme, so the appeal was dismissed.

V I E W O N LI N E FO R F R E E Appeal Refs: APP/H5390/W/15/3140593/ APP/H5390/Y/15/3140594

HOUSING

Student banter would disrupt neighbours ( SUMMARY Plans to convert a home in a residential area to a student house in multiple occupation (HMO) have been refused after an inspector ruled that student tenants meant “loud banter” and “on occasion, boisterous and antisocial behaviour” was inevitable. ( CASE DETAILS The three-bed semidetached house on a large estate near Edge Hill University is of a type that is “attractive to families”, said inspector Mark Dakeyne.

Most nearby houses are occupied by young families and elderly people, although there several HMOs nearby.

West Lancashire Borough Council initially blocked the plan, citing the potential for noise and disturbance.

Dakeyne upheld these concerns, stating that students, “mainly in their late teens or early 20s”, would tend to return to the house late in the evening”.

“Students would regularly be in groups and in high spirits”, he added, ”and there would inevitably often be loud talking and banter, and on occasions boisterous and anti-social behaviour”.

This assessment was supported by observations from existing residents, some of which refer to a

single property. Despite the appellant’s suggestion that there is no evidence linking such incidents with student HMOs, Dakeyne ruled that the “times and dates of the incidents suggest it is reasonable to link the disturbances with students”. ( CONCLUSION REACHED Dakeyne acknowledged that allowing the appeal would not contradict local plan policy limiting provision of HMOs to 5 per cent of existing properties in the area. But he decided that this does not necessarily mean a HMO should be permitted. Citing “unacceptable impact on the living conditions of nearby residents”, he dismissed the appeal. He also dismissed the appellant’s application for costs against the council.

V I E W O N LI N E FO R F R E E Appeal Ref: APP/P2365/W/16/3162636

HOUSING

500-home plan blocked despite shortfall ( SUMMARY Plans for a 500-home development near Princes

Risborough have been rejected despite a housing shortfall in the area, after an inspector decided that the plans would cause “severe and unacceptable harm” to nearby roads. ( CASE DETAILS Buckinghamshire County Council had previously allocated the site, northwest of High Wycombe, for development of up to 570 homes, seeking to address the area’s housing shortfall. But a requirement specific to the site requires any development to be well integrated with Princes Risborough through effective and sustainable transport links.

Inspector S Baird dismissed a number of the council’s initial reasons for refusal. Concerns that the site cannot accommodate a development of acceptable density were found to be based on two assessments: the odour from a nearby sewage treatment plant, and the land required to construct a link road on part of the site. Baird found both assessments “overly cautious”. He also judged the proposal’s affordable housing, infrastructure and community facility contributions as satisfactory.

The main issue with the development was the sustainability of transport.

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DiF { D Baird found the council’s requirement of perpetual support for a bus service on the developer’s behalf untenable, noting that the agreed contribution of £1.9 million to fund the service for 10 years far exceeded the local plan’s five-year target.

But other aspects of the appeal’s transport strategy were unacceptable to the inspector. Although the site is separated from the town by a rail line, the appellant omitted plans for an underpass beneath the line from the proposal, instead suggesting that existing pedestrian routes are acceptable. Baird agreed that these routes are acceptable in terms of walking distances and times, but said an underpass would improve links to the town centre and contribute to the site’s integration. He ruled that the application therefore missed a chance to maximise sustainable transport and was incompatible with the local plan.

On the development’s impact on the road network,

DECISIONS IN FOCUS Baird referred specifically to two town centre roundabouts, both already operating over capacity.

While acknowledging the appellant’s mitigation plans for both, he ruled that the development would lead to further stress on these areas. ( CONCLUSION REACHED Baird found that although the development’s housing provision would be of great benefit to the area, it could not outweigh severe harm to the local transport network and he dismissed the appeal.

V I E W O N LI N E FO R F R E E Appeal Ref: APP/K0425/W/16/3146838

HOUSING

Homes straddling boundary ‘would harm green belt ( SUMMARY An unusual proposal involving housing and various ecological

A proposal involving homes and ecological enhancements on a site in Watford has been dismissed after an inspector ruled it would damage the green belt

enhancements on a site that straddles the border between two planning authorities has been dismissed after an inspector found it would damage green belt openness. ( CASE DETAILS The site in Watford straddles the administrative boundary between Hertsmere and Watford Borough Councils.

Two separate planning applications were submitted, but the development was considered as a whole by inspector Jonathon Parsons.

The first application involves demolishing an existing home and equestrian facility, and building 34 houses (12 affordable), a village green and pond, while the second involves various ecological enhancements including a wildflower meadow, orchard and pond with community access at the other end of the site.

Parsons invoked paragraph 89 of the NPPF, which states that green belt development is inappropriate unless it involves redevelopment of brownfield land or infilling, and would not reduce openness. He acknowledged that the development would result in a net reduction of hardstanding on the site, and that the design would be attractive and sensitive. He also noted that the ecological proposals, secured by an S106 agreement, would constitute enhancement of beneficial use of the green belt, which the NPPF encourages. Despite this, he ruled that building housing would harm the openness of the green belt. ( CONCLUSION REACHED Parsons said harm to green belt openness made the first application unacceptable.

Although he found that the second application

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would not be inappropriate – and would have several benefits – he considered the two applications to be intrinsically linked, and ruled that the appeal as a whole should be dismissed. An appeal for costs against the council was unsuccessful.

