16 Sep 2020
Local Plan Inspectors have written to St Albans Council (link to letter below) confirming the Council’s failure to comply with the Duty to Cooperate in preparing their Local Plan which cannot be remedied through Examination. The letter invites the Council to confirm if they wish Inspectors to write their report confirming failure to satisfy the Duty to Cooperate or whether they intend to withdraw the Local Plan.
16 Sep 2020
A Court of Appeal judgement has been handed down which considers the meaning of out of date policies for the purposes of paragraph 11(d) of the NPPF. The case concerned dismissed housing schemes due to their impact on the Worsley Greenway, protected by saved policies of the Council’s UDP. The case was brought on the basis that the UDP was time expired running to an end date of 2016 and therefore relevant policies used in dismissing the cases were out of date.
Notable sections of the Judgement which dismisses the case, include: Paragraph 68: – It is obvious that many policies will not expire with the plan but will survive beyond the plan period. Policies which address environmental protection clearly have a life beyond the expiry date of the plan; and Paragraph 71 – Whether a policy becomes out of date and if so what consequences arise from that are matters of pure planning judgement, not dependent on issues of legal interpretation.
Accordingly, policies are “out-of-date” for the purposes of para. 11d of the NPPF if they have been overtaken by things that have happened since the plan was adopted, either on the ground or through a change in national policy, or for some other reason.
https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2020/1175.html
16 Sep 2020
A campaign group ‘Rights: Community: Action’ have been granted leave to challenge the introduction of the latest changes to the UCO and GPDO. The challenge stops short of seeking the suspension of the measures. The challenge which is brought of five grounds includes that the SoS failed to consider the weight of evidence against such radical review, including failure to undertake prior consultation and consider responses and the advice of experts. The case is expected to be heard between 8th and 15th October, yet legal commentators anticipate there to be a good likelihood that the case could go to the Court of Appeal which would mean there being some uncertainty for some considerable time.
08 Oct 2019
The Conservative Party held their annual conference in Manchester between 29th September and 2nd October 2019. Announcements were made on a number of planning related matters, some of which will be included in the Accelerated Planning Green Paper expected to be published in November 2019:
Permitted Development Rights
The government will proceed with a new permitted development right to allow upwards extensions of certain buildings by up to two storeys as part of its plans to meet the ambitious target of 300,000 new homes a year. It is expected that the right will come into force in Autumn 2019 and will apply to buildings that are in uses deemed to be compatible with residential use such as existing dwellings, shops, offices, and restaurants and cafes.
In addition, there will be a new right to demolish commercial buildings to allow for the provision of housing via a two stage Permission in Principle route with local authorities able to consider issues like quality, the facade, height and parking provision.
There is also expected to be a review of existing permitted development rights, specifically office to residential, in order to improve standards and living conditions.
New National Model Design Code
The government is expected to publish a National Model Design Code next year which would be capable of being a material consideration in planning applications and appeals. Local authorities will be required to produce their own local variations following consultation with local residents, heritage and environmental groups in their area. The Code will be informed by the final report of the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission and will be consulted upon in early 2020.
Planning Application Fees
Councils will be allowed to raise planning application fees in return for higher quality services and there will be an automatic rebate if deadlines are missed.
Pre-commencement Conditions
There is an ambition to reduce planning conditions by a third which follows on from the recent reforms restricting the use of pre-commencement conditions in order to enable development to start on site at the earliest opportunity.
Simplification of the Planning System
A more user-friendly tiered system will be introduced, designed specifically to simply the process for small developers and householders.
Town Centre Reform
Ministers are considering whether further planning reforms would help people assemble land, regenerate land and get housing into town centres to allow them to thrive. The Use Class Order will be reviewed given it restricts change of use between different high street uses and does not currently accommodate mixed-use shops.
Rural Infrastructure
A new £25 billion infrastructure delivery plan was introduced for rural areas including 14 new local road schemes, a £220 million scheme to transform bus services, and new plans to invest £5 billion to support the roll-out of full-fibre, 5G and other gigabit-capable internet networks in the hardest to reach 20% of the country.
Green Belt Policy
There will be no change to green belt policy following earlier advice from Centre for Cities that 2.1 million new homes could be delivered by realising green belt land within 800 metres of any train stations which have a service of 45 minutes or less to a major city.
Changes to Part L and Part F of the Building Regulations for new dwellings
A consultation was launched on 1st October on stronger building regulations that will pave the way for the Future Homes Standard. Views are being sought on how changes to building regulations can drive down the carbon footprint of homes built after 2025 including changes to the ventilation and efficiency requirements as well as the role of councils in getting the best energy standards from developers. The consultation will run until January 2020 and can be found at:
If you would like to discuss any of the announcements highlighted above, please contact our team.
08 Oct 2019
Following its introduction at the party conference, the government published the National Design Guide on 1st October alongside a raft of changes on design in the Planning Practice Guidance (PPG) to drive up the quality of new homes and reinforce the aim of the NPPF to create high quality places and buildings. This is the first national update to design guidance in nearly a decade. The National Design Guide sets out the characteristics of well-designed places intended to foster local character, community and be sensitive to climate change. These are: context, identity, built form, movement, nature, public spaces, uses, homes and buildings, resources and lifespan. The design section of the PPG has been replaced with a revised section called Design: Process And Tools and provides guidance on the practices of good design. As part of this update, the Neighbourhood Planning Toolkit, which provides some basic design guidance to those involved in the preparation of neighbourhood plans, has also been updated.
