Planning (as in land use) and why it’s an utter mess

 

The huge Maghull East Urban Extension before building commenced

 

Unless you’ve been on a local authority planning committee you’ll only really have come across it if you’ve applied for permission to build say an extension on your house or have participated in a campaign to try to stop an unwelcome planning application. Even then you’ll not really know all the ins and outs, but then who does?

I’ve been prompted to write this posting following two recent conversations

The trouble is Planning law and regulations change often, so what you thought was the case just a couple of years back may no longer be so today. You see governments of all colours love to tinker with Planning, like they do with the running of the NHS.

When was the last time you didn’t hear a government saying that more houses need to be built? I bet it was many years ago. Of course, governments set targets for house building (which are rarely, if ever, met), they tell local authorities to ensure more houses get built and they get them to adopt plans that’ll supposedly make sure they’re built, or maybe not. They slacken Green Belt restrictions or tell local authorities to do so to allow more house building. Then, when all else fails and the houses aren’t built to the required numbers, they blame the Planning system for being too slow, too bureaucratic or local authorities for hindering house building. This routine flows through pretty much all governments and has done for as long as I can recall being involved in politics (1980) and it’s probably been the case well before that arbitrary date of mine.

Developers only do what’s in their best interests

Land developers/building companies don’t just build when they have purchased the land and have Planning Permission no matter how loud governments shout at them. They’ll only build when is suits them, in other words when they can sell quickly and at a high price. If the housing market is in the doldrums they’ll sit on the land until it and the economy pick up. Following that aside let’s get back to the Planning system.

There must be literally reams and reams of Planning documents, regulations, advice and guidance produced over the years by both governments and local authorities and frankly only local authority senior planning officers, Planning Inspectors and specialists in the field of Planning will have any detailed knowledge of them. It’s a world all of its own, full of acronyms and in-language probably meant to keep ordinary folk at arms length; a bit like the management of education, pretty much beyond all but those deeply involved.

Why do we need more houses?

Well, a big reason is because we tend to live in smaller family units. I can recall the days when 3 generations of families lived in one house but that’s unusual these days. But it’s not just the number of houses, it’s the type of housing units that’s the big issue.

For example, we have too few social housing properties (council houses/housing association houses), far too few, and that dates back to ‘Right to Buy’, yet we build hardly any new ones. This, in turn, pushes those who have no choice but to rent into private sector renting and again, in turn, government needs to subsidise the rent payable as it’s well beyond the means of many poorer renters. So governments have effectively decided to subsidise private renting rather than build sufficient new social housing. There are other things missing from our housing stock as well, such as too few smaller units (1 and 2 bed), too few adapted houses/bungalows for people with disabilities/the elderly. Building 3, 4 and 5 bed houses is what makes the most money for developers/builders so that’s what we mostly get, like it or not.

Planning Committees

I only spent a couple of years on a Planning Committee of my local council and it was the last two years of my time as a borough councillor. Being knee deep in planning regulations and effectively being told by professional planning officers how I had to treat each application didn’t endear me to Planning. It was being told to act in a quasi-judicial way rather than looking at the balance of issues based on my own judgement that so ill-suited me. As a free thinking Liberal, doing as I was effectively told to do went against the grain so to speak.

Don’t get me wrong the planning officers were invariably nice and well informed people just doing their jobs based on the regulations (seemingly ever changing regulations) sent down to them by whichever government was in power at the time. It was definitely me not fitting into what felt like a straight-jacket which was forever being tightened (as regulations were relaxed) restricting my ability to have any meaningful say in outcomes. Suffice to say I did not enjoy it or frankly see much purpose to it. Getting blamed for approving applications I actually thought were as inappropriate as those who were opposing them was a frustrating process. Ordinary folk hope that planning committees will hear all the evidence presented to them and make the right decision. In reality, many things that are put forward as ‘objections’ are not allowed to be considered, no wonder people who have engaged in the Planning process leave feeling that the system is stacked against them; it is!

Get building on high grade agricultural land

But I suppose what really put me off Planning was the decision to build the massive urban extension to the east of Maghull; building that is ongoing now. Back in the late 1990’s I led what turned out to be a successful campaign to stop building on the very same piece of land. My motivation was very much that the fields in question were pretty much made up of the highest grades of agricultural land that has long grown the food that we eat. It made no sense to me at all to even consider such land for building purposes. Sadly, some 10 years later the very same land was put forward for house building again (some 1600 and counting houses) and absolutely no allowance for the high grade agricultural land was given at all!