V I E W O N LI N E FO R F R E E Appeal Ref: APP/N1920/W/16/3154984

COMMERCIAL

Trump golf course extension blocked ( SUMMARY Plans to raise the height of a driving range berm at a golf course owned by the Trump Organisation were rejected after an inspector found the berm’s proximity to heritage landscapes and protected species meant it was not exempt from planning rules. ( CASE DETAILS The proposal involves raising the height of a berm (a raised area of land) that forms part of the driving range at Trump International Golf Links and Hotel, in Doonbeg, County Clare.

Inspector Karla McBride considered the appellant’s suggestion that the scheme is exempt from rules.

Permission was originally refused by Clare County Council for two reasons – the development’s impact on nearby heritage landscapes, and its conflict with the EU habitats directive, which protects several spots near the appeal site. McBride upheld both reasons for refusal in her report, noting the site’s closeness (less than 0.3km) to Carrowmore Dunes I M AG E S | I S TO C K / N E T WO R K R A I L

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Scottish ministers have approved a £100 million refurbishment plan for Glasgow’s Queen Street Station

Special Area of Conservation and the Mid Clare Coast Special Preservation Area, as well as five other EU habitat sites under 2.5km away. ( CONCLUSION REACHED The appellant also referred to the Planning and Development Act of 2000, which says development should be considered exempt if it is “incidental to the maintenance and management of a golf course”.

But McBride ruled that the development’s impact on the wider landscape meant that did not apply. She concluded that the development does not comply with planning policy, and should be dismissed.

V I E W O N LI N E FO R F R E E Appeal Ref: RRL3483

INFRASTRUCTURE

£100m Glasgow train station is green-lit ( SUMMARY Scottish ministers have approved plans for a £100 million refurbishment of Glasgow Queen Street Station, one of the busiest train stations in Scotland. ( CASE DETAILS Network Rail had submitted an application for the development in autumn 2015, after projections showed up to 28 million people would be using the station by 2030 – eight million more than present.

Scottish ministers called in the application, and have now signed a TAWS (Transport and Works Scotland) Order approving the development. As well as an overhaul of the station

building and façade, the development will have greater train and passenger capacity, and retail and leisure outlets.

In their decision letter the ministers assess several factors raised by the report as weighing against the scheme, including air quality and noise disruption, and the impact on historic buildings and passenger journeys.

The inspector’s report noted that the demolition phase of the scheme could harm air quality, with a particular impact on the nearby Millennium Hotel.

But ministers were satisfied there would be no longterm effect, as the project is following proper dust control measures. The hotel was also found to be at risk of noise disruption, which could not be prevented by otherwise acceptable on-site mitigation. Ministers agreed with the inspector’s proposal to combat this by offering noise insulation to the hotel.

The report also noted the risk of damage to the fabric of listed and historic buildings during demolition works, which the ministers agreed should be mitigated by the inclusion of an Environmental Management Plan. Finally, the report considered effects on travellers, drawing attention to the 21-week part closure and four-week full closure of nearby West George Street, and proposed a traffic management plan. ( CONCLUSION REACHED Satisfied that these issues were mitigated, ministers approved the plan and signed the TAWS Order. Works should be completed in 2019.

V I E W O N LI N E FO R F R E E Appeal Ref: TAWS04

HOUSING

High Court allows offices-toflats conversion ( SUMMARY Plans to convert a disused office building near the Olympic Park into flats have been approved as permitted development, after a previous refusal was quashed by the High Court. ( CASE DETAILS The proposal, filed in 2015, sought permission to turn the building into flats.

Amid confusion over the number of flats proposed, the application was refused by the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC).

This refusal was quashed by the High Court, and the case was reviewed by inspector R J Jackson, who considered whether the development could be considered as permitted development.

The General Permitted Development Order of 2015 says buildings can be converted from class B1 offices to class C3 residences.

The application building’s former B1 classification was

disputed by the LLDC, which said the businesses within it were financial services, making it class A2 and so not permitted development.

Jackson acknowledged an error by the appellant, who had stated the building was last used in 2000, when it had been secured to stop vandalism in 1997. Despite this, he ruled that class A2 buildings must provide services primary “to members of the public”, and with no evidence to suggest this was the case, it should be considered B1, constituting permitted development. ( CONCLUSION REACHED The question of the LLDC’s conduct rested on the appellant’s submission of application materials by post and email at the end of the week, raising confusion about the time limit within which the LLDC was required to respond. After considering technical and legal details, Jackson ruled that the LLDC had failed to respond within the proper period, and allowed the appeal.

VIEW O NLI NE FOR FREE Appeal Ref: APP/ M9584/W/16/3146518

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INSIGHT

LLegal landscape THE BITTER CIL THAT WE STRUGGLE TO SWALLOW

Martha Grekos

A lack of clarity in the recent review of CIL suggests that we are unlikely to see a new infrastructure charging regime before 2020, say Martha Grekos and Laura Nation Few would argue that since its introduction in 2010 the community infrastructure levy (CIL) is far from the fairer, faster and more transparent system of securing developer contributions it was intended to be. So it is no surprise that the independent report into the effectiveness (or otherwise) of CIL published in February recommends that it ought to be replaced by a “simpler contribution system”.

While this is welcome news for those of us that grapple with the CIL regulations daily, this stated aim sounds all too familiar.

Broadly speaking, CIL introduced a fixed charge (per square metre) on net additional floor space of above 100 sq m, or the creation of a new dwelling, to be collected and spent on infrastructure identified as necessary by the collecting authority.

It was intended that this formulaic approach would offer certainty to developers from the outset, and give local authorities scope to levy funds that could not be secured by individually negotiated S106 agreements.

However, the CIL regulations have been subject to continual amendments. As a result, they are over-complex and

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Laura Nation practically unworkable and, despite claims that CIL would largely dispense with s106 agreements, these are still widely used.