The National Design Guide can be found here https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-design-guide
08 Oct 2019
In allowing an appeal against Milton Keynes Council’s refusal for 50 homes at Castlethorpe Road in the village of Hanslope, a planning inspector has concluded that the local authority did not provide the clear evidence necessary to support its housing land supply position in excess of five years just six months after it adopted its new local plan. The Council has since confirmed that as there is significant contradiction between this decision and other received recently, it will be seeking legal advice on the matter. The appeal decision can be found here: file:///C:/Users/emily.warner/Downloads/ED32_Appeal_A__APPY0435W183214365_Land_off_Castlethorpe_Road__Hanslope_MK19_7HQ.pdf
31 Jul 2019
With very little fanfare the Government have recently made a number of substantial changes to Planning Practice Guidance (PPG) with some of them expected to prove fairly fundamental when interpreting the intentions of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) in particular. We consider the key changes to be as follows:
The updates include changes to 15 further sections of the PPG including a clearer set of rules for the ‘agent of change’ in instances where there will be noise impact, a clearer methodology on how Council’s should assess the availability of housing sites as part of the local plan process and guidance on how to identify needs for strategic uses such as logistics.
If you would like to discuss and of the changes to the PPG, highlighted above or otherwise, we would be pleased to assist.
24 May 2019
The legislation creates a new class, JA of the GPDO to allow proposals for the conversion of shops and other high street uses to B1 offices under the prior approval process. Class M already allows retail and sui generis uses to be converted to residential without the need for planning permission, but the new regulations would allow takeaways to also be converted to housing.
The regulations also makes permanent the existing temporary right to enlarge a dwellinghouse by up to 8 metres in the case of a detached dwellinghouse or by 6 metres in the case of any other dwellinghouse removing the time limiting date of 30th May 2019, as well as conditions which required development to be completed by that date.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2019/907/pdfs/uksi_20190907_en.pdf
19 Feb 2019
Following from last year’s Technical Consultation on Updates to National Planning Policy and Guidance, an updated NPPF was published on the 19th February 2019. This document replaces the first NPPF published in March 2012 and includes minor clarifications to the revised version published in July 2018. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-planning-policy-framework--2
The changes to the Framework are minor in respect of wording – three in total – but follow through on the Technical Consultation’s intent to clarify, remove ambiguity and close some of the potential loopholes that existed in respect of the application of policy.
The amendments are as follows:
Section 5: Delivering a sufficient supply of homes
Footnote 37 has been amended. This relates to instances where, when calculating a Council’s 5-year supply, the strategic policies of the development plan are over 5 years old and the local need figure should be used. The footnote now includes the following line:
“Where local housing need is used as the basis for assessing whether a five-year supply of specific deliverable sites exists, it should be calculated using the standard method set out in national planning guidance.”
As a companion to this amendment the definition of ‘Local Housing Need’ has also been updated in the Glossary. It now reads:
“The number of homes identified as being needed through the application of the standard method set out in national planning guidance (or, in the context of preparing strategic policies only, this may be calculated using a justified alternative approach as provided for in paragraph 60 of this Framework).”
Combined, these changes are intended to end the debate around whether an additional means of calculating a Council’s annual requirement (i.e. a draft SHMA) can be used when undertaking their 5 year land supply assessments when their strategic policies are more than 5 years old. Quite simply, for 5 year land supply purposes the output of the standard methodology should be used.
Section 15: Conserving and enhancing the natural environment
Paragraph 177 has been amended in response to the People Against Wind judgement. It now makes clear that the presumption in favour of sustainable development is disapplied only where an appropriate assessment has concluded that there is no suitable mitigation strategy in place.
“The presumption in favour of sustainable development does not apply where the plan or project is likely to have a significant effect on a habitats site (either alone or in combination with other plans or projects), unless an appropriate assessment has concluded that there will be no adverse effect from the plan or project on the integrity of the habitats site.”
Definition of ‘Deliverable’
The definition has been ‘tidied up’ rather than amended or tightened. This is intended to end the speculation around the meaning of the word that arose largely on the back of the Woolpit decision (APP/W3520/W/18/3194926).
Specific clarification has been provided in respect of the way in which small sites and sites without detailed consent should be assessed to conclude on their deliverability.
It now reads as follows:
“Deliverable: To be considered deliverable, sites for housing should be available now, offer a suitable location for development now, and be achievable with a realistic prospect that housing will be delivered on the site within five years. In particular:
a) sites which do not involve major development and have planning permission, and all sites with detailed planning permission, should be considered deliverable until permission expires, unless there is clear evidence that homes will not be delivered within five years (for example because they are no longer viable, there is no longer a demand for the type of units or sites have long term phasing plans).
b) where a site has outline planning permission for major development, has been allocated in a development plan, has a grant of permission in principle, or is identified on a brownfield register, it should only be considered deliverable where there is clear evidence that housing completions will begin on site within five years.”
19 Feb 2019
The Government has also published its response to the October 2018 Technical Consultation on Updates to National Planning Policy and Guidance. This confirms that the Government considers the 2014-based projections provide the appropriate approach for establishing the demographic baseline for the standard method. It also confirms the changes to paragraph 177 and the definition of ‘deliverable’ now taken forward in the revised NPPF.