The UK is hardly food self-sufficient, in fact it’s very far from it, yet we build on high grade agricultural land without a care in the world. What kind of planning, with a small p, is that? Depriving ourselves and future generations of excellent food producing land is complete and utter madness! So my involvement with Planning has left me feeling the system is stacked against our better interests because, to me, it obviously is.

Planning should never should be considered in isolation because it not only affects house building but also, industrial uses, our environment, health facilities (they rarely, if ever, expand to meet new housing developments) education (as in school places) and transportation (because we keep building car-dependent developments). And for the sake of clarity I’m not one to decry all house building, indeed I’ve long tried to champion the building of social housing because, in my view, the lack of it is at the very heart of our present housing crisis.

A political punishment?

And to close this little rant what I think is an amusing aside. I could never quite get my head around why a small but significant group of councillors, across all political groups, actually wanted to be on a Planning Committee. Let’s say it was 20% of councillors, whilst the other 80% would not go anyway near it (with or without a barge pole) and considered it a political punishment if they were placed on it!

The Maghull East Urban Extension as building work commenced

 

 

The NHS Walk-In Centre Maghull Doesn’t Have

Although retired from active politics these days I did notice some social media comments about the lack of an NHS Walk-In Centre in the town during the recent local elections and thought I’d put together a bit of a potted history of the matter.

Maghull Health Centre in 2019

Back in my time as a local Sefton Councillor (1999 - 2015) and indeed as Leader of the Council (2004 – 2011) considerable efforts were made to try to resolve this problem, not least by my then Council colleague Geoff Howe.

When the concept of NHS Walk-In Centres was established it didn’t take long for the former Litherland Town Hall to be identified for such a Centre and as we all know it’s been there for maybe 20 years now. At the time, an obvious concern was that the public transport links to the Centre, particularly from the East Parishes part of Sefton Borough (Lydiate, Maghull, Aintree & Melling) were, at best, poor. On that basis I made clear that whilst supporting the Litherland Centre I wanted to put on record the need for a similar type facility in Maghull. This would be most likely be achieved by the rebuilding of Maghull Health Centre.

Maghull Health Centre had been constructed around the early 1970’sfollowing the considerable efforts and campaigning of a Maghull-based GP, Dr. Reg Yorke. It’s still, in 2026, very much as it was built at least on the outside, although refurbished a few times inside. The point being that the population in the East Parishes has continued to rise whilst the Health Centre has not moved much with the times so to speak.

The pressure to rebuild this Health Centre has therefore always been there for at least the past 25 years yet all that pressure has failed to produce results. It’s as though it has never been a top priority for NHS planners and even if it was the money has not been there to actually make it happen.

I recall, it must have been around 2010ish, that after more pushing and shoving by Cllr. Geoff Howe and others I got a phone call pretty much out of the blue from a senior officer on Sefton Council who told me that he was now sure the NHS was going to take the project forward. I was utterly delighted but sadly soon very disappointed, frustrated and even being blamed for saying publicly that the battle had been won when in fact the NHS had not pressed the start button or they’d had second thoughts very soon after doing so. I never really got to the bottom of why Sefton Council had been told the project was finally a runner when it wasn’t.

Around a similar time period (2008 – 2010) two other significant building projects were being taken forward in both Maghull and Lydiate. We’d won a very long-running campaign to get a swimming pool/leisure centre built in the area by Sefton Council and it’s presently thriving on KGV Park. However, it’s not as originally conceived. Yes, there was always going to be a gym & swimming pool, but the plans did not include the moving of Maghull Library into it. That only came about because the NHS pulled out of the original scoping for the building. It was to have had an NHS facility within it probably associated with GP’s based there being able to prescribe, where appropriate, fitness classes (swimming and gym) for patients in the very same building. An innovative idea which the likes of Cllr. Geoff Howe and I were only to willing to back but sadly the NHS pulled out. The space that was originally pencilled in for the NHS became available around the very time a condition survey had all but condemned the old Maghull Library building. The rest, as they say, is history.

Along side the Leisure Centre project but quite separate to it Lydiate Parish Council was planning and indeed building its ‘Village Centre’ facility in Lambshear Lane. The then Chairperson of the Council, Dave Russell, was very keen to try to draw the NHS in so that they could deliver some health services from the building. Talks took place but sadly the NHS was unable to take up the offer of the building being partly constructed with them in mind. Yet another lost health opportunity in Lydiate and Maghull.

