SuDS - Beat the deadline.

Keep the date 07 January 2019 in mind.

It’s the day whence from newly submitted planning applications (for construction works with drainage implication in Wales (and lets not bet around the bush, that means most forms of built or operational development) will trigger mandatory inclusion of SuDs/Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems. This will implement Schedule 3 of the Flood Water and Management Act 2010 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/29/schedule/3 alongside National SuDs Standards issued by Welsh Government.

SuDs approval will be a technical and separate approval process, with applications (fee’s charged of course) made to newly formed SABs (SuDs Approval Body) for each Council area. Although distinct from your Planning Application, meeting mandatory national SuDs standards will impact significantly on design, layout, appearance and management of your development. Planning applications lodged and valid on or after the trigger date will have to allow for SuDs designs as part of the details and demonstrate compliance with the Standards within the planning application in addition to to dealing with the SAB process.

The only anticipated exceptions will be single dwellings and development with a floor area of less than 100sqm alongside some other transitional arrangements for reserved matters applications lodged before 07 January 2020. SAB approval applies equally to permitted development as that needing formal planning approval. Therefore, many forms of agricultural and industrial PD will be caught by the requirement.

If you act quickly there is time to submit your planning application before the trigger date to avoid the need for SAB approval alongside planning or to take advantage of the transitional arrangements for reserved matters.

Looking forward to the new regime, we have relationships with specialist drainage consultants to develop tailor made project teams to ensure future developments will consider and meet all parallel planning and SuDs requirements from the outset, reducing delay and cost in the long run. Designing SuDs early in your scheme concept will be essential to inform pre-application discussions and consultations with Planners, the SAB and other consultees.

Contact Pete on 07877 748995 or plplanning1968@gmail.com to discuss how we can help you beat the deadline or deal with the new regime.

Conwy: Developers, Landowers Call for sites

Are you a landowner,  developer or have any interest in land near you in Conwy County?  Now  is the time to act to ensure your site is given proper consideration for development for the next 15 years to 2033.    

That may seem a long time away, but Development Plans cover long periods and set both strategic and localised direction for development that far forward. 

We are often contacted by people looking to develop their land.  Where policies are clear and supportive our task is easier and your risk far less.  Challenging existing policies or allocations to deliver non-conforming development is far more time consuming, carries far greater risk and alongside that cost.  We almost invariably advise clients that the earlier they talk to us about things, to chew things over, the better.  

Even if you don't think your land is suitable for something today, we have the knowledge and skills to assess future direction and needs and to align aspirations with emerging policy.  We can help you create strategic directions and amend policies to meet your needs. 

So if you have land (undeveloped or even already developed) that you think is suitable for retail, commercial, housing, office, tourism or any other use then now is the time to talk to us to make sure your site is including in the Call for Sites to inform the new to 2033.  

The deadline is 31 August and is therefore only 2 weeks away.  Get in touch without delay to ensure your site is considered.

Pete

Housing Land. TAN 1. Consultation.

Somewhat out of the blue Welsh Government has announced consultation on a proposal to temporarily dis-apply paragraph 6.2 of TAN 1 (Joint Housing Land Availability Studies), for the duration of a wide-ranging review of the delivery of housing through the planning system which  Welsh Government proposes to undertake this summer.  

The current advice in Para 6.2 states:

"The housing land supply figure should also be treated as a material consideration in determining planning applications for housing. Where the current study shows a land supply below the 5-year requirement or where the local planning authority has been unable to undertake a study …, the need to increase supply should be given considerable weight when dealing with planning applications provided that the development would otherwise comply with development plan and national planning policies."

The reason given for temporarily dis-applying this strand of government Technical Advice is to alleviate some of the immediate pressures on local planning authorities when dealing with speculative planning applications for housing and to allow them the capacity to focus on LDP preparation and review,

A key plank of WG policy is that the planning system must provide for an adequate and continuous supply of land, available and suitable for development to meet society’s needs.  That includes housing.  TAN 1 6.2 advises "considerable" weight be given to the need to increase housing land supply in pursuit of this of objective  measured against the  TAN 1 approach.    

The message from Welsh Government perhaps couldn't be more clear.  By removing the advice to give  considerable weight to a material consideration, Councils without adequate supply can avoid difficult "political" decisions in the expectancy that the Planning Inspectorate will support them at appeal.  Restricting the supply of permissions - if that is the effect-  even for a temporary period, will do nothing to improve the delivery of housing, including affordable housing, in our communities. 