And regrettably, given the government’s drive to build more homes, CIL regulations have proved most inflexible to the various viability issues that affect those large-scale strategic sites relied upon to tackle the UK’s housing crisis.

There is good reason to overhaul the CIL regime.

Broadly speaking, the review proposes a hybrid system comprising a low-level local infrastructure tariff (LIT) s106 agreements in respect of sitespecific mitigation for strategic developments, subject to adhering to the CIL Regulation 122 tests (which determine

when a planning obligation such as s106 can be a reason for granting permissions).

Combined authorities would also be permitted to charge a strategic infrastructure tariff (SIT), akin to Mayoral CIL, to be used to contribute towards major pieces of infrastructure.

The LIT would be: n Set at a sufficiently low level so as to not warrant the need for the current reliefs and exemptions. n Levelled on all development, almost without exception. n Mandatory across all local authority areas and calculated on a percentage of the value of a standard three-bedroomed, 100 square metre home – a percentage of between 1.75 per cent - 2.5 per cent is suggested.

Although a move towards a more standardised approach, inevitably there will be room for debate as to whether the property values relied upon

“IT IS UNCLEAR ON THE INTERRELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LITS, SITS AND S106 AGREEMENTS ON LARGER SITES AND HOW COMPETING NEEDS FOR LOCAL AND STRATEGIC INFRASTRUCTURE WILL BE MET”

to calculate the LIT accurately reflect the “local” market. The review is also light on detail in respect of non-residential development; we are simply told that it would be tied to, but not exceed, the residential rate.

Further, the mandatory nature of the LIT, while ensuring all development pays its share, still ignores viability concerns that affect individual sites and absence of available reliefs and exemptions will squeeze viability even further.

The review states that small developments (10 homes or less) would only pay LIT and would not be subject to s106 contributions. But it is unclear on the interrelationship between LITs, SITs and s106 agreements on larger sites and how competing needs for local and strategic infrastructure will be met. As with the current regime, strategic sites are likely to feel the pinch if all three levies are applied.

That aside, the review’s recommendations to end the pooling restrictions on s106 contributions, to be able to offset the LIT against s106, and to deliver s106 infrastructure in-kind are welcome steps to ensuring the timely delivery of strategic infrastructure.

The proposed abolition of CIL Regulation 123 lists (which allow the pooling of up to five s106 agreements to pay for a single piece of infrastructure), which were often manipulated to justify the “double-dipping” they were introduced to combat, is also positive.

Given the lack of detail in the review and the questions it poses, it seems ambitious to suggest that the transition to the new regime will be completed by 2020.

Martha Grekos is partner and head of planning, and Laura Nation is a senior associate at Howard Kennedy LLP

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24/04/2017 12:54

LATEST POSTS FROM THEPLANNER.CO.UK/BLOGS

B LO G S More than 50,000 buildings were converted for domestic use between 2014 and 2015, yet just 226 barn conversions were completed under permitted development rights. What are the common problems faced by those looking to convert?

L E G I S L AT I O N S H O R T S Things to consider with barn conversions Martin Goodall The General Permitted Development Order was amended in 2014 to allow residential conversion of agricultural buildings as permitted development in place of the previous requirement for planning permission (which was often refused) although such conversions are still subject to a “prior approval” procedure. Some local planning authorities, however, have sought to resist this on various grounds, leading to numerous planning appeals and one or two court battles.

There are various qualifying criteria, exclusions, limitations and conditions that apply to this type of development, and these have sometimes been a stumbling block for applicants. One issue that has come to the fore as the result of a High Court judgment, is the ‘convertibility’ of the building. In principle, a building can include various types of structure of unconventional and rather insubstantial construction. However, the works permitted in the residential conversion of an agricultural building are restricted to what is reasonably necessary for the building to function as a dwelling, and any partial demolition and reconstruction must be limited to the extent reasonably necessary to carry out the permitted building operations.

This imposes a practical constraint on the convertibility of some buildings.

Works that amount to substantial demolition and reconstruction or replacement of the existing fabric would go beyond what is allowed.

The Government amended its online Planning Practice Guidance in March 2015, confirming that it is not its intention to permit the construction of new structural elements for the building. The judgment in Hibbitt v SSCLG has endorsed this approach to the structural issue.

Some reasons that local planning authorities have given for refusing prior approval of barn conversions have been overruled on appeal. One is the

‘sustainability’ of such a development in a rural location (in terms of access and transport). This frequently justifies the refusal of planning permission for development in the open countryside, but it cannot be used to justify a refusal of prior approval for the residential conversion of an agricultural building as permitted development.

The Government made this clear in its revised online Planning Practice Guidance in March 2015. A recent challenge to the legality of this advice by a local authority in Hertfordshire has been dismissed by the High Court, in East Herts DC v SSCLG. The ministerial guidance emphasises that this permitted development right does not apply a test of sustainability of location, because many agricultural buildings will not be in village settlements and may not be able to rely on public transport for their daily needs.

Instead, the council can consider whether the location and siting of the building would make it impractical or undesirable to change its use to a house. When considering whether it is appropriate for the change of use to take place in a particular location, an authority should start from the premise that the permitted development right already grants planning permission, subject to the prior approval requirements.

Refusal of prior approval is not justified simply because an agricultural building is in a location where the council would not normally grant planning permission for a new dwelling. When a council considers location and siting, it should not therefore be applying tests from the National Planning Policy Framework, except to the extent that these are strictly relevant to the specific matters that actually require prior approval. So, for example, factors such as whether the property is for a rural worker, or whether the design is of exceptional quality or innovative, are unlikely to be relevant.

