Residents' Association Forum

On 25 July the Government published its draft planning framework and opened public consultation on it which will close on 12 October 2011.  This is an important issue which will govern approaches to planning for more than the lifetime of this government, so if you want to have input, now is the time.  

Tools for the job: 
You can download the draft framework here:  http://residents-association.com/pdfs/planning_framework.pdf
You can download the consultation document here: http://residents-association.com/pdfs/planning_consultation.pd
The announcement of the process is here: http://www.communities.gov.uk/news/corporate/1951729
The online survey form for public consulation is here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/KZKH35Z
Guidance notes that if you are commenting in detail, you may find it easiest to draft comments in a text editor before pasting them into the online survey.

What to do:
Read the framework document carefully.  If you wish to have direct input, prepare your comments based on the consultation document then do the online consulation survey.  Please also repeat your comments to our Planning Convenor, Graham Cooke (email address on our contacts page)
If you do not wish, or do not have time, to complete the online survey but have a thoughtful comment on one or more aspects of the draft, please likewise email Graham - for the Association will be making a submission in due course that should represent the views of members, with added weight.
If you have comments that others might like to read, and that might help to form views of other residents or the Association more generally, feel free to make them here.

Comments:
On a first quick read, the draft is interesting.  There are some points in it that prompt anxiety, but others that should meet with approval.  As for its effects locally, it envisages new strategic and local area plans being drawn up, and offers the prospect of neighbourhood plans for small areas such as our own which (I am glad to see) would take precedence over the Local Area Plan in the event of conflict.  How these would work out, and how planning decisions would be affected for good or bad, will depend more on whose hands the process is in locally - i.e. who runs the council.

A few miscellaneous points,  that leapt out of the draft as I first read it with local circumstances in mind:

- 'Decision takers at every level should assume that the default answer to development proposals is "yes" '

- area plans should allocate 'sufficient land for development' in their area

- neighbourhood plans, approved by an independent examiner, will take precedence over area plans

- plans should seek to protect and enhance environmental and heritage assets in a manner appropriate to their significance

- manage patterns of growth to make fullest use of public transport, walking and cycling

- Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) may use Local Development Orders to relax planning controls

- support vitality and viability of town centres [ but: ]
- recognise that residential development can play an important role in ensuring the vitality of centres and....encourage residential development 'on appropriate sites'

- should keep numbers of radio and telecomms masts and the sites for such installations to a 'minimum consistent with the efficient operation of the network'
- should not impose blanket restrictions on new telecomms development over a wide area
- LPAs should determine applications on planning grounds and should not question whether the service to be provided is needed

- a LPA should regard the construction of new building as inappropriate in Green Belt

- where there is evidence of deliberate neglect of or damage to a heritage asset the deteriorated state of the heritage asset should not be taken into account in any decision

Over to you.

Does the view from the Jolly Boatman site count as a heritage asset?

Is the HoC a heritage asset?

The HOC is certainly a (Grade II isted) heritage asset within the meaning of the draft.

An opinion from elsewhere: Surrey Life online mag contributor: 
http://surrey.greatbritishlife.co.uk/community/blogs/detail/surrey-faces-government-green-belt-threat-warn-countryside-campaigners/id/5464/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/greenpolitics/planning/8686085/Ministers-go-to-war-with-green-charities-over-planning-shake-up-smears.html

Interesting article.  Eyebrows might be raised at Government Ministers affirming that the National Trust and the Campaign for the Preservation of Rural England are a bunch of lefties.

Note inter alia (my bolding): "The Planning Inspectorate, which rules on appeals and is an arm of the Department for Communities and Local Government, says it will be using new guidance on presumption in favour of developers with immediate effect despite the consultation period having three months to run. "

"Peter Nixon, the director of conservation at the National Trust, said local people would not get enough say in developments. “The Government is making warm noises about local communities, but in practice the dice are heavily loaded to favour development,” he said. “Ministers have put short-term financial gain ahead of everything else. It fails to protect the everyday places that communities love. Power in planning goes to the powerful.” 

Is Nixon a Leftie?  Must be one of those crypto Trots ( http://residents-association.com/editorial.php (http://residents-association.com/editorial.php)) that Leader Povey warned the residents of Surrey about earlier this year.  Nixon's bio: 
Land Economy degree at Cambridge .... working initially in private practice in North Yorkshire and then with the Peak National Park in Derbyshire.  In 1985 he joined the National Trust as a land agent based at Attingham Park in Shropshire, .........
Peter is a Council member of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, and of the Country Land and Business Association, a member of the Rural Climate Change Forum and a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.  He is married with two daughters, and his interests include all rural, heritage and environmental issues, and a wide variety of sports.