If only it were so clear.  As one commentator succinctly put it, people live in houses not permissions.  The Courts tell us that weight to be given to material considerations is a matter for the decision-maker.  Dis-applying a part of a planning policy approach could seriously prejudice some proposals already in the planning pipeline - if the effect is to provide a basis to reject what WG terms "speculative" applications in the consultation.  That could place at risk investment in the social fabric of communities, infrastructure and economic development (including Growth Bids) in north Wales plus the many other benefits that housing delivers.     

Our initial analysis is that  simply dis-applying part of the advice - leaving the rest of national policy and advice intact - may have other unintended consequences.         

Details of the consultation can be seen at: https://beta.gov.wales/technical-advice-note-temporary-dis-application-of-paragraph-6-2

Background

Only 19 of the 25 Local Planning Authorities in Wales have a 5 year supply of housing land.  Para 9.2.3 of Planning Policy Wales states that Councils must ensure they have a supply.  Only  Anglesey/Gwynedd in north Wales currently have a supply of 5 years (following adoption of its LDP last year).

Annexe Success

We were instructed to assist a new client seeking to convert a garden building into an annexe.  

We presented the application and supporting statement setting out how the existing building would be retained and altered to form the annexe, and that it would still form part of the existing domestic unit.  The Council refused to validate our clients application as it considered (without any objective evidence) what was being provided was not an annexe, amounted to a separate dwelling unit in its own right, that we have used the wrong forms and requested an increased planning application fee.

We completely disagreed with the Council, not least that it had pre-judged the application even before validating and considering it.  After talking options through with the client, we exercised a right of  appeal to the Welsh Government against the Council's notice of Invalidity -a fairly new power in Wales.

That Appeal was successful and required the Council to validate the application.  It had to determine it as first presented.  Of course, because the application was valid when first presented, the practical period to determine the application was significantly reduced to some 4 weeks after the appeal decision.

The Council have today granted planning permission,  just within the 8 weeks from us first presenting the application, much to the delight of our client. 

Yet another reason to consider the expertise of a Chartered Town Planner.  

Sustainable Moves

The policy and legislation to make Welsh development inherently sustainable continues apace. 

WelshGov has for some time been heralding the publication of a heavily rewritten and revised  Planning Policy Wales to reflect the Future Generations Act duties.  It arrived in our inbox for consultation earlier this week and can be viewed here.  We will post about some of the key changes in the near future once digested. 

Thoughts were recently firmly focussed on the practicalities of delivering sustainable development at an event to discuss implementation of National SUDs standards organised by Welsh Government. Subject to some transitional arrangements and with minor exceptions for single dwellings and development of less than 100m2, most development involving construction of a building or structure with drainage implications will require SUDs drainage. In brief summary it will need:  

• Mandatory SUDs to national standards. Permitted Development ( e.g employment /industry/agricultural buildings) appears to be caught where over 100m2. 
• Approval of all SUDs scheme through new approval boards (SAB) (with adoption, appeal and enforcement regulations in parallel.
• Fees starting at £420 and up to £7500 for SAB approval applications. 
• Parallel to PP processes and scheme design.  The importance of silo free pre-application discussion was emphasised.
• Requirements to show in planning applications how SUDs considered. 

The draft Regulations impose the requirement to seek SAB approval, coming into force in May 2018, although we believe November 2018 to be the practical trigger date.  Further draft Regulations deal with adoption and approval,  appeals and enforcement.  

The recent event confirmed our fears that; 

• There is very little appreciation of the pending change in the development industry outside of the major developers. This seems particularly acute in the SME sector. 
• Local Authorities are ill-prepared and under-resourced for change and dont appreciate the cross-cutting character of SUDs across multiple responsibilities such as drainage. flood, highways, open space/biodiversity functions.
• The vision for outcomes and implementation will differ between individual Local Authorities and more worryingly between individual Authority functions. This will cause uncertainty and delay.
• The viability of developments will be adversely affected by the uncertainties, delaying delivery.

Updates will no doubt come, but in the interim, contact to see how we can assist.

Victoria Road Rhyl

We have been instructed by our clients - NWPS Construction Ltd (a Rhyl based contractor) - to progress a proposal to develop land at the vacant Victoria Business Park Victoria Road, Rhyl Denbighshire.

Some basics about the proposed development are summarised below:

• 18 no apartments in a mix of 16 no two bedrooms and 2 no 1 bedroom unit on two and three floors
• Access from Vale Park into an undercroft parking and entry area.
• Contemporary, high quality and flood resilient design (Mccormick Architecture, Chester).
• High quality and  affordable housing to Design Quality Requirement standard.
• Contribution to Public Open Space in the Town via commuted sum. 

