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