Personally, I found it hard to build a meaningful relationships with NHS health planners not least due to the ever changing methods of doing business caused by regular reorganisations. Not only that people seemed to move jobs by the minute, a bit like the Police so you had to keep starting all over again.*

It’s all rather a depressing story health-wise from my active campaigning days, although I do realise that others will have been trying to reactivate the NHS Drop-In/Rebuild of Maghull Health Centre project since the likes of Geoff Howe, Dave Russell and I ceased to be local councillors

* It’s worth bearing in mind that at a national and local level we’ve been through quite a number of NHS reorganisations in recent times. Locally, we gained two Primary Care Trusts in Sefton Borough (North & South), then they were merged after a few years into one Sefton Primary care Trust, then we went on to Clinical Commissioning Groups, and well you get my drift…...

 

Just 13% of those voting put an X in the Tory box in Aughton!

I made mention before the English local elections of a reasonably well to do community on my doorstep – Aughton, West Lancashire. To me that community has always been Conservative, at least that is until quite recent times. Indeed, I was once told of a tongue in cheek-type remark along the lines of ‘you used to have to show your Conservative membership card to buy a house there’.

Aughton Landscape

 

You see, I cycle a lot around Aughton and have done so for maybe the past 15 years. When you cycle you notice things. The lack of Conservative posters and stake boards has been an obvious one. I only saw one house with a Tory stake board in this May’s elections.

What I also noticed, in the last election when Jeremy Corbyn was Labour leader (2019), was Labour posters on expensive Aughton properties. That would just not have ben allowed when Aughton was true blue. But this year I didn’t spot any Labour posters.*

Back in the 1990’s, when I was a Maghull Town Councillor, I went to a Parish Councils conference in London organised by the National Association of Local Councils (NALC). It seemed to be dominated by Conservatives from the Shires and not really the place for a leftie Liberal like me. But what I recall most about it was actually the train ride home where I found myself sitting by what turned out to be a lady who told me she was a Conservative Councillor on West Lancs Council and an Independent member of Aughton Parish Council. That combination of being party political on one council whilst being independent on another, for the same community, struck me as most odd. She was a nice lady but every inch a Conservative and, of course, I expected nothing less from an Aughton councillor. That was around 30 years ago, for context.

Today, I looked at the election result for the ward that covers Aughton Civil Parish and what seems to be the Holborn area of Ormskirk. The Conservative candidate received just 13% of the votes cast and came 4^th! The winning candidate was from the ‘Our West Lancashire Party’ with 39% of the votes cast.

Would the last Conservative in Aughton please turn out the lights comes to mind, but seriously, this shows how fundamentally our politics has changed even in wealthy communities that were once rock solid Conservative.

The headlines from this May’s English local elections have pretty much all been about the hammering that our governing Labour Party suffered and it was of catastrophic proportions, but the losses the once formidable Conservative Party also suffered are of great significance too.

* I obviously don’t cycle every road in Aughton so I may have missed some political posters, I might add.

 

A brush with a Brian Rix-type farce

I use eBay quite a lot and rarely have any issues with it, but I have to relate this, with hindsight, quite ridiculous story. I know some folks really despise eBay but I’ve never fathomed why.

 

A few weeks back I ordered a set of 10 small modelling paint brushes, but only one of the set arrived through my letter box a few days later. I contacted the seller to tell them what had happened and that the packaging was intact so the other 9 brushes could not have fallen out. I even told them which of the individually numbered brushes I actually received. Of course, I asked them to send me the other 9 brushes.

The response was simply that what was dispatched to me was what I ordered. I pointed out in return that what I ordered was 10 paint brushes but only one had arrived. I got no further response.

So what next? A grumble to eBay which a few days later ended up with them telling me that the seller had informed them that I’d got what I ordered so no refund was due to me.

I appealed, pointing out, again, that I only received 1 of the 10 paint brushes, that I didn’t want a refund, I just wanted the seller to send me the other 9.

eBay then came back to me saying I was due a refund (what I’d specifically NOT asked for) and that I’d soon get a pre-paid return address label to send the one paint brush I actually held back! By my calculations I then had no paint brushes at all!