Your views on the scheme are now sought in order to inform and develop a planning application which we expect to  present to Denbighshire County Council early in 2018.  Your views are important - they help  the design team explore planning issues as they might affect you and deliver a better development.

Street View from Victoria Road looking south.  

As we build up towards the next stage of submitting a planning application at some point early in 2018. we want to ensure you views are given and considered before an application is formally lodged. 

We have made the draft planning application available to view here.

You can comment either in the box below or to the following emal address.  planningpublicity@gmail.com

All change in Planning Committee

Having only just absorbed, with anticipation and trepidation, the candidates nominated in the pending Local Government elections (04 May),  the Welsh Government has legislated changes to the Size and Composition of Planning Committees.  A strand of its Positive Planning programme.

The key (mandatory) elements that come into effect with newly composed Planning Committees from 04 May are:

• Planning committee can contain no fewer than 11 members and no more than 21 members, but no more than 50% of the authority members. 

• Where wards have more than one elected member, only one member of that ward may sit on the planning committee, in order to allow other ward members to perform the representative role for local community interests.

There are exemptions for National Parks and where Local Authorities are made up of  solely of multiple ward members (to maintain political balance).

Decisions made in committee’s which do not comply with the new Regulations will be open to challenge on validity grounds.   

  

Other changes to Local Government Standing Orders will come into force alongside which require a 50% quorum and prohibit the use of substitute members.  

Economic Growth - How much land might be needed

The Daily Post reports today the "game-changing" Conwy Economic Growth Strategy 2017-2027.  We rely on the press as we cant find it anywhere on the revamped Conwy website. 

The headline job creation (3500 jobs) figure fascinates us not least because its significantly higher than LDP aspiration (2350 over plan life to 2022) on which current allocations are based.  We are all for aspiration and growth and would be delighted if it were delivered.  Conwy would be much stronger, more prosperous with a more resilient economy if achieved.  

We've been here before of course and the vagaries of wider economic forces, out-commuting, the limited westward route of North Wales metro, skills gaps, workforce flexibility, competing neighbours, the known unknown of Brexit/European and public funding levels will all influence success to a lesser or greater degree.  Lets not forget too where to house  an enlarged workforce and  associated essential physical and social infrastructure to support economic growth.  Delivery of and sustaining this level of employment and other growth will be extremely challenging.   

For a bit of fun over lunch, we asked a quick question along the lines of "how much land might be needed to deliver 3500 new jobs".  Using Government benchmarks on employment density we can get some basic analysis.  We assume  3500 FTE jobs are created, if only to test the worst (or more appropriately best) case land requirement.  We came up with the the following as a crude measure:

700 jobs in retail/restaurant/hospitality:  (say 17.5m/FTE  =  1.225ha required)

700 jobs in B8 warehousing/storage:  (75m/FTE = 5.25ha) 

700 jobs in B1a offices (50m/FTE= 3.5ha)

350 in R+D:   (50m/FTE - 1.75ha)

350 in Small Business workspace (average 40m/FTE = 1.4ha) 

350 in leisure concert/arts type/indoor attraction venues (Average 150m/FTE - 5.25ha) 

350 in hotels - 5rooms @32m2 per room (160m2)/FTE =5.6 ha)

We discount the construction sector jobs as well as the potential tidal lagoon off Colwyn Bay. We haven't taken account of changes of use and redevelopment.  

. 

So our back of a cigarette packet calculation suggests 22ha or thereabout of floorspace alone is required as accommodation for 3500new FTE jobs.  Depending on mix and market that could vary wildly.  To get a land requirement figure we multiplied the floorspace requirement by 2.5  allowing for  access, parking, servicing, landscaping and the like.  

A raw figure therefore looks somewhere in the region of 55 hectares.  Add 20% for contingency and flexibility to provide a variety of sites?  66 ha then?

As a comparator, the LDP allocates 20ha over a longer period and has delivered nowhere near the level of new jobs it envisaged through development of allocations.

For those of you who know Llandudno, the area covered by Mostyn Champneys, Parc Llandudno and Asda combined is some 19 or so hectares. 

Its a not unreasonable guestimate therefore that sites equivalent to 3.5 of those there developments combined developments will be needed, ready and developable within 10 years to deliver the Strategy.  A massive challenge.  Its not so much as a challenge but maybe a near impossibility Strategy designed for failure unless there is a very real and immediate sea change in understanding the amount of land need to be facilitated to achieve it and the civic leadership and public buy in to support it.    

Elections on 04 May anyone?

Buying Time. When 8 weeks isn't 8 weeks.

