Sector Focus: Planning - Laying out a plan of action

A revolution is building. The government has announced a ‘bold’ reform of the planning system that includes slashing red tape and unlocking land to build new housing.

Parts of the planning system could be stripped away in an attempt to speed up the process. Consulting bodies like Sports
England, the Theatres Trust and the Garden History Society will no longer be required for those looking to build under the new plans being considered by ministers.

An overhaul of local plans – which are frameworks to determine where houses and infrastructure should be built – has been
confirmed. And extra cash is being made available to recruit more planners.

On top of that elected mayors are being given powers under devolution to ‘get Britain building again’ including the ability to call in applications on large, strategic sites.

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner told The Convention of the North gathering in Preston earlier this year that attempts to build houses and infrastructure such as data centres and renewable energy were too often met by a system that says “don’t bother.”

She added: “Well, I am determined to break that system. And I am handing mayors the sledgehammer.

“Mayors are at the centre of our plans to build 1.5 million homes. By giving them the powers they need, mayors are an army to take on the blockers.

“We are backing them to work across huge regional geographies to get the job done. It’s why we’re giving them the powers to call in applications on those large, strategic sites that will really turn the wheel on growth.”

The government has now said that clean energy projects, public transport links, and other major infrastructure will, on average, be delivered at least a year faster.

Against this backdrop of change we have put planning under the microscope and looked at what impact, if any, this revolution is likely to have in Lancashire.

We brought our experts together at the offices of HPA Chartered Architects in the shadow of Lancaster Castle to discuss the appetite for change and the challenges ahead.

Warren Bennett, commercial director, James’ Places
If I’d have said Angela Rayner would have been my most popular politician last year, I would have laughed at myself, but actually I like what she’s doing.
Whether it’ll make any difference or not is a different thing, because saying something doesn’t make it happen. But the intention is there.
To try and do today what we’ve done historically, developing and repurposing historic buildings, with interest rates, delays in planning and the time it takes to do things, we would really struggle.
Holmes Mill, our £10m development in Clitheroe, has supported that town tremendously. Would we do that if it came up
tomorrow? I doubt it.
We are two years into the project to turn Wennington Hall near Lancaster, a Grade II Listed former school, into a wedding venue.
We would be very reluctant to take on that kind of conversion with some of the challenges we’ve found there, particularly around change of building regulations.
Speed and clarity are the biggest challenges to anybody making a planning application. You’ve no idea when you’re going to get it.
The government has said there will be more planning officers but when you see the numbers they are talking it is nothing compared to the need.

Jess Barrow, heritage director, Woohoo Heritage Planning
When it comes to planning departments, it is the positive mindset that is missing and a lack of trust that is evident.
Planning departments used to be service facing.
You used to be able to walk into a local authority with a proposed scheme, go up to the planning counter and ask, ‘what do you think?’ Members of the public could ask about developments near to them and an officer would show them.
Everything goes back to communication. It’s alright having design guides and spatial supplementary planning documents and the like, but unless there’s a two-way conversation, we’re going to continue to be up against it.
There’s a need to think about the economy and how much each time delay costs. You want to see things happen at speed but sometimes the staff are strangled by the system they’re sitting in.
We’ve ended up with this huge checklist and we’re in a position where you’re submitting things that are entirely irrelevant. I submitted an elevation of a car park the other day for some electric vehicle chargers.
My elevation was a flat car park with the chargers. They already had the drawings of the chargers. Why have we then paid someone to do that, a before and after elevation of some imaginary cars?
I want to see support and incentives delivered to help people to want to invest in historic buildings and to retain them in some capacity.
The fastest way to grow the economy is housebuilding and the undercapacity in planning departments is just enormous.

Samuel Knott, director, Site Surveying Services
We’ve got 40 site staff and deal with everything from heritage projects through to green belt land. We’re primarily a sub-contractor.
The problem we face is speculative dates that are set. It puts real pressure on sub contractors.
If someone comes to us and says, ‘I want this survey doing in the next two weeks because I’ve got planning by the end of the month’ that might be achievable but sometimes we get phone calls in the same week.
There is no consideration for the smaller sub contractor. For example, we did a measured building survey of a particular unit. Behind the scenes there are 50-man days of drawing that up because there are floor plans, there are elevations, internal elevations. There are ceiling plans, service plans.
We’ve got to all do that across our team of 40 which is fine but that puts a massive constraint on everything else we’re
trying to do as well. We’re not just working for one person.
Skills is a national issue. We’ve had to take it upon ourselves to bring four trainees a year into the industry. If we’re struggling and we’re niche then where are the councils getting their next crop from?
The shortage is throughout the system: planning consultants, heritage consultants, construction managers. It’s everywhere.

