The 50 Shades of Planning Blog

Further to my piece on the Cheshire East Local Plan, this appears on Place North West today: http://www.placenorthwest.co.uk/news/archive/14411-cheshire-east-urged-to-reconsider-green-belt-strategy.html Jonathan Vose at Walsingham Planning would also appear to have concerns about the evidence base underpinning the Council's proposed development strategy.  "The proposals in Handforth are particularly interesting, in planning terms, given that a very large scale of development is proposed wholly within the green belt, without the council first having published a formal assessment of its green belt, or the quality and openness value of sites within it."

Here we go again. Ed Miliband will warn again today of the evils of land banking. “Across our country”, he cautioned in June, “there are landowners with planning permission, sitting on land, waiting for it to accumulate in value and not building on it”.   Developers who sit on land banks, he will apparently say today, will be hit by a “use it or lose it” law and Councils will be given the right to impose escalating fees backed up by new compulsory purchase powers.   The same call has been made by Boris Johnson, who has criticised “pernicious land banking” for being “against London’s economic interests”.   Are these cross-party warnings evidence of a legitimate issue or do they reflect a soft and misunderstood target that fills speeches and generates headlines?   For the sake of this blog let us assume that applicants for planning permission break down into three categories: the private landowner (let’s say a farmer), the volume PLC housebuilder, and ...

The HBF has published it's latest Housing Pipeline report this morning.   http://www.hbf.co.uk/media-centre/news/view/housing-planning-permissions-up-49/   The headlines are a 49% year-on-year increase in the number of planning approvals for new homes in England in the second quarter of 2013.   Whilst a fall on Q1, the figure still means there were 77,686 permissions granted in the first six months of the year, a 26% year-on-year increase.   The HBF also take the opportunity to warn though of overly onerous conditions that increase the time between a planning approval and work commencing on-site.   A high number of conditions is often an indication that details that might otherwise have been agreed during the application process have not been agreed. This might suit some applicants because often at attitude prevails that pre-application discussions can be abortive where the principle of developmen...

Cheshire East's Strategic Planning Board will be told next week that the Green Belt Study being undertaken to support the emerging Local Plan is "soon-to-be-finalised".   (See agenda item 4 here: http://moderngov.cheshireeast.gov.uk/ecminutes/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=279&MId=5069 )   One wonders then upon what basis the Leader of Council, Michael Jones, was able to tell the BBC's North West Tonight programme this week that the Green Belt land proposed for the North Cheshire Growth Village east of Handforth was of "low quality"?   To be considered 'sound' the NPPF requires a Local Plan to be 'justified', which is defined as being "the most appropriate strategy, when considered against the reasonable alternatives, based on proportionate evidence."   A LPA's evidence base will obviously evolve in parallel to the evolution of the local plan process, and it may well be that the Green Belt Study supports th...

There's a great line in this review of last night's first episode of The Planners by Tom Sutcliffe in The Independent:   "...The Planners isn't dull, since it's about the hysterical emotions aroused in the average Briton by the prospect of any encroachment on their property rights".   It's worth a read...   http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/last-nights-viewing-the-secret-life-of-dogs-itvthe-planners-bbc2-8476113.html

I was confronted with a sobering thought last night whilst speaking with the planning officer who will deal with one of our imminent applications. I had met with his ecology and conservation officers colleagues last summer as we embarked upon a masterplanning process and I put it to the officer that we had never actually received any feedback on our proposition. "You won't do now", came the response. "They've both got the boot".   This is sobering for two reasons. Firstly, of course, one feels for the officers who have lost their jobs. Secondly, though, it is sobering to think that a large Metropolitan Borough has no ecological or conservation resource.   The project that we are working has at it's heart a feature of ecological and heritage value and there is an opportunity to enhance this value as part of our proposition. We are working to identify all of the parties (public, private and voluntary) who might help with realising this potential...

I highlighted in a tweet recently that Cheshire East Council, £132.3m in debt, owns or part owns seven of the strategic sites identified in it's Draft Development Strategy, including the proposed new settlement at East Handforth. The Council has stated that as part of a wider approach to developing the economy it will directly promote employment and housing growth through the development of Council assets and land. This approach is logically enough given the Council's financial plight, but it is important that those Council assets and land are identified through the development plan process as being the most appropriate sites for development relative to other options. It's interesting to see, therefore, that the Council is seeking a Development Executive to become Chief Executive designate of wholly Council-owned company that will be established to deliver "a number of strategic sites as well as two brand new settlements". http://www.placenorth...