Developers are often accused of tactics to buy time and by doing so maximising competitive advantage, avoid deadlines, delaying development by land banking etc.  Setting aside the obvious point that delay costs money, development projects frequently sit within contractual and statutory timescales and frameworks.  Its our experience that developers rarely purposefully delay viable development.  In fact the reverse is true. 

Planning is often criticised as one source of delay - sometimes with justification, but mostly without.  The practice of "clock stopping" - asking for changes then re-starting afresh with a new start date when its received - have long since been frowned on.  We are often asked what recourse exists when a planning application gets delayed in the DC/DM office.  As far as we can tell there is none, although recent changes to the fee regime require that Local Authorities must refund planning fees if a decision isn't issued 8 weeks or 16 weeks after the initial deadline depending on the type of application involved.  Councils have become pro-active at agreeing extensions of time to avoid that.

We have grown used to Development Management being run production line like and build it into advice to clients. Its standard practice these days that planning application decisions come out just about on the last day or so of the 8week period.  Target hit.  Welsh Government happy. 

The Town and Country (General Development Procedure Order) Wales was amended earlier this year and introduced a whole raft of changes to procedures. One of the most subtle (and sneaky) changes was to provide either a further four weeks after the receipt of an amendment or 12 weeks from the valid date to make a decision (which ever is the later). On face value a really sensible move that allows for some additional consultation on changes to major applications without penalty to the Council - so long as its in the 12 weeks or 8+ + 4 they hit their target.  .  Read the FAQ's Welsh Government issued and it say this:

• Post Submission Amendments
• From the 16 March any applicant who has submitted a major planning application, who wishes to amend their proposal, will be required to pay a fee of £190 when they submit an amendment.
• Upon receipt of all the documents accompanying the amendment and the fee the local planning authority will have a statutory additional 4 week period (if required) in which to consider the new information before making a determination. 

In fact the time extension changes applies, we find, to all applications.  So your domestic porch where the planner, perhaps reasonably, asks for a glazing bar to change after an early review of the drawings.  A tweak to a parking space - easily requested, quickly addressed.  Suddenly however when you ask when your client permission will be through, a further 4 weeks is available to the council before  it needs to be decided.   Amend any planning application here in Wales and the Council now  have 12 weeks to deal with the application-without penalty and still hit WG performance targets.    

The tip, readers, of the iceberg I suspect, unless Welsh Government put a stop to it.  

Positive planning folks.  All in good time.  

  

Housing Land Supply - North Wales.

We've alluded to problems of Housing Land Supply in previous posts.

Welsh Government Policy requires a Council to demonstrate a 5 year supply of housing land  using something called the "residual method".  In simple terms this can be expressed as:-

Number of houses planned in Development Plan minus the number of units already completed and with permission to be built since the plan began, sprinkle a little jiggery pokery for units which may or may not be predicted as being completed within 5 years to give you the "balance to be built".  Divide that by the number of years the plan has left until its end date to give an annual requirement and multiply by 5.  Simples eh?

August is a fascinating time in consultancy whilst those of us not sunning ourselves on the beach await release of the latest Joint Annual Housing Land Supply reports. 

How are things currently looking?.  

*Anglesey: (stopped UDP)..  Cannot demonstrate a supply as no adopted plan.  1022 units available as at Feb 2016.  

Conwy: (adopted LDP).  3.7 years (August 2016).  Annual delivery requirement to meet LDP target has risen from an annual average rate of 420 units to 618.  

Denbighshire: (adopted LDP).   2.02 years (July 2016).  Annual delivery requirement to meet LDP target has risen from 500 units to 1055.

Flintshire. (UDP Expired 2015).  Cannot demonstrate a supply with no adopted plan.  LDP predicted adoption mid 2019.   3076 units predicted available.   

*Gwynedd:  (Adopted UDP).  2.9 years.  (August 2016).  Annual delivery requirement to meet UDP target has risen from 278 to 538.

Wrexham: (UDP Expired).  Cannot demonstrate a  supply with no adopted plan.  LDP predicted mid 2019.  1274 units available as at April 2015.  LPD adopted predicted mid 2018. 

* The joint Anglesey/Gwynedd LDP is moving toward examination in the autumn.  The overall target figure is 7902 (527pa) so it looks as though the LDP will be adopted with an immediate shortage and will be playing catch up straight away as the annual average rate of completions is expected to be 254 and 272 for Anglesey and Gwynedd respectively.  Neither rate has been achieved.

Using a relatively crude measure such as the residual method perhaps magnifies the effects of undersupply (or rather under delivery) during say a period of low build rates or economic downturn.  However its also reasonable that would smooth out over the 15year lifetime of a plan.  However its also the case that no North Wales LPA has witnessed housing completions  anywhere near its annual target in any recent year.  That merely compounds the problem by increasing the residual gap ever more.  Therein lies the challenge.