Martin Goodall is a consultant solicitor with Keystone Law. This article was first published on the Keystone Law website http://www. keystonelaw.co.uk/

Anti-fracking groups lose High Court case Lancashire residents trying to block a fracking development have lost a High Court legal challenge.

The Preston New Road Action Group and professional clown Gayzer Frackman had applied for a judicial review of the government’s decision to approve Cuadrilla drilling for shale gas in Fylde. They argued that five points of law had been breached.

But Mr Justice Dove dismissed the case, which sought to overturn communities secretary Sajid Javid’s decision in October 2016 to approve the development, despite Lancashire County Council rejecting the proposal. The action group said it would take legal advice on its options.

Council to fight wind turbines decision North Norfolk District Council has said it will challenge the Planning Inspectorate’s decision to allow appeals against two refusals of planning permission for wind turbines.

The council had rejected the applications at Pond Farm and Selbrigg Farm, but the decisions were overturned by an inspector after an inquiry.

The local authority will now ask the High Court to quash the inspector’s decision to allow the turbines, which would be 78 metres at Selbrigg and 66 metres at Pond Farm.

Council leader Tom FitzPatrick said: “We are very much in agreement with the vast majority of the local community on this matter. The proposed wind turbines would detract from the unique landscape of this beautiful area and destroy its tranquility.

“We have discussed our options and carefully considered the next step, which is to apply to the High Court to quash the inspector’s decision.”

Morpeth ruling quashed for third time The High Court has quashed Northumberland County Council’s grant of planning permission for a five-bed home quashed by the High Court for a third time.

The site is at Tranwell Woods near Morpeth.

The ruling was first quashed because the judge said the council had failed to properly apply the relevant green belt policy. The council reconsidered and approved the home. This was quashed because a judge said the council had failed to apply a local plan policy.

In this latest case, resident David Tate challenged the approval on the grounds that the council was wrong to conclude that Tranwell Woods was “a village” as referred to in the National Planning Policy Framework. He also challenged the conclusion that the proposed scheme constituted “limited infilling”.

In her judgment, HHJ Belcher said: “There are no grounds on which I could properly find the conclusion that Tranwell Woods is a village is irrational, or outside the bounds of a decision that a reasonable decisionmaker could hold.”

The ruling should be quashed, she added, because the planning committee should have given reasons for concluding that the development amounted to limited infill, particularly in the light of an earlier inspector’s decision to the contrary. She rejected the argument that even if this were wrong, the scheme was justified by the exception for “very special circumstances” permitting green belt development.

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NEWS

RTPI {

RTPI news pages are edited

by Josh Rule at the RTPI, 41 Botolph Lane, London EC3R 8DL

Help to shape planning policy from the ground up DR MIKE HARRIS, DEPUTY HEAD OF POLICY AND RESEARCH

Planning reform was never going to resolve the housing crisis because ‘planning restrictions’ were never its cause

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How to solve the housing crisis?

Typically, the focus of debate has been national government policy. Is more planning deregulation the answer? Or how about land value capture or making who owns land more transparent?

There are two problems with this.

First, as we argued in our Better Planning for Housing Affordability paper (February 2017), much policy under successive English governments has had the wrong focus. ‘Planning reform’ was never going to resolve the housing crisis because ‘planning restrictions’ were never its cause.

As the title of the UK Government’s white paper Fixing Our Broken Housing Market (February 2017) suggests, we’ve overlooked the complex range of reasons why we aren’t building enough homes.

Second, we may have somewhat overestimated the importance of policy.

Clearly, policy is important, and the RTPI has been heavily engaged in these debates. But there’s hardly been a lack of policy in housing and planning. If anything, the problem has been too much policy.

In England alone there have been at least 60 policies, initiatives and funds announced just with respect to housing under this government since May 2015.

Previous governments were prone to the same policy hyperactivity. And yet the housing crisis has worsened. Indeed, too much policy change has led to increasing complexity and costs, but not enough real help for development.

Perhaps it is time to be a bit more realistic about what policy can achieve.

Central government can only set a more or less helpful framework. It can’t, typically, directly ensure local housing development itself. That’s ultimately for local councillors, planners, developers and communities.

Shouldn’t these groups be more in the lead of finding the answers to our housing crisis? Indeed, planners may already have many of the answers. What we need to do is find better ways to share these answers.

Take the issue of who builds houses.

The focus on ‘planning reform’ has distracted from the fact that the continuing gap between housing

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supply and demand is equivalent to the housebuilding that used to be done by local authorities before the 1980s.

Looked at this way, the answer to housing crisis may not be that complex: we need local authorities to build more houses. And actually, local authorities are getting back into the housebuilding business – not because of national government policy, but more in spite of it.

Research commissioned by the RTPI and the National Planning Forum and conducted by UCL is looking at how local authorities are delivering housing. The results will be available later this year.

It’s just one example of how planners and others are working to resolve the housing crisis, rather than waiting for ‘perfect’ policies from the government.

This prompts the question, what if we developed policy in a different way?

Rather than beginning with theoretical preconceptions (for example, planning has caused the housing crisis), let’s start with what works on the ground, in local communities across the UK and Ireland, and use this as the basis for better policy.

The RTPI is ideally placed in this respect. We can draw on the expertise and experience of 24,000 members.

Let’s also ensure that this best practice and the lessons learned are shared more widely among practitioners and decision-makers. This is what we want to do through our Better Planning programme, starting with how planning can help to provide affordable housing, make city-regions more productive, and respond to climate change.

We want members to get involved – to share case studies and best practice with us, and to help shape better policy for planning and beyond. We can complain about what’s wrong with government policy, or we can do more to show what actually works on the ground and how policy could support more of it.