Again the Telegraph takes up its lance for Middle England: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/greenpolitics/planning/8699775/75000-homes-to-be-built-on-Englands-Green-Belt.html

But on the brighter side, at a recent planning workshop at the Civic Centre I asked whether EBC's planners anticipated that the new government planning framework would mean that the recently-agreed Core Strategy document for the borough would have to be done all over again.  They replied that they believed the strategy document had been shaped within the expected changes to come and should therefore stand.  Thank the Lord for the Civil Service.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/countryside/8734277/Coalition-rush-to-sweep-aside-planning-laws-will-put-countryside-in-peril.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/countryside/8734277/Coalition-rush-to-sweep-aside-planning-laws-will-put-countryside-in-peril.html)
"An unprecedented alliance of leading town planners warns today that the proposed reforms are being introduced with potentially damaging “haste”.

In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, 23 former presidents of the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) call for a calm discussion of the plans and an end to the “hostility” between ministers and their opponents. "

All those lefties at the Telegraph causing trouble again?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/countryside/8745764/New-planning-laws-already-in-force.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/countryside/8745764/New-planning-laws-already-in-force.html)
"Planners have been told to start approving developments on the basis of the Coalition’s controversial new planning guidelines, despite ministers offering to reword the legislation before it comes into force. Official inspectors, who have the power to approve local developments, were given the fresh guidance by the Planning Inspectorate last week.  A consultation on the draft framework is not due to end until the middle of next month"

This is typical of the way we see the ruling party operating at all levels - national, county and borough.  Small caucus takes decision; railroads it through; "consultation" just a box ticking exercise regarded with contempt.
But the last ruling party was no different.

The newshounds at the Telegraph are well on the scent now, tails up:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/hands-off-our-land/8756477/Planning-ministers-in-pact-with-developers-over-reforms.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/hands-off-our-land/8756477/Planning-ministers-in-pact-with-developers-over-reforms.html)

"Property developers privately admitted that the minister's objectives "align with ours" and said they had "earned more brownie points than we could ever imagine" by helping him......the leaked email will add to growing fears that the minister has become too close to the property industry and is working alongside developers to force through reforms, which establish a "presumption in favour of sustainable development". "

(Note use of the word 'sustainable.' which seems destined to evolve rapidly through a period when it comes to mean nothing in particular, to one where it means the opposite of its present meaning.)

The Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/hands-off-our-land/8767078/Hands-Off-Our-Land-Ministers-warped-my-vision-for-planning-says-policy-adviser.html)continues to zero in on the truth:
One of the architects of the Government’s controversial new planning rules has turned his back on the policy, claiming it has been wrecked by ministers.  He complains that his original proposals were warped and changed by those in the Government “who don’t place a high value on the environment”.

Telegraph: (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/hands-off-our-land/8769943/Hands-Off-Our-Land-playing-fields-at-risk-from-builders.html)
Major sporting bodies, including the Football Association, the England and Wales Cricket Board, the Lawn Tennis Association and the Rugby Football Union, fear that new planning rules will remove crucial protection for playing fields and open spaces.

They have given their backing to a letter from the Sport and Recreation Alliance (SRA) — published in The Daily Telegraph — which claims that “the community benefits of sport and recreation” are ignored by the draft planning policy. 

The Women's Institute (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/hands-off-our-land/8772616/Hands-Off-Our-Land-Womens-Institute-joins-battle-to-save-the-green-belt.html) is joining the fight against the Government’s controversial changes to planning rules and is calling on its 208,000 members to write to their MPs and organise public meetings, the Daily Telegraph reports today.

No doubt the same Ministers who accused the National Trust and the Campaign for the Preservation of Rural England of being a bunch of lefties (see earlier post) will now realise that the WI must also be crypto Trotskyists?!

Dangerous in the wrong hands:

"....the new homes bonus – dubbed “cash for planning permissions” by campaigners – was likely to increase.