We may  do some further analysis down the line but the basic conclusions are:

• No North Wales Council has a five year housing supply and so must be open to additional housing proposals which meet the the PPW objectives of delivering sustainable development.
• The annual housing requirement for each authority is increasing year on year and we simply predict the gaps will get bigger unless more houses are actually built.
• The delivery of housing is nowhere near the levels required. 

In a future post we might look to some of the problems and thoughts on solutions.

Development Management Frontloading - The reality of the New World

Yesterday brought the first post 01 Aug phone call about a new major development in Wales.   We've been working flat out to get those we can sorted before the deadline.

By "major" we mean a warehouse buidling extension of some 1200m2 on his 1.5ha site.

Ive this afternoon let the client know pre-application consultation requirements.

Lets run through the supporting info briefly:

1.  Existing and proposed site, elevation and floorplans. (at least 6 drawings). Planning forms

2. Flood Consequences Assessment. site in Zone C1.

3. Known Great Crested Newts in locality. Phase 1 Eco, potentially Phase 2.

4. Design and Access Statement.

5. Planning Statement. 

6. Building will be close to Adjacent trees and boundary hedgerow.  Arboricultural report.

Ive advised him to take advantage of the statutory, pre-application service the Council offers initially ( £600 stat fee).  

He now must also consult in advance of making any planning application these Community and Specialist consultees:

1. Cheshire West Council (site abuts Cheshire Boundary)

2. The Welsh Ministers- The site is 1.5 ha and lies within 5KM of a scheduled ancient monument. 

3. The Community Council.

4. County Councillors X 3.

5.The Highway Authority.

6 National Resources Wales and

7.  4 no adjacent occupiers and 

A site notice is to be displayed for 28 days advising where the documents can be viewed in that period. We've yet to identify a community building (which might be open!!) where the application documents can be displayed publicly.  

Lets assume this fairly modest warehouse extension wont justify  www.modestfactoryextension.co.uk.  So he probably has to provide hard copies of it all, those 8.  I expect public sector consultees will accept emails or CD,  

I'm now going to work some times (and therefore fee indication) on these requirements.      

And then at the end of this, collate a Planning Application Consultation Report to submit alongside the application. 

The silence on the end of the line was deafening.  He only wants to store some additional furniture.  

At this very modest scale of "major" development I'm not yet sure that Welsh Government grasps the "risk" doing all this in advance creates for a business.   Time will tell.  It will also tell if he  commits.

927 Days

It seems like a long time ago that we put pen to paper and presented an application for outline planning permission for 24 houses on a site on the edge of a semi-rural village.  It was.  15 October 2013 in fact.

To say the site had policy difficulties is perhaps an understatement.   It was last used as a formal football pitch - albeit it in a poor condition, on Grade 1/2 Best and Most Versatile Land and lay outside the development boundary of the Village.   The Council plan had time expired but remains a material consideration.  

Council Development Management planners were open-minded to consideration of the application and were balanced in their deliberations and case throughout.  Their Policy colleagues were distinctly more uncomfortable about the principles and perhaps the precedent.   Our cogent arguments about housing supply (especially the need for early phase delivery in an emerging and as yet unadopted Local Plan), sequential approach to development in the village, the delivery and gifting of a Multi-use Games Area facility to the community as part of a masterplanned approach were all instrumental in securing a recommendation to grant planning permission. 

It total, the application has taken 927 days from submission to receipt of a decision notice.  Over 600 of those days has been taken up by the legal issues of the parties involve in drafting, resolving and signing a S106 Obligation in respect of the MUGA.   

All said a challenging application but we are delighted to sign off for the Bank-Holiday weekend with a phone call to the client confirming that his permission is now in hand. 

Pete

The Value of Planning. Adding up the numbers

It was a pleasure for me to Chair RTPI Cymru' s annual spring conference this week where we discussed and debated the "Value of Planning".  

Speakers ranged from Sioned Edwards and Georgia Crawley (Young Planners Cymru) who told us of their inspiration to enter the profession, values and the future for us all (we are in safe hands incidentally) to the President of the RTPI for 2016 Phil Williams, Director of Planning and Place at Belfast City Council where an emerging planning system in place of an imagined "gap"  it is starting to create confidence in the Value of Planning to secure delivery of investment in the City Centre.  Dr Mike Harris captured the audience's attention running through his fascinating research on the Economic Value of Planning.  Sarah Lewis of Arup set out the stark findings of research for the RTPI on impacts of austerity and cuts in Local Government planning services in the North West of England.  Neil Hemington, Chief Planner at the Welsh Government gave us his personal perspective on the value of planning and how in 2016 planners need to lead quickly to ensure we influence Local Wellbeing Plans. 

