I have been invited by the the team at Pocket Living to contribute to a policy paper containing the “boldest ideas for how we can accelerate the delivery of housing and infrastructure”.
This is what I have sent them.
(I was given 500 words. This is bang on 500 words.)
Imagine that you have been appointed Minister of State for Housing & Planning and are working with your SpAds on a press release.
‘I am delighted to take on this role...’
‘Good start, Minister.’
‘I will ensure this Government gets things built…’
‘Very good, Minister.’
‘Recalcitrant local councils and litigious resident groups have stood in the way of progress for too long...’
‘Steady on, Minister. We need something about communities being in control…’
Whisper it quietly, but the ‘localism genie’, let out of the bottle by the 2012 Localism Act, is being put back in.
The press release that accompanied the recent publication of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) was titled ‘Full steam ahead to fast-track more homes near stations’ and talked of a “default ‘yes’ for homes within reasonable walking distance of well-connected stations”.
MHCLG’s press team is prone to ‘turbocharging’ press releases and obviously the new National Development Management Policy (NDMP) on stations does not represent a ‘default yes’, but the NPPF is a step towards creating a clear, rules-based planning system. The rules are policy presently, but the legal framework for making them statutory is already in place.
What then does that mean for communities living next to vacant land within reasonable walking distance of well-connected stations? Are they still in control? No.
Here the elephant in the room starts to make it’s presence felt because the corollary of a clear, rules-based planning system is that proposals that are in conformity with them should be approved and there is nothing that communities should be able to do about it.
We need then to talk about public engagement.
The plan-led system is supposed to work as follows. After multiple rounds of public consultation an engaged and accepting local populace subscribe to both a long-term development framework for their area and the planning applications that subsequently flow from it. That is obviously a million miles away from what actually happens because local plan coverage is steadfastly poor (30% at the last count according to Savills and public participation in local plan production is worse (according to the RTPI, responses to local plan consultations represent 0.56% of a local authority’s population).
‘This is the first I have heard of it’, say most local residents in response to an application on a nearby allocated site, which then ends up being refused at committee against the officer’s advice.
NDMPS will cut through and across all of that, which means that how applications consistent with an NDMP are consulted upon and determined must change. Communities can and should be asked, for example (in the absence of a design code), what a scheme for homes within reasonable walking distance of well-connected stations might look like, but they cannot and should not be asked whether they think development on this vacant site is a good idea and these applications, which the Government support remember, should be determined by officers and not councillors.
Somebody is going to have to tell them.
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