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Podcast episode 180: Viable Options

Episode 180 of the podcast is available now via this link or from the usual podcast platforms.

The basis of this episode was a series of posts that Nick Cuff at Urban Sketch had shared on his Prop Views blog about the Parkhurst Road judgement and the implications thereof.

I asked Nick if he would like to explore the themes that he writes about with another new friend of the podcast Jamie Ratcliff, and old friends of the podcast Gilian Macinnes and Anthony Lee.

Jamie co-founded PlaceBase and is chair of the Housing Forum; Gilian advises LPAs on improving planning and place-making services and is presently Interim Assistant Director of Planning and Building Control at the Royal Borough of Greenwich; and Anthony is the Managing Partner Quintic Advisory.

In a conversation recorded online at the end of last month they talked, philosophically, about how to test viability through the planning process and the conflict inherent between a desire on the part of most landowners to maximise land value and a desire on the part of most policy makers to maximise planning gain. They talked more practically about how Parkhurst begat the London Affordable Housing and Viability Supplementary Planning Guidance, which led onto to talk of fast tracks, thresholds and emergency measures. Then towards the end they discuss what approach might work better than what we do now.




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