John Davies MBE ran us through the launch of Wales Best Place where the RTPI is seeking nominations for those places shaped, protected or improved by planners and the planning system. Dave Chetwyn of Urban Vision showed us, with his study of Liverpool City Waterfront (the winner of England's Best Place in 2015), that WalesBestPlace has much to live up to.  Trust us England, it will.

A key conclusion of the day was Planning can be seen as a barrier to economic development whereas it is in fact a facilitator. We just don't shout about it enough. 

As Chair I threw out the  challenge that the we should try to put some numbers on the Economic Value we "generate".  At a simple level say, one Local Authority approves 300 domestic extensions a year at an average cost of perhaps £20000 per extension. 

£6million folks:  It creates jobs for brickies, plasterers, roofers, joiners, for people making and selling supplies, even for architects.  Im not counting in "permitted development" which the planning system allows by default. So shall we double it?  £12million? Just on domestic extensions in one modest local authority.  Per Year. Directly into your local economy.  Put that to your Councillor when next they begin to question the need for planning staff and service funding.

PLPlanning does its bit too.    Scanning through one folder on my Mac for the last 12 months. I put a very rough "guestimate" that this single planning consultant has advised on £54million of development proposals with perhaps another £15-20million in the immediate pipeline.   A very conservative back of fag packet 5 minute guess too.  

I throw the Challenge out there.  Do you value your planning? 

In it to win it? The Development Plan Maps Lottery. What a difference a letter makes.

As RTPICymru chair for 2016, Ive recently been asked to write a blog for the Homes for Wales campaign. That is in gestation and should be available to read soon. Great for those of you who find sleeping difficult.  I'll keep you posted. In the interim have a look at Homesfor.wales and  give the campaign your support as RTPICymru does. 

Housing, as usual, was a hot topic at planning committee yesterday. When isn't it? In one case Councillors reaffirmed, after lengthy debate and far from unanimously, a previous resolution to refuse planning permission for fewer than 100 houses of the 6500 or so the Development Plan requires to be built.  

The Plan (as with many in Wales) is currently failing on housing.  Harsh words, but the truth. The Strategic Planning Manager accepted as much when he slipped in an announcement about imminent partial review.  

That the current Plan was only adopted 2&1/2 years ago is significant.  The Council has around 4.1 years of housing land supply (compared to the minimum 5 years) PPW and TAN1 expects. Watch this space. It will get worse.  Lets blame the residual method. Council's are, so why not the rest of us.  

The most heinous failing of the scheme however was that the land in question happens to be on the "wrong" side of a line. The development boundary line. Objectors (appreciably) and councillors saw the line as something fixed, definitive, a degree of permanence.  They overlooked, I'm sure, that past incarnations of the proposals maps for the locality inform you that, not too long ago, the thick black line was  drawn somewhere different to its current location and it will have been at some point re-drawn to allocate land to build their housing estate.  The Councillors were equally vexed that less than 5 years ago they went through a tortuous process deciding where these lines should be  - and the strategies, allocations  (and non allocations) that consequently flow to or from them.    

Planners have long loved lines on maps. Lines on maps mean important things to us.  They are also defensible lines which politicians and  the public latch onto.  They mean you can put something one side of it but not the other.   

Thick black lines on maps help give black and white answers to questions such as "can we get permission to build the houses we want to build inside the line?" Usually "Yes" is the answer.  Revise that question to "Can we build the houses we need inside the line" and the evidence points to a different answer.   

I'm increasingly reaching a view that some of these lines are counter productive - especially when it comes to delivering the houses we need.   Yet every time I mention it policy planners look aghast. 

The debate yesterday made me cast my mind back to this article.   The opening line asks the question "What is a map?".  Peter Barber, head of Maps at the British Library went on to say.  "A Map is a lie"  Read the article for yourself.  Its fascinating.

Maybe then we should look to reduce the reliance on lines (or is that lies) on maps to help society address the housing problem. What a difference a letter can make.  Imagine then how that same application might have been judged where the Development Plan had no such thick black lines. The line on the map gives an immediate negative association - that the settlement ends with the lie and nothing shall be built beyond it.  

Imagine then that application considered just on all its other merits - its organic (and market) response to accepted housing need and settlement growth, objectively assessed landscape, physical and social infrastructure impacts and requirements, its sustainability, heritage and biodiversity implications.  The outcome might very well have been different.