The bonus is a direct incentive for councils to encourage more building because it allows councils to keep council tax payments from new homes for six years. "

Telegraph again - with their unrivalled access to Conservatives, they are very good when they get on the scent like this: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/hands-off-our-land/8785357/Planning-reforms-David-Cameron-aide-privately-told-builders-new-NPPF-would-trigger-more-development.html

Telegraph on the case: (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/hands-off-our-land/8786642/Planning-reforms-already-having-an-impact-on-countryside.html)


Approval has been granted to developments that will see meadows and green fields making way for new housing, office buildings and industrial lorry parks. Housing developers have also begun using the reforms to appeal planning refusals.

The disclosure shows that the new "presumption in favour of development" and the end of the "brownfield first" rule in the current system which limits development in rural areas are being used already to decide whether building goes ahead. 

In Rutland, planning inspectors overruled a council decision to reject an application to build 96 houses on an area of countryside that had been designated as protected under local plans, citing the NPPF (draft new planning framework) seven times in the appeal decision.

You still have time to file objection in the "consultation" which closes 12 October. It would be embarrassing for our rulers to have to admit that the guidelines they issued in advance of the results of the consultation being known were opposed by an overwhelming majority of a significant number responding...  Whether that would have any effect on policy in this democracy is another matter.

The Telegraph's bloodhounds are impressively thorough:
A senior civil servant at the heart of controversial planning reforms has been accused of cashing in on his position by accepting a lucrative job in the property industry. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/hands-off-our-land/8795758/Hands-Off-Our-Land-top-civil-servant-lands-planning-job.html)
"Richard McCarthy, a director-general at the Department for Communities and Local Government, is joining Capita Symonds, which advises major developers on planning and construction......after bringing about “major changes in planning”.
.....
Mr McCarthy said he looked forward to “cementing” his new employer’s reputation as a leader in the property industry and that he was “head-hunted at the start of this year” for the role.  Since then, he has been centrally involved in the Draft National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), the Coalition’s move to rewrite planning rules in England. The framework has been widely criticised as too favourable to the building industry and ministers admit it is meant to increase development significantly." 

House builders lobbied cabinet privately to get planning relaxed - revealing article in The Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/nov/20/house-builders-lobbied-cabinet-planning

The Daily Telegraph Hands Off Our Land campaign is on this link: 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/hands-off-our-land/

"George Osborne, the chancellor, and other high profile ministers leading controversial reform of the planning system have been embarrassed by comments from councils in their own constituencies questioning the plans. " (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/8918816/Ministers-own-constituencies-question-planning-rules.html), reports the Telegraph, itself a supporter of conservatism which has consistently investigated and attacked these insidious reforms.  See many posts above.

Some Conservative councils in Surrey, such as Waverley,  have been strongly critical of the draft reforms which amount to a charter for developers.  But not Elmbridge Borough Council, where Residents' councillors tried to stiffen the drafting of the council's response to the "consultation".  Drafting changes were resisted by the Elmbridge Conservatives.  Elmbridge council is complacent because the recent (2010) strategy document for planning, which has been approved by the Secretary of State (if I recall correctly), is held to be unaffected by the provisions proposed in the developers' charter.

But the strategy document covers only the next few years and what happens thereafter will be determined by the central planning guidelines which emerge from this "consultation".

Telegraph: (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/constructionandproperty/8975395/UK-taxpayers-shoulder-subsidised-stagnation-in-housing-sector.html)

"As with the banks, the state has backed developers without getting enough in return for its help, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) argued in a new report.

“The Government’s new Housing Strategy does not make sufficient demands of the housebuilders,” said Nick Pearce, its director. “Instead, it offers them public land, money and guarantees without a serious quid pro quo.”

"Property developers who stand to gain from the Government’s planning reforms have donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to the Conservatives since the proposals were first published last summer." (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/hands-off-our-land/9099294/Hands-Off-Our-Land-Property-developers-gave-500000-to-Tories-over-past-six-months.html)
£510,000 - Figures from the Electoral Commission.  The Telegraph article continues: "The Daily Telegraph also disclosed that planning minister Greg Clark had privately urged property developers to lobby Prime Minister David Cameron amid concerns that his planning reforms would be blocked.

A leaked email showed that property developers privately admitted that the minister's objectives "align with ours" and said they had "earned more brownie points than we could ever imagine" by helping him. "

A Conservative Party spokesman denied that the donations would be reflected in any influence over decisions and stated ""Donors are motivated by a genuine desire to support the Conservative party and help it to win elections.” 