Richard Woolridge, architect and director, HPA
I was until very recently chair of the RIBA, Royal Institute of British Architects North West, and I’m currently on their planning special advisory expert advisory group.
There’s a group of about ten of us who lobby the government about planning. We met with the ministers in London earlier in March to lobby about new build and to talk about stripping away red tape, decluttering the planning system, taking it back to what it was 15 years ago.
We’re talking about planning officers. There’s a national shortage. The government has said it will create 300. The Home Builders Federation has said 2,200 are needed.
So we’re lobbying, we’re trying to persuade them to declutter. Validation for instance, I did a quick check and Lancaster’s validation list is in the 40s when it come to things you have to consider. That’s 40 items, 40 reports or drawings or documents. There is another authority outside Lancashire that has a list of 60 requirements you have to consider.
Planning’s got so much more complicated and it needs decluttering. We need a reboot that’s what the White Paper has suggested. Whether it actually happens, remains to be seen. Next week we’re meeting an MP to show them a housing scheme to try and explain to them the barriers that the contractors have to go through to get this far.

Paul Darwin, land director, Anwyl Homes
We’re a family house builder with a number of sites in Lancashire. For us to be able to build we need planning permission.
If you look at the statutory timescales, they have gone out of the window. You’re supposed to have 13 weeks for a planning application decision but most of the time you’re lucky if you’ve got it in six months. Sometimes it could take 12 months to get planning.
We have a site outside Lancashire that’s been in planning for two years so it’s a long process and that’s from the moment you submit your application. You’ve got pre-application discussions as well which, again, can take anywhere up to six months.
Keeping up with the government’s ambition on housebuilding is hard. The public sector has been cut to bits in terms of staff resources. Planning budgets aren’t ringfenced any more. There is a lot of investment needed to get the right people in.
We want to build well-designed, good family houses and it is really refreshing to see the impetus Labour is putting into it. Having a positive approach is definitely needed because there are councils in some areas that have just sat on their hands and said, ‘We don’t need any new development’.
It’s how the government can push people to deliver things, whether that’s reallocating officers, deemed permissions in certain areas or speeding up the appeals processes.

Paul Darwin, land director, Anwyl Homes
We’re a family house builder with a number of sites in Lancashire. For us to be able to build we need planning permission.
If you look at the statutory timescales, they have gone out of the window. You’re supposed to have 13 weeks for a planning application decision but most of the time you’re lucky if you’ve got it in six months. Sometimes it could
take 12 months to get planning.
We have a site outside Lancashire that’s been in planning for two years so it’s a long process and that’s from the moment you submit your application. You’ve got pre-application discussions as well which, again, can take anywhere up to six months.
Keeping up with the government’s ambition on housebuilding is hard. The public sector has been cut to bits in terms of staff resources. Planning budgets aren’t ringfenced any more. There is a lot of investment needed to get the right people in.
We want to build well-designed, good family houses and it is really refreshing to see the impetus Labour is putting into it. Having a positive approach is definitely needed because there are councils in some areas that have just sat on their hands and said, ‘We don’t need any new development’.
It’s how the government can push people to deliver things, whether that’s reallocating officers, deemed permissions in certain areas or speeding up the appeals processes.

Deborah Smith, co-founder, S&L Planning Consultants
Unless you are an experienced developer you are not going to ‘have a go’ because things are just too uncertain.
More certainty is needed, more resources. We need a chief planner installed in every authority. Historically they held a wealth of information about an area and experience, because planning is really complicated sometimes.
In restructure after restructure chief planners disappeared and they are the people you should got to if you’re
having a problem.
Money has been put aside for 300 new planning officers to go into local authorities.
I’ve read there are 90 graduates on the trainee scheme at the moment but that’s not the level that’s needed.
It’s more experienced planners that are needed but I guess you’ve got to start somewhere. Then there’s the challenge of keeping them because historically people will work in the local authority sector and then move into the private sector.
Morale tends to be very low in quite a lot of local authorities and it’s bound to be if all the planning officers get is, ‘Where’s my planning up to? Have you done mine, where is it up to?’ You constantly get berated.
We need some collaboration across local authority areas with strategic planning, which was scrapped years ago. To add a strategic layer back in makes a lot of sense to me.

Stephen Bell, partner commercial property team, Napthens Solicitors
At the moment, as far as I am concerned everything is just ‘in principle’, there is very little in the way of detail when it comes to the proposed changes we have heard about.
Covid, government changes and cutbacks have all had a massive impact when it comes to the planning system. Pre-planning applications used to be more positive, you received early informal guidance, there was a conversation. Nothing was legally binding but it was a start. That has changed.
Then there is the time that things take. In some parts of the country, it can take two years to secure planning. I know of one small housing scheme where it has taken another two years on top of that to sort out the Section 106 agreement. Also known as a planning obligation, this is a legally binding agreement between a planning authority and a developer, entered into as part of granting permission.
Nationally there needs to be more of a long-term strategic planning framework and it needs to span more than one
government’s time in office. We need it to cover 10, 15, 20 years.
A return to proper town planning would also be welcome, we have lost that knowledge in the system that we once had. We
need people who know how things work.
We have torn up a lot of things that worked and we have a lot of stuff that act as barriers.