Good planning is essential to good reform

In the wake of the Killian Pretty Review, reforms are mercifully afoot in the planning system – but, asks Sarah Speight, is the government tackling this monumental mission sensibly?

Planning. There you go, I’ve uttered a dirty word. Has your blood pressure risen yet? There are few words more likely to provoke frustration/angst/despair (delete as appropriate) among developers. And there are few things more in need of reform.

The good news is that reform is afoot. Thanks largely to the Killian Pretty Review, published last Autumn, the outrageously inefficient and complex planning system is being shaken up. The Review sets out a raft of proposals, which the government has duly embraced. Following on from this, housing and planning minister John Healey has recently announced new measures to get the reforms rolling.

One of the new measures includes granting an extension to planning application consents. It goes without saying that the recession has led to a drop in the number of new buildings; latest Communities and Local Government (CLG) figures suggest a 30 percent drop in the number of applications progressing beyond approval stage between mid-2004 and the end of 2008. But many of these ‘mothballed’ sites have already gained planning permission. Instead of expiring after the usual three years, unused planning permits may be extended by a further three years. Applicants will have to apply to the local authority for the extension, but won’t have to go through the whole application rigmarole again (unless the extension is rejected, which it could be, for ‘good planning reasons’).

Developers will also be able to make minor alterations to a project without going back to the start of the application process, thus saving time and money. Healey even hinted that the changes would make it easier to apply for planning permission in the first place, although exactly how this would work remains vague.

Finer points aside, this is clearly a welcome move that should keep regeneration on the boil. But – as with much government policy – it is a quick fix that betrays a lack of understanding of the issues at stake. For example, the extension does not take into account the dip in land values that has inevitably occurred throughout this downturn. In three years, many areas won’t have recovered enough to justify building on the site in question. What with the rising cost of building, due to ever-more rigorous building regulations, as well as any financial injury sustained during the recession, it wouldn’t be surprising to see many projects abandoned. In light of this, an extension of six years would be more realistic.

New impetus for infrastructure
Healey has also announced that a new ‘timetable’ is in place to implement a new planning regime for major infrastructure projects. The Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC), introduced by the Planning Act 2008, should be up and running by October. It aims to streamline the planning process for projects such as large wind farms, power stations and railways. Healey said: “The new commission will help create a more efficient, transparent and accessible planning system which can deliver the critical infrastructure Britain needs to meet our climate change objectives and compete in a tough economy.” Ay, there’s the rub: the sound bites that are shaping the solutions.

Climate change and the economy are the hot topics right now – and rightly so. But I suspect that solutions to planning problems are being tailored around these topics hastily and at the expense of common sense. Under the IPC, says the government, major infrastructure applications could fall from seven years to one year, saving around £300m a year. It remains to be seen whether CLG will set such impressive goals for town and country planning.

Take the recent attack on government housing policy by the Public Accounts Committee. Its chairman, Edward Leigh, said that cash incentives for councils to reach judgements within 13 weeks is having ‘perverse’ consequences. He explained that authorities are liable to lose interest in applications if that target is missed, and, of the decisions taken within that time, most are rejections. The Committee accepted that the incentive had speeded up decision-making (well, of course it has, there’s money involved!). But financial incentives of this kind are flawed. Target-driven incentives lead to a diversion of focus from the matter at hand to point-scoring and box-ticking. And, crucially, as Gillian Charlesworth – external affairs director at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors – points out: “This is a serious problem in a system that is preventing new homes being built.”

Leigh suggested that more effective discussions between the authorities and developers in the pre-application stage are necessary. Indeed, the government needs to build a greater understanding of the development process as a whole. As Leigh said, CLG ‘simply does not know’ how long development takes from pre-application stage to starting on site, although the National Audit Office estimates the process to take almost two years.

A plan for the planners?
Spare a thought for the planners, if you can. A dire shortage of staff is undoubtedly part of the problem, with a ‘generation gap’ often cited by chief planning officers. In fact, research by the Academy for Sustainable Communities (now the Homes and Communities Academy) suggests that, if recruitment is not increased now, there could be a 46 percent shortfall in qualified planners by 2012. Granted, the Royal Town Planning Institute states that there is some breathing space for now due to the recession, and that it does receive some funding from CLG for projects to encourage entry into the profession. But I say it isn’t enough.

So, amid the government’s proposals for reform of the planning system, where is it addressing this pressing need for more resources? Well, it has pledged an ‘extra’ £10m over the next two years to ‘ensure the right skills and knowledge are available within the planning community at local and regional level’. This is offered in the context of major infrastructure plans, and includes support for planners such as experts on renewable energy. How about extra planners across the board, for starters? There could be a higher-profile recruitment drive to help planning departments operate more efficiently, especially once the upturn occurs.

There is another potential sticking point. The CLG talks with great gusto about green planning policy. For example, it says planning is central to its ambitious targets for delivering renewable energy. It has just lifted the ban on non-residential coastal projects that promise a boost to tourism and the local economy, in areas that are at risk of coastal erosion. And, of course, the four proposed eco-towns will still be subject to planning permission. Balancing good planning policy with meeting the needs of the environment and the economy will be no mean feat. Given the government’s tendency to seize upon vote-grabbing issues, and overlook many grassroots problems, I’m not convinced of its ability to reform the planning process sensibly.

Where change is required, the government meddles to excess, setting up various departments, creating endless policy statements, and turning out turgid, complex documents. It brings to mind a quote by the Victorian poet and philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge: “Every reform, however necessary, will by weak minds be carried to an excess, that itself will need reforming.” Need I say more?