Press Association: (http://uk.news.yahoo.com/200-ancient-woodlands-threatened-074239947.html) More than 200 ancient woodlands are currently under threat from development, and many more could be at risk without changes to the proposed planning reforms, warns the Woodland Trust

Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/hands-off-our-land/9129355/Hands-Off-Our-Land-Developers-now-to-be-forced-to-build-on-brownfield-sites-before-the-countryside.html): final draft of the new planning rules will be published later this month

Telegraph info suggests it will 
- include greater protections for heritage sites and the environment.
- remove the need for councils to set aside land for 20 per cent for more housing than they need over a five year period.
- give councils up to two years to prepare for the change so they can identity and protect green spaces
- include an explicit “brownfield first” commitment
- maybe include better protections for heritage sites and a more balanced definition of “sustainable development” taking environmental concerns into account
- give communities wan 18 month to two year “transition period” to prepare for the changes and develop local plans, which will set out where building can take place in their areas. 

We shall see.  It's all in the drafting.

Mail reveals that  Osborne is reported to be determined to include the most contentious element of the plans - a presumption in favour of developers - in this month’s Budget. 

The revised guidelines of today may be downloaded here: http://residents-association.com/pdfs/national_planning_framework_2012.pdf  (about 850kb)

Small noteworthy comment in the Guardian: "An irony not to be missed is that, in their own constituencies, Osborne has opposed two waste-to-energy plants, Pickles an old folks' home and Clark 6,000 new homes. So, as ever, all politics is local. The impact of these seismic planning changes will only be known when local communities, who are told they are newly-empowered to control planning, have fought out their battles with the developers, who are told everything holding them back has been hacked away. They can't both be right."

In Elmbridge, it's going to boil down to whom you can trust.

The Conservatives have at least two developers on the planning committees, probably more if I think about it, and some were overheard lately in the Civic Centre by another councillor, saying that 'under the new guidelines there won't be much need for planning restraints'.

http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/general//news/stories/2012/sep12/060912/060912_1

Official PR announcement of new government decisions affecting planning, including the new relaxation on extensions.

...and hidden in the detail, and not in the PR announcement:

'We will introduce permitted development rights to enable change of use from commercial to residential purposes'

Best say 'bye bye' to all the remaining shops in the high street then......

I didn't read down far enough.  The full wording is thus:

'We will introduce permitted development rights to enable change of use from commercial to residential purposes, while providing the opportunity for authorities to seek a local exemption where they believe there will be an adverse economic impact. '

Time to start thinking about whether Thames Ditton needs such an exemption?

The more and more I think about it, the more I believe that Elmbridge should consider bringing in an Article 4 Direction to remove permitted development rights in our conservation areas.

This works well in Richmond, and shouldn't prove too burdensome for residents in Elmbridge.  When the government is hell bent on introducing a builder's charter, this would seem to me to be the only way to bring back control to the council, in the conservation areas at the very least.  

I agree.

The historian Peter Hennessey made the relevant point in today's BBC Any Questions that if it hadn't been for the introduction of the 14 UK Green Belts in the 1930s, there would be a 'thin town' of ribbon development all the way along the roads from Acton to Oxford and from London to Cambridge. 

He also said that the proposed 'swap' of green belt land would simply result in building on existing green belt and offering in compensation some obscure patch of land where no-one ever goes as a sop - as has already been said on this forum.  

Who said this would be the greenest party ever ??   

Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/hands-off-our-land/9530315/Planning-changes-are-a-blow-to-locals-and-liberty.html)- a staunchly Conservative newspaper, writes:

Planning changes are a 'blow to locals and liberty' ..George Osborne’s moves to streamline planning system will leave people helpless to stop thousands of homes being built on their doorsteps, warns the Conservative chairman of the Local Government Association, no less.

Peter Hennesy is extremely good.  For anyone who really wants to understand what the central Civil Service is, and why it's the way it is, his book "Whitehall" is outstanding - and readable.  Also, now, cheap - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Whitehall-Peter-Hennessy/dp/0712667555

Uncontrolled building development, building over the green belt, Heathrow Expansion, running down the national health service: all with the excuse f reviving the economy: it all suggests a government that knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Isn't this reflected in the behaviour and voting habits of the Elmbridge conservative councillors a number of whom are themselves property developers?  One has only to think of the Sandown Hotel on greenbelt land, demolition of historic Georgian Moore Place, attempted closure of the Ember Centre ? 

Good article here -->  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/countryside/9620216/Planning-the-broken-promises.html

If you'd like to file objections to the government's proposals to let people build extensions twice the size of those that can currently be built without planning permission, here's how:  http://residents-association.com/news.php#badplan

It could be one of your neighbours.....