Imagine a plan without development boundary lines, where choice, competition and encouragement to  new housing in sustainable locations is genuinely proposed - rather than growth restricted within artificial map boundaries.  A plan which gives a different kind of certainty through genuine options; facilitates imaginative solutions about where and how to build houses (and schools, shops and workplaces); avoids an approach which by default encourages objection because of  rigid structure and restriction.  A plan where location and scale of housing is managed and monitored against that broader yet flexible strategy, steered to locations where growth can be met now and in the future, with the infrastructure to serve it.  That can still and should be a Plan that protects the quality of places in Wales that we all love. A Plan that fosters investment in and enhancement of them rather than perceiving development as automatically harming them.

A Plan doesn't have to have lines on maps to be a Plan to achieve this. The plan could be something different.  Perhaps lines on maps are part of the problem and the solution.

Perhaps with such a Plan you'd need a stick or two to nudge things along. Short-time limited permissions and phasing could encourage them to be completed. Or a Local Development Order...  

I don't believe any of that is too difficult to achieve but it certainly requires someone to imagine it and to be brave and confident to lead it.
   

Imagine a plan that said deal with all these and you CAN build the houses you need there.  Maybe call the process something like Development Management.  Yes I like that name, it has a great ring to it. 

Houses in Multiple Occupation - Use Class and PD changes (Wales)

Two new items of subordinate legislation have been laid before the Assembly and come into force on 25 February.

Changes to the Use Classes Order introduce a new Use Class for HMO's (Class C4) comprising "use of a dwellinghouse by not more than six residents as a household in multiple occupation" (applying the S254 Housing Act 2004 definition).   Memory serves me that this was done in England in 2010. 

Larger (6+resident) HMOs are sui generis.

It also refines how Class C3 in part interprets the term "single household" .

The Permitted Development Order changes grants permission for a change of use from the new Class C4 to class C3.

The Minister's drive to implement the measures set out in the Positive Planning Implementation Plan in December 2015 remains on the rails.   

Frontloading: Pre-Application Consultation

As we hinted at in a pre-Christmas tweet, Welsh Government has confirmed its intent to introduce pre-application consultation (frontloading) following publication of its Positive Planning Implementation Plan in late December last year.

An announcement likely to impact on development and contract timeframes, processes and approach to Major development proposals will be the introduction of pre-application consultation with the community (including residents, town/community councils and councillors) which we now anticipate will come into force in Wales in legislation at some point in March 2016 through an amendment to the General Development Procedure Order.   Alongside that will be a statutory duty to provide pre-application services.  

We remain hopeful of a corresponding duty on the LPA and other specified consultees to provide a timely and substantive response thus serving the purpose of scoping and resolving major issues early before an application is made. 

The precise details remain sketchy but we assume from the previous consultation that it will affect all major developments as defined in the Procedure Order (i.e. 1/ha, 1000m2+/10 dwellings/0.5ha+ etc). 

Amongst other things, expect to have to consult with the local community (council, councillors, residents and specific persons-  most likely the normal planning application consultees) in advance of submitting a major planning application and to prepare a consultation report to accompany the application setting out what has been undertaken. 

I cant be more specific on the absolute dates and requirements until WG publish some guidance (details remain sketchy, but we are advised ought to become clearer  within a couple of weeks according to WG). 

However, it's wise to  start to factor in  requirements (and lead in time periods) in order to profit from the process.     

Dont hesitate to contact if you want more information. 

Appeal Success Commutted Sums removed

In 2014, a Council sold surplus offices to a private individual as suitable for housing. Subsequently it granted planning permission to convert the building into 6 apartments as well as an alternative scheme for a nursing home. Amongst other things, the Council imposed 2 conditions on the apartment permission which sought to secure arrangements (in effect commuted sums) for public open space and affordable housing.  

Applying adopted supplementary guidance to those conditions it emerged that the commuted sums would be circa £55000. (on a development six small apartments in  low value North Wales coastal town!!)

After seeking our initial advice the owner re-applied to the Council to remove both conditions on the grounds that the development for apartments would be unviable with that additional cost burden. Despite providing a robust viability assessment with that S73 application and that assessment being accepted as correct by the Councils own advisor (nor disputed by the planners), the planning department refused to remove the conditions not least concluding it wasn't a matter for the Council whether the development made a profit.  

Following a review of the Case Officer report we recommended and prepared an appeal against the refusal on a number of grounds including viability, the need/justification for and reasonableness of the two conditions. 

We are delighted to confirm that the appeal has been allowed in all respects and both conditions have been removed, 

In respect of the Open Space matter the Inspector stated "the size of the contribution has not adequately demonstrated it is proportionate to the scale of the development"  having earlier found that the Council had provided little evidence to demonstrate when a contribution would be required based on the scale of development, how that commuted sum is calculated, and how the development would materially affect existing public open space provision. 