For this, we need your help. n Further details can be found at: www.rtpi.org.uk/betterplanning

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Editorial E: rtpinews@rtpi.org.uk

RTPI (switchboard) T: 020 7929 9494

Registered charity no.

262865 Registered charity in Scotland SCO37841

3 POINT PLAN A planner explains how she would change the English planning system

Charlotte Brown STRATEGIC PLANNING OFFICER PLANNING POLICY COPELAND BOROUGH COUNCIL Copeland values the opportunities that the North West Coast Connections and Moorside Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs) could generate for the borough. It is fundamental to align local plan priorities and NSIP proposals to protect communities from cumulative impact of NSIPs on infrastructure capacity, health and well-being of residents, our landscape and biodiversity.

Local plan growth scenarios should be based on projections including and excluding NSIPs, allowing the plan to secure sustainable development both with and independent of the effects NSIPs have on host authority areas. Stakeholders hosting NSIP development must be given support to ensure economic benefits are maximised and that our communities are protected through sustainable development and legacy based on local priorities.

The wide spectrum of considerations from NSIP development brings profound implications for resource and service management for the local planning authority (LPA). Ensuring that other non-NSIP activity proceeds as ‘business as usual’ is also a significant challenge. LPAs need support to attract and retain the best people to deliver growth ambitions.

COMMITTEE PRIORITIES: NATIONS AND REGIONS PANEL The Membership and Ethics Committee leads the work of the RTPI on all forms of professional, technical and nonprofessional association with the Institute, including classes of membership and the criteria for admission to each class.

Colin Haylock, chair of the committee, gives an update on the year’s priorities.

Supporting Student Members and Licentiates to progress their membership to Chartered status Ensuring professional standards are maintained through the establishment of the new Membership Assessment Advisory Panel (MAAP) Understanding and responding to the needs of existing and potential members through ongoing membership research programmes Membership growth is a key objective for the RTPI. This committee has a strategic overview of growing and retaining membership and maintaining professional standards. Launching the streamlined routes to membership last June enabled the RTPI to grow to more than 24,000 members for the first time.

By supporting Student Members and Licentiates’ progression to Chartered membership and developing other Membership routes, the committee can ensure more growth in 2017. The committee also manages entry to membership and maintains professional standards. MAAP is crucial to oversee all routes to Chartered membership and strengthen membership assessments.

1 Ensure Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIP) proposals are influenced by local plan priorities through identifying and agreeing sustainable legacy aspirations and planning positive community outcomes

2 Collaboratively identify robust mitigation pre Development Consent Order submission to help alleviate negative impacts of development and secure truly sustainable legacy priorities

3 Secure necessary funding through Section 106 to eliminate risk for host authorities dedicating time, expertise and resource to NSIP delivery

POSITION POINTS

SPRING 2017 BUDGET: INFRASTRUCTURE & SOCIAL CARE INVESTMENT WELCOMED, CAUTION ON COUNCIL FUNDING SQUEEZE The RTPI welcomes further detail on how the £23 billion investment for infrastructure will be spent in this year’s Spring Budget. It includes £690 million for local authorities to tackle urban congestion and ‘get local transport moving again’. We look forward to the publication of the Midlands Engine strategy.

Planners will need to be at the heart of delivering major infrastructure investment and housing, and in creating places to ensure that the UK’s productivity gap improves.

We urge government departments to work together to ensure infrastructure investment including transport networks are considered in tandem with location of housing and in the context of the Industrial Strategy green paper.

The attention paid to adult social care is long overdue.

We welcome the additional grant funding of £2bn to local authorities and look forward to a promised green paper to set out a more strategic approach to the challenges of an ageing population and the rapidly growing costs of social care.

The RTPI will publish a research paper that examines the vital role of the location of development in this debate. We have recently published a paper on creating better environments for people living with dementia.

n Full response: tinyurl.com/planner0517-fundingsqueeze

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RTPI { PLA NNI N G TH EOR Y AN D P R AC T IC E – I N FOCUS

Getting the numbers right in plan-making ROISIN WILLMOTT, DIRECTOR RTPI WALES

Plotting the course of our collective futures through planning VICTORIA PINONCELY, RESEARCH OFFICER In this issue of the RTPI journal Andy Inch considers the implications of automation and emerging technology, raising important questions about our capacity to anticipate and steer the course of societies. Faced with issues like climate change and the limits of our global economic system, there is an urgent need to restore a belief that alternative futures can be shaped.

While contemporary urban visions often stand accused of offering little transformative potential, Inch argues that the challenge of creating compelling new urban utopias seems central to reviving a progressive planning project in the 21st century.

Contributors to this issue highlight different aspects of the challenges involved in putting ideas to work in shaping the future and realising Patrick Geddes’s view that ‘Eutopia’ lies in the city around us, and that it must be planned and realised by us as its citizens.

A discussion article by RTPI past

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president Peter Geraghty focuses on the importance of planning awards. In a political context that is “both turbulent and unreceptive to modern planning”, he says the task for modern planners is to demonstrate the value of planning practice. Awards present an opportunity to overcome the lack of public understanding of planning, highlight excellent professional practice, and showcase the practical outcomes of the art and science of planning.

Awards can also promote a wider public understanding p of planning, moving o beyond political ideology or the view that it is only an economic activity.

Awards can show how planning practice fulfils community aspirations, counterbalancing political commentary that is often ill informed. They provide evidence that planning is safeguarding the public interest and allowing people to play a greater role in the development of their communities.