A resident who is still working out how to post in the forum writes c/o Admin:
"Thank you to the Residents' Association and Planning convenor, Graham Cooke for the link to the Questionnaire/Technical consultation on the proposals to extend permitted development rights; I have made my submission and would urge anyone who cares about preserving the street layouts and character of the places we live in to respond by the deadline of 24/12"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9748906/MPs-plot-to-stop-rash-of-new-housing-squeezing-local-schools-and-roads.html

Much of the resistance to the Cameron government's anti-planning policies is coming from those conservatives who think pragmatically, I'm pleased to note.

The Association's submission to government concerning the proposed relaxation of planning measures (extensions etc) is downloadable here. (http://residents-association.com/pdfs/ConsultationDoc_Dec2012.pdf)

Thank you, Graham.

Related artilce today on BBC: he coalition has not made a "rigorous" case for allowing people in England to build larger home extensions without planning permission, MPs have said (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20783367)
"....The relaxation, applying in unprotected areas, would last for three years, in an effort to help the construction industry, whose output fell by 5.1% in the year to October."

However, I read elsewhere that in the past three months the construction industry has enjoyed 8% growth...

In the various planning applications that come up, particularly relating to shop premises in the High St, I and others are always stressing that once permission is granted to change use from retail to office, then you are on the slippery path of conversion from office to residential and you will lose the previous retail premises to residential in two easy stages.

Reinforcing that  point:
Office conversion rules eased
"Nick Boles, the Planning Minister, will announce this week that developers will be able to convert offices into flats without council permission as part of the government’s plans to deliver more new homes. The measure will not apply to shops or warehouses. "

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/greenpolitics/planning/9817185/Offices-could-be-turned-into-homes-without-planning-permission.html

Conservatives look to strike another blow against ordinary people, but in favour of their developer lobby:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9879852/Right-to-light-important-to-protect-the-little-man-says-businessman-who-won-landmark-case.html
"A businessman whose landmark case led the government to consider repealing the law protecting householder’s “right to light” criticised the move on Tuesday. 
......
MPs have previously raised concerns that plans to allow bigger extensions to homes without planning permission could affect residents' right to light.

When the proposals were announced last year, Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary, said that homes should be "completely unaffected" by this issue.

Nick Boles, the planning minister, last month only promised that big extensions will "not have a big effect on the right to light for neighbouring properties". "

-So now, these politicians want to repeal the right to light.  And then they worry that nobody trusts them.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jun/07/labour-communities-planning-hilary-benn
Emerging Labour policy on planning

Important to take a look at  the latest Government "consultation" on relaxing planning restrictions which includes proposals to allow  shops and financial and professional services to change use to a dwelling house without planning permission being required.

This would be devastating for the retail and restaurant mixed-use High St that we have fought so hard to retain even under the planning guidelines of the past twenty years.  Within a decade there would probably be only residential properties in the High Street if landlords could change use to residential and sell at an immediate profit.  The character and life of the village would be irreversibly damaged.

See:  https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/greater-flexibilities-for-change-of-use and please respond on this particular point if no others.  

You can download a response form here. (https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/consultation_response_form_data/file/89/Consultation_questions_-_response_form.doc)  Email it to: 

Changeofuse.planning@communities.gsi.gov.uk by 15 October when this rather under-the-radar consultation closes.

Text of Graham Cooke's submission by email to the consultation on behalf of the Residents' Association is:

"We have very serious reservations about the proposals to allow retail properties to convert to dwelling houses in general but, very grave concerns over the plans so far as they would impact on our own local communities.

We understand that there may well be areas where conversion of shops which are 'no longer viable' might be of benefit to the communities. However, in an area where the value of residential development sites is at a considerable premium to both office and retail sites there are particular dangers. The fact is that developers will seek profit from not only unviable commercial properties but also from perfectly viable ones. To believe otherwise is naive.

In the area we represent we have already seen offices that are occupied and offering employment opportunities bought by developers who have forced the closure of businesses merely for the profit offered to property speculators and developers.

Despite our concerns we recognise that these proposals may be proceeded with - If that is the case we strongly support the proposal to exclude Conservation Areas from these plans. We believe that Conservation Areas would be the most likely to suffer the adverse affects of a relaxation in planning use rules with developers recognising the particular attractions of the 'premium sites'

In short, we object to the proposal but support the exclusion of Conservation Areas"

Residents are encouraged to make their own submissions (preferably reinforcing those points!).