The Inspector found that the "the appellant’s submitted viability appraisal has not been disputed by the Council. The scheme is clearly unviable when commuted sum payments related to affordable housing and public open space are factored in" not least noting the low value of two of the units, whilst giving considerable weight to national advice on the critical viability of small sites, the "acute" shortfall of housing land in the County and that the Council itself had sold the site at a genuine price.   

The appeal is another salutary reminder that is it not simply sufficient to impose planning conditions to secure compliance (as was stated in this case) with a development plan policy or because  i "easy"to tack something onto a permission to satisfy a consultee or because "that's what we always do".  Each condition should be designed to tackle specific problems rather than impose unjustifiable controls and should therefore rightly be subject of scrutiny and justification. Where imposed, a condition must meet each of the six tests National guidance sets out, namely that it is:

• i. necessary; 
• ii. relevant to planning; 
• iii. relevant to the development to be permitted; 
• iv. enforceable; 
• v. precise; and 
• vi. reasonable in all other respects.     

This is our second case within this Local Authority recently where we have argued successfully that conditions of this type should not be imposed, particularly where there is no justification for blanket Open Space payments.  No doubt another will cross our path in the non-too distant future. 

Tony Humprheys

It is with a very heavy heart that I have received news today that Tony has passed away.  

Its poignant that it's my first full day as Chair of RTPI Wales - a role Tony held in 2002/3.  He would, I hope, have been immensely proud that "one of my lads" was following in his footsteps. Respected and liked by councillors, colleagues and applicants.  Only yesterday at the 2015 Review were we chatting about him, his RTPI work and enquiring how he was.  I last saw him fleetingly perhaps 6 weeks or so ago, as I often did, when his car passed me.    

Tone, as we knew him, was my first boss,  DC Team Leader at  Colwyn Borough Council in the early 1990s.  He saw through both 1974 and 1996 re-organisations and with it sea changes in the planning world. Always looking to make planning better, more efficient, seeing e.g. how GIS or IT could give his staff the tools to do things better.  He was however, still a proper, old school planner.  The starting point being the basics - history, plans, scale-rules, proper applications, tape measures on site. "Get those right and at least they wont come back and bite you on the arse" was very much a Tony thing to say.

It helped you forgive files sometimes forgotten about in the boot of the blue Sierra - he'd probably been out to watch your back.  He usually found them after being asked him to look again - you were the last person with it Tone.  Never afraid to pick up the phone and tell those who needed to be told what to do. Always helping schemes which should or could get permission overcome the obstacles.  And those that couldn't?  They wouldnt.    

  

Some of that rubbed off on me and  I'm sure that legacy carries through to those he appointed to the new "DC Minors" team I took over from him in 2004.
    

A staunch supporter of the Royal Town Planning Institute during his working life, Tony gave all his staff the support he could to make sure we moved to Chartered status.  It couldn't be  more fitting that my theme for 2016 is finding and developing our current and future young planners.   Tony has played no small in that.

He was instrumental in establishing the all Wales RTPICymru and served as Hon Secreretary for some years after retirement, having earlier served on the North West England and North Wales branch. He was, I know, utterly thrilled to have been a part of the Team that won an RTPI Award in 1993 for regeneration work in Pentrefoelas   

To Roz and family, sincerest condolences.

Tony Humprheys.  RIP.

Rhos On Sea - Residential

Once again we are delighted to have been instructed to provide planning support to a scheme for a development of 7 apartments in the centre of Rhos on Sea for a local developer.  Architectural design has been by another Rhos on Sea business- BR Architecture. 

To take place on a long time vacant land, it will deliver positive and beneficial re-use of accessible urban land, it is yet another example of the continued confidence of the housing industry in the regeneration of town and the service it offers residents.  A flavour of the scheme can be seen above.

An application has recently been lodged with Conwy CBC and we expect consultation to begin in the next couple of weeks.  A decision is expected in Early 2016. 

Pete   

Residential Scheme, Llandudno

We are delighted to have advised Mostyn Estates Ltd on the submission of a Full Planning Application on a highly sustainable regeneration site in the delightful resort town of Llandudno. 

Working extensively alongside BRArchitecture, with flood risk advice provided by Waterco the development will be another strand of ongoing investment in the town by the Estate in a three-storey 18 apartment building. The scheme successfully combines traditional design detailing and elements beloved of the Victorian splendour of the town with modern elements and twists.   

The application will be subject of consultation by the Council in the very near future and we expect the application to be reported to planning committee hopefully in November or December.