The label arrived and the single brush was despatched back to the seller. But why did the seller want a single brush back, when they could have spent the postage sending me the other 9 brushes? It’s been a brush with a mad, mad world, but at least I got a refund for the 10 paint brushes that I've now had to order from another eBay seller..

*****

For the youngsters amongst you Brian Rix was an actor-manager, who produced a record-breaking sequence of long-running farces on the London stage. I think he’d be proud of my little farce.

 

Why trams won’t be appearing in Liverpool

No, don’t worry, this is not another rehearsal of why ‘Merseytram’ failed back in the early 2000’s. That one has done the rounds probably too many times!

 

Back when the Tories were in power (pre June 2024) they allocated money to Liverpool City Region for transport infrastructure improvements and Labour has, in effect, confirmed that chunk of money. As any Merseysider will know the money is in significant part to pay for buses dressed up as trams and they’ll be running, we’re told, to Liverpool (John Lennon) Airport. Readers with longer memories will recall the first ‘Merseytram’ line was NOT going to go to Liverpool Airport and that caused quite a stink back then. So the City Region leaders knew what would happen if they talked about any new transport infrastructure without making an airport link, from the city centre, a priority.

Bendy-Buses!

Why not resurrect the tram scheme and build the first line to……. well you know where? Well, what they actually came up with were ‘Bendy-Buses/Boris-type Buses/Gliders’ (there may well be more names for them but I’ll omit the rude ones), in effect buses dressed up as trams and it seems our Labour gov’ confirmed the money could be spent on them. So, I guess, we’ll be getting them at some point.

Tram Raid

But why no trams? I’d always thought that the Tory and now Labour governments would be reluctant to fund trams in Liverpool/Merseyside due to cost and maybe the political hang-over from the ‘Merseytram’ demise. I had no evidence of this but felt that was the situation. Then Private Eye No.1672 (3^rd to 16^th April) dropped through my letter box and bingo on page 17 under its ‘Signal Failures’ column my thoughts were effectively confirmed under the heading ‘Tram Raid’.

West Yorks shunted back into sidings

Yes, that article is actually all about the farce over in West Yorkshire where their long promised tram/light rail system has been given more green then red lights than you could shake a stick at. And yes, of course, it’s been kicked back into the long political grass once again. But it’s the reason why it’s been kicked into the long grass that links to Liverpool City Region not proposing a tram system. You see it’s the words ‘might not be trams after all’ and ‘check whether [wait for it] buses would be more viable’ in that Private Eye article that made the penny drop for me. In essence Liverpool City Region was almost certainly told, by the last Tory government, don’t ask for a tram system as we won’t fund it and despite Labour coming to power in June 2024 the ‘advice’ has still been the same.

No Merseytram II

So now I think we know why Liverpool City Region leaders put in a transport bid for bendy-buses when, like West Yorks, local folk were fully expecting Merseytram II to be proposed by our local leaders. They didn’t bid for what they knew we all wanted/needed on Merseyside because they’d been told not to bother and they didn’t want to end up in the eternal shall we/shan’t we position that poor old West Yorks is in! Pragmatic, you could say, but my feeling is that settling for 3^rd best in a contest where trams were both number 1 and 2 could well come back to haunt Liverpool/Merseyside Labour leaders.

                                             What Liverpool won't be getting - 

A Geater Manchester Metro tram in Rochdale

 

 

Why are Lycra* wearing cyclists so upsetting?

Being a lefty Liberal, an atheist, a cyclist and a railway enthusiast means I understand what it’s like to be in a minority. I’ve never wanted to follow any crowd (Andy Burnham’s a crowd follower to me), to fit in, to keep up with the Jones’s etc. etc.

 

 

So what’s this odd rant all about then? Well, whilst I’m pretty much opposed to banning many things (because we Liberal’s don’t really do that sort of thing) I’m starting to worry about those who seem to get quite upset over cyclists wearing Lycra. When throwing insults at cyclists, usually on Facebook, keyboard warriors feel the need to do so by referencing what some in the cycling fraternity wear i.e. Lycra-type clothes.

Whilst not being a Lycra wearer when cycling I do see other cyclists with such get-ups on and yes older men, with a beer belly, can look, how should I say, interesting! But why does this bother many non-cycling people to the point where they feel the need to say ‘Lycra wearing cyclists’ as though what others wear is anything they need to be concerned about? Would it maybe help those who find cyclists wearing this type of garment upsetting if they averted their gaze?

