Further details of plans to streamline the planning system and prevent developments from being unnecessarily blocked have been confirmed ahead of the introduction of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill this week.
The bill includes ‘significant measures introduced to speed up planning decisions to boost housebuilding and remove unnecessary blockers and challenges to the delivery of vital developments like roads, railway lines and windfarms’ say the government. One route to achieving this is reducing the number of statutory consultees required to input into decision which has grown ‘haphazardly’ in recent years to around 25 organisations say the government, including Sport England, Theatres Trust and The Gardens Trust. The result is these organisations fail to engage proactively; take too long to provide advice; re-open issues already dealt with in local plans; submit holding objections; and seeking ‘gold-plated outcomes’ which go beyond what is necessary for acceptable planning rules.
It is confirmed under the plans organisations such as will no longer have input into planning decisions. Instead the scope statutory consultees will be ‘narrowed to focus on heritage, safety and environmental protection, speeding up the building process and preventing delays to homes being built.’
Better use of standing guidance rather than the current delays caused by case-by-case responses is to be encouraged. The government say over 300 applications have been escalated to the Secretary of State because of disagreements from consultees, and cite examples including delays to a housing development next to a cricket club because the application was thought to have not adequately considered the speed of cricket balls. In order to speed decisions refusal should not be delayed beyond the 21 day statutory deadline.
Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary Angela Rayner said:
“We’ve put growth at the heart of our plans as a government, with our Plan for Change milestone to secure 1.5 million homes and unleash Britain’s potential to build. We need to reform the system to ensure it is sensible and balanced, and does not create unintended delays – putting a hold on people’s lives and harming our efforts to build the homes people desperately need. New developments must still meet our high expectations to create the homes, facilities and infrastructure that communities need.”
Partner in the planning team at Freeths, Chris May, said statutory consultees’ views should not be dismissed purely to reduce delays.
“Whilst there are certainly many occasions where advice from statutory consultees – or the lack of – has caused significant delays to the determination of applications, in my experience it is usually where the views of that consultee are clearly very important to consideration of the key concerns raised by the application in question.”
“I think a focus on improving the efficiency and efficacy of the consultees which are clearly important to decision making would be a better way to attempt to tackle delay in the planning system. That being said, removing unnecessary statutory consultation may lead to some, even if minor, improvement in the system and so it is worthwhile reviewing whether there are consultees on the statutory list who can be removed without any major adverse impact on the legitimate interests which some of these consultees are there to protect.”
Fergus Charlton, planning partner at Michelmores LLP added there was a risk of ‘unsubstantiated tinkering’ unless there was evidence statutory consultees were significantly delaying developments.
“If there is real evidence that these statutory consultees are delaying significant numbers of well-designed schemes that accord with the development plan, then curtailing their influence will be helpful. Without that evidence then labelling the likes of Sport England as a ‘blocker’ is unsubstantiated tinkering and will result in schemes that are more harmful to society as a whole being approved.”
“A more considered approach would be to give guidance on the weight that a planning officer ought to give to a delayed, absent or holding statutory consultee response, thereby allowing the smoother functioning of the planning system whilst allowing these professionals to make a positive impact when they properly engage with that system.”