During March, RTPI Cymru ran a series of training sessions for 40 planners and researchers from Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) across Wales on how to develop robust housing projections for Local Development Plans.

The training was delivered by Ludi Simpson, Professor of Population Studies at Manchester University, and enabled by funding from the Welsh Government.

The timing of the training coincided with the publication of the latest Welsh Government household projections, the basis upon which local planning authorities assess their housing requirements.

However, LPAs have expressed growing concerns about how much flexibility they have in interpreting these projections, especially when local data such as those on migration and household size may require their projections to deviate from those implied by the official data.

A study by Cardiff University and commissioned by RTPI Cymru identified that the skills and expertise to interpret and adapt household projections data varies considerably between LPAs and that these skills have declined over time.

The limited skills and expertise in some LPAs mean that household projections are not always applied to local circumstances in an appropriate way. It also means that LPAs cannot always defend their own projections that are above or below that initially implied by the Welsh Government household projections.

Neil Harris, co-author of the study, argued that planners “need to get their hands dirty with data” to tackle the complex task of forecasting the number of houses needed for plans.

The study can be downloaded from: tinyurl.com/planner0517-housing-projection

Read the issue at: tinyurl.com/ planner0517-awards. The latest edition of the RTPI’s journal Planning Theory and Practice (vol 18, issue 1), is out now I M AG E | G E T T Y / I STO C K

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RTPI Y ACTIVIT E PIPELIN Current RTPI work – what the Institute is doing and how you can help us CELEBRATE TEN YEARS OF THE WALES PLANNING CONFERENCE This year we will be celebrating ten years of the Wales Planning Conference, reflecting on the journey so far and taking a view of its future. Since the first Wales Planning Conference in 2008, planning in Wales has seen significant developments. We have had the first Planning Act in Wales and the Wales Act 2017 also devolves further powers to Welsh ministers.

The conference will look back at these changes and consider the ones ahead, including the Law Commission’s work for a second planning act.

The conference will take place on Thursday 8th June in Cardiff. www.rtpi.org.uk/events/events-calendar/2017/june/walesplanning-conference-2017/

SAVE THE DATE: SIR PATRICK GEDDES COMMEMORATIVE LECTURE 2017: 7 JUNE, THE LIGHTHOUSE, GLASGOW This year’s Geddes Lecture will be given by Naomi Eisenstadt, the First Minister’s Independent Advisor on Poverty and Inequality.

Eisenstadt will reflect on place-based poverty and what planning can do about it.

Place-based approaches to tackling poverty have fallen out of favour in recent years, but we know that they can enhance health, social mobility and access to education and employment opportunities. Before her current role, Eisenstadt was the director of the UK Government’s Social Exclusion Task Force, and the first director of the Sure Start early education initiative in England. www.rtpi.org.uk/sirpatrickgeddes/

CALL FOR ENTRIES: RTPI AWARDS FOR RESEARCH EXCELLENCE The prestigious RTPI Research Awards recognise and promote highquality, impactful spatial planning research from RTPI-accredited planning schools and planning consultancies in the UK and abroad.

There are five categories and submitted research can relate to any location in the world. Deadline: 19 May. Read more about the eligibility criteria and submit here: www.rtpi.org.uk/researchawards

OVER 90% OF TICKETS SOLD FOR THE RTPI AWARDS FOR PLANNING EXCELLENCE 2017 The Awards for Planning Excellence have celebrated the very best in planning for 40 years. As planners tackle some of the most pressing issues of our time, from population growth and housing shortage to environmental issues and climate change, it has never been more important to reward the contributions of the profession to society.

Join us on 15 June at the Milton Court Concert Hall in the heart of the City of London for a special evening showcasing the talent and expertise of planners around the country and internationally. Only a few tickets are left, so make sure you book yours before it’s too late.

View the shortlist and book your tickets: www.rtpi.org.uk/ape2017

RTPI SHORTS

NEW COMPETITION TO FIND NORTHERN IRELAND’S BEST PLACES Are you proud of the place where you were born, live or work? Do you think it has the potential to be crowned the winner in RTPI Northern Ireland’s Best Places competition?

Members of the public are being asked to take part in a new competition to celebrate some of our most attractive and inspiring places. Any member of the public can nominate their best place in Northern Ireland.

Nominations can be made until 2 June. A diverse panel of judges will then shortlist the top 10 and then the public will vote for an overall winner.

Launching the competition, RTPI President Stephen Wilkinson said: “Your best place could be a natural landscape, a historic town, perhaps a national park.

It might be a vibrant and diverse community you are especially proud of, a special place within a city, a stunning cultural quarter or a neighbourhood. There is no single definition of a ‘best place’. We are leaving that up to you.

We want your suggestions.”

Beverley Clyde, chair of RTPI Northern Ireland, said: “We want to recognise those special places which we cherish because they have been protected, carefully planned or improved. I expect competition will be fierce and people will be passionate because they care about the places that mean most to them.”

Nominating is simple: c Use the online form at www.rtpi.org.uk/nibestplaces c Email your nomination to: northernireland@rtpi.org.uk c Tweet or Instagram your best place using #RTPINIbestplaces @RTPINI

MEMBER DEATHS It is with great regret that we announced the deaths of the following members. We offer our condolences to their families and colleagues.