But is it actually the type of material used to make cycling garments that those opposed to it are really upset about? Could it be that, in reality, they just dislike cyclists wearing bright colours? I wear bright colours when cycling so that I’m more easily seen by vehicle drivers; so it’s a safety thing to me. However, I once had a conversation with someone who disliked cycling who told me that cyclists wearing ordinary clothes are OK, or words to that effect. This may, in a non-scientific way, back up my mad theory that it’s the bright colours not the Lycra which some non-cyclists find upsetting.

 

Taking this theme a bit further, my observations tell me that cyclists not wearing bright clothing (usually black/dark clothes) are more likely to cycle on pavements. Now, don’t get me started about cycling on pavements! I view it as I do parking vehicles on pavements i.e. it gets me as irrational as folks who’re upset over ‘Lycra wearing cyclists’.

So why this rant now? Well, across the country councils are installing many new cycling paths and there’s nothing which seems to annoy folks more than improved cycling facilities on our highways. ‘Waste of money’, ‘no one will use them’, ‘use the money to fix pot-holes instead’, ‘I’ve only ever seen one cyclist using that new cycle path’ etc. etc. Oh, and yes, the anti-cycling rants often reference ‘Lycra wearing cyclists, or in the case of new cycling infrastructure the perceived lack of them.

Now, of course, all the money being spent (it’s actually not much in the great scheme of things) is an investment in the future. Many people who don’t cycle would do if they felt safer, so build safer cycling facilities on our highways and the theory is that the trend will turn from from petrol-heading to cycling, at least for shorter journeys. There’s not going to be a massive rush to get a pushbike, for every few hundred yards of new cycle path constructed. That won’t happen until we achieve a significantly improved safer cycling network across the country.

 

 

And yes, of course, some folks will always oppose cycling possibly on the basis that they don’t/won’t do it and for the life of them can’t see why anyone else could or would. Oh, and one final thing – as I often say, bad drivers make bad cyclists and bad cyclists make……… you get my drift I’m sure.

All driving age cyclists I know carry insurance and they’re also vehicle drivers, in case you may be wondering

*Lycra is a premier brand of spandex or elastane fiber known for exceptional stretch, recovery, and durability. As a synthetic polyether-polyurea copolymer, it is used extensively in activewear, swimwear, dancewear, and compression garments to provide a close fit, comfort, and freedom of movement. 

 

Carney seems to be everything Starmer is not

When you watch and listen to Canadian Prime Minister, now effectively leader of the West, Mark Carney you can’t but think that this guy knows what he’s doing, why he’s doing it and that he explains things well.

Carney comes across as confident and that he’s someone you can trust to get difficult jobs done. Let’s face it Canada is suffering the effects of Trumpism like no other country*, but instead of allowing themselves to be bullied Canadians, led by Carney, are digging in and fighting Trump every inch of the way, so it seems.

The UK meanwhile suffers from a significant lack of confidence in the government of Kier Starmer. Elected in June 2024, it seems to sway from one crisis to another, with U-turns in policy becoming commonplace. Attempts to creep around Trump have been excruciating at best and Brits really don’t know what Starmer’s plan is, because he’s never outlined one and may not even have one.

Carney and Starmer are chalk and cheese politically, despite both of them probably being decent human beings trying to do extremely difficult jobs.

So why are the two of them viewed so very differently? Carney, whilst being an economist running the Bank of Canada and Bank of England, has clearly got how politics works, probably because he’d done business with so many leading politicians in his previous life. Starmer, on the other hand, was effectively plucked from his legal background, without those promoting him, seemingly realising that he was significantly lacking in political acumen and goodness has that been exposed. Starmer has had to learn on the job how to be a PM and a party political leader and unsurprisingly he’s made many a misstep along the way. Canadian voters respect and trust Carney, UK voters are despairing about Starmer’s faltering leadership.

Will Canadian voters turn against Carney at some point? Probably they will, but at least he hit the ground running in a clear direction and has been able to take Canadians along with him. Starmer on the other hand looks to be lost and unable to take his own party along him, let alone UK voters.

Politics is brutal and Starmer is in a terrible bind. He can probably do nothing about his plight and can hope that ‘events dear boy, events’** turn in his favour.

* Mexico may be another

** PM Harold Macmillan supposedly said this and it’s oft quoted, but I understand there’s little to actually pin it down to him in terms of evidence.