Graeme Ballantine John Cowling Walter Fairbank John Finney Samuel Fisher Bryan Frewin Roy Gazzard Philip Gillam Laurence Gray George Hall Koo Kim Yune Koo Lam Tseung Nicholas Pennington Roma Sen Gupta Raymond Sewell Noel Taylor David Thomas

Scotland Scotland South West East England East England Yorkshire South West South West South East North West Overseas Yorkshire London East England North West Wales

MAY 2 0 17 / THE PLA NNER

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21/04/2017 15:42 S e ar ch t h e p l a nne r.co .uk/ jo bs for the best vacancies

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Planning Adviser £38,000 per annum | IRC50371 Permanent, part-time (flexible 22.5 to 30 hours per week) We understand the importance of influencing the planning system at local, regional and national levels, in accordance with our statutory purpose, in order to safeguard special places, but at the same time by regarding conservation as the careful management of change.

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INSIGHT

Plan B

Connotation is integral to the names we give to the products, ideas and services that we market. Take fried chicken franchises. There’s Chicken Cottage, for example, Chicken Village and Chicken Shack. All evoke a homely and bucolic scene where happy chickens peck freely in the warm embrace of a green and pleasant land.

There’s not the slightest attempt to address the realities of the lives of these poor, lost creatures. That would mean calling your fried chicken franchise Chicken Cage or Chicken Prison. Given the mass slaughter that precedes the casual gratification of our appetites, Chicken Carnage might be a better name. Or Chicken Charnel House.

These names at least have the virtue of creating a truthful link between the food we eat and the manner of its production. And this, Plan B believes, can never be a bad thing. We have long argued for a more literal approach to marketing, for honesty strips away the pabulum that sucks reason from advertising like a gigantic tick.

In so doing it creates a level playing field for businesses. That’s because having the means to pay a large fee to an agency with a daft name e to come up with the most manipulative ve way ay to sell your product uct will no longer give ve you an edge.

Having a good

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product or service will.

Where does planning come ome into this? Well, planning can be e as guilty of linguistic obfuscation as the fried chicken industry. Green belt? elt? Really?

Green – what a lazy trigger word to us use e with the British and how easy invoke asy to invok ke the green mist that kills rational debate tional debat te stone dead.

Brownfield? How ‘brown’ ‘field eld’ n’ is that ‘fie d’ exactly? Garden village? Gosh, osh, doesn’tt it sound lovely, like living in n an English h Eden where chickens cluck k happily and you are forever sheltered red from the e unforgiving world beyond the 6ft fence. fenc ce.

The use of labels like ‘garden village’, rden village e’, ‘garden settlement’ and ‘garden rden community’ – to describe what are mainly housing estates with th some shrubbery – is a cynical appeal ppeal to the NIMBY tendency in us all. The more attractive we can make a developmen development nt sound (and anything to do with gardens gardens renders the British instantly dim-witted y dim-witte ed and malleable), the more likely ikely – we surmise – the average punter ter will be to t accept it.

Plan B feels there are two o philosophical knots to t be untied here.. truly distinctive The first is that the tru stinctive e quality about the th h garden rden city y shrubbery model isn’t shrubbe ery any other or a ther kind kin nd off green n stuff.

IIt’s It ’ community mmunity y

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

FOR CLUCK’S SAKE, LET’S AT LEAST BE HONEST

ownership and land value capture. Anything else just isn’t a garden city/town/village/suburb and to sell it as such is dishonest.

Secondly, using the ‘garden’ label allows developers and planners to too easily bypass the challenges of dealing with the real consequences of development and its impacts on communities. We’re not saying developers should call their new development a ‘garden slum of the future’ or a ‘garden cheap housing estate’; we’re just saying be honest. And if, in being honest, what you’re trying to sell doesn’t wash with the people who have to live with it, then change your product so that it does.

Like Chicken Cottage, which implies that the chickens we guzzle have happy lives in lovely places, it’s bad marketing. And bad marketing is the reason we are, collectively, in a bit of a pickle. £350 million a week for the NHS? Are you having h i a laugh? l h?

More truthful names – a question of if not hen

nWant to talk turkey? Tweet us - @ThePlanner_RTPI 24/04/2017 12:55

LANDSCAPE

LISTINGS

DON’T MISS

Talks, conferences, training, masterclasses – everything you need to keep on top of the latest thinking and developments in the planning world.

Brighton Rock lecture RTPI President Stephen Wilkinson will present at this ever-popular annual lecture hosted by Brighton University. Stephen will present on the importance of social justice within the planning system. The lecture will draw on the RTPI report ‘Poverty, Place and Inequality’.

LONDON 11 May – Planning for sport and recreation This one-day workshop, designed with Sport England, will offer practical techniques for local authority planning officers who are involved with developing evidence base for sports facilities. Through a mix of presentations, case studies and interactive exercises, the programme will equip you with the tools to ensure your sports evidence base is fit for purpose.

Organiser: RTPI Conferences, services@ rtpiconferences.co.uk Details: tinyurl.com/ planner0517-LO-1105

Details: tinyurl.com/ planner0517-LO-1805 7 June - CIL and s106: evaluation and future prospects This briefing & workshop will take stock of the situation and receive firsthand accounts from those who have been at the sharp end of implementation. It will identify the outcomes of research, the lessons learned from the first five years and look forward to what might be the outcomes of the CIL review and any further reforms.

Venue: Prospero House (etc Venues) Details: tinyurl.com/ planner0517-LO-0706

SOUTH WEST

17 May – Design in the planning system This one-day masterclass will help you deal effectively with design (and have the right policy and guidance in place). Design is the key to planning authorities winning in a large proportion of planning appeals – and to consultants getting the results their clients want.

Venue: Prospero House (etc Venues), 241 Borough High St, London SE1 1GA Details: tinyurl.com/ planner0517-LO-1705

23 May – Managing the planning process This conference will provide clarity and critical comment on changes to the planning and housing world that have occurred, and signpost the likely direction of travel.

Venue: The Rougemont Hotel, Queen St, Exeter EX4 3SP Details: tinyurl.com/ planner0517-SW-2305

18 May – Cultural heritage in the planning system This masterclass will look into how we assess setting in proposals for development, giving developers and planners all of the tools needed to adeptly deal with heritage and archaeology during the planning process. It covers the requirements under the new NPPF, the methods and value of surveying and establishes the value of a ‘statement of significance’.

Venue: The Hatton (etc Venues), Hatton Garden, London EC1N 8HN

18 May – Guidance on planning legislation, language & terms Practical guidance will be provided on planning language, legislation and terms at this half-day seminar, which aims to bring together all those working in planning administration in both public and private sectors.

Venue: Hughes Hall College, Wollaston Rd, Cambridge CB1 2EW Details: tinyurl.com/ planner0517-EE-1805

EAST OF ENGLAND

NORTH WEST 11 May – Development Finance & Viability NW This event will call upon private and public sector expertise to explore the key components of viability within planning and development, with a particular emphasis on the mechanics that influence site.

Venue: Eversheds, 70 Great Bridgewater St, Manchester M1 5ES Details: tinyurl.com/ planner0517-NW-1105 16 May – Local planmaking NW This event considers the challenges that face policy planners. It will give a brief overview of recent case law and a legal update, along with consideration of topics such as the duty to cooperate, and strategic and neighbourhood planning and site assessments.

Venue: Gateley PLC, 98 King St, Manchester M2 4WU Details: tinyurl.com/ planner0517-NW-1605 16 May – Northern Powerhouse logistics NW With game-changing developments like the Liverpool 2 post Panamax container terminal coming on-stream in 2016, and a range of multimodal freight interchange facilities all along the Manchester Ship Canal corridor in the pipeline, Peel Ports is set to change the shape of how the North is served by and accesses international trade.

Venue: Robert Walters Ltd, 3 Hardman St, Manchester M3 3HF Details: tinyurl.com/ planner0517-NW2-1605 23 May – Rural planning This update will explore issues such as housing, energy generation,

Date: 25 May Venue: Brighton (see website for details) Details: tinyurl.com/planner0517-SE-2505

economic regeneration and appropriate design solutions in rural areas, as well as updating those with an interest in rural planning about recent legislative changes.

Venue: Macclesfield Town Hall, Unicorn Gateway, Macclesfield SK10 1EA Details: tinyurl.com/ planner0517-NW-2305

annual conference will help practitioners keep up with recent developments.

Hosted by DWF LLP with No5 Chambers in Birmingham.

Venue: The Hospitium, Museum Gardens, York YO1 7FR Details: tinyurl.com/ planner0517-YO-1805

SCOTLAND

EAST MIDLANDS 16 May – Rural estate planning The event focuses on issues that arise on a working rural estate. Topics include diversification, residential development opportunities and constraints, permitted development, affordable housing and small sites.

Venue: Locko Park, Derby DE21 7BW Details: tinyurl.com/ planner0517-EM-1605

WEST MIDLANDS 24 May – RTPI/MPA Minerals Conference: Minerals planning enabling growth The conference will include the usual analysis of ‘key’ legal cases and guidance of relevant to the minerals industry.

Venue: NEC, Birmingham B40 1NT Details: tinyurl.com/ planner0517-WM-2405

YORKSHIRE 18 May – The Development Management Law Conference As the policy and legislative context of planning is constantly changing, this

11 May – Hutting in Scotland Since 2014 Scottish Planning Policy encourages local authorities to consider the construction of huts in rural settings for recreational accommodation.

This event will give you the opportunity to develop your knowledge of hutting in Scotland by hearing the perspectives of experienced practitioners.

Venue: Savills, Wemyss House, 8 Wemyss Place, Edinburgh EH3 6DH Details: tinyurl.com/ planner0517-SC-1105

IRELAND 15 May – Assessment of professional competence workshops Assessments of Professional Competence (APC) are competencybased routes to Chartered RTPI membership.

These workshops will be facilitated by Hilary Lush, RTPI senior membership adviser, to explain what is required of you during the APC processes. Places are free but must be booked.

Venue: SCSI, 38 Merrion Square, Dublin 2 Details: tinyurl.com/ planner0517-IR-1505

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HIGHLIGHTING EXCEPTIONAL EXAMPLES OF PLANNING AND CELEBRATING THE CONTRIBUTION THAT PLANNERS AND PLANNING MAKE TO SOCIETY

FINALISTS ANNOUNCED

LAST CHANCE TO BOOK

INDIVIDUAL CATEGORY Young Planner of the Year

Awards Ceremony: 15 June 2017 Milton Court Concert Hall, London

TEAMS CATEGORIES :THSS 7SHUUPUN *VUZ\S[HUJ` ࠮ 7SHUUPUN *VUZ\S[HUJ` ࠮ 3VJHS (\[OVYP[` ;LHT ࠮ Employer Award for Excellence

RTPI.ORG.UK/APE2017 #RTPIAWARDS PROJECT CATEGORIES 7SHUUPUN MVY /LYP[HNL ࠮ 7SHUUPUN MVY [OL 5H[\YHS ,U]PYVUTLU[ ࠮ 7SHUUPUN MVY >LSS ILPUN ࠮ 7SHUUPUN [V *YLH[L ,JVUVTPJHSS` :\JJLZZM\S 7SHJLZ ࠮ 7SHUUPUN [V +LSP]LY /V\ZPUN ࠮ Planning for the Innovative Delivery of 0UMYHZ[Y\J[\YL ࠮ 7SHU 4HRPUN 7YHJ[PJL ࠮ International Planning Award

SPONSORS

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