Planning changes - there's a consultation (but only for some of them)

The various build build build (coincidentally the name for Duterte's 2018 infrastructure programme!) announcements in July have attracted varying degrees of attention with particular focus first on zoning and the approval presumption as well as the removal of s106 and the effective evisceration of local planning authority (LPA) autonomy.  Centre4Cities had helped prepared the ground for with their planning for the future report.  

Well made arguments from across the professional community in, amongst others, Housing Today, RTPI and others, The Architects Journal and by HQN as well as across Twitter, paint a picture of deep anxiety as to the consequences, intended and otherwise of these proposals.

I would strongly urge everyone to engage with the government's planning for the future consultation (coincidence?) on these proposed changes. 

As the summer ticks by focus (you will find comment and advice across the property sector on it owing to their imminent implementation) has turned to the forthcoming changes to permitted development rights (PDR) enabled by secondary legislation, Statutory Instrument 757 - use class amendments.  Quite a mouthful but hidden in there are the tools that could see significant changes in our town and cityscapes with nary the chance to contribute or challenge in England. While the first are subject to consultation the SI comes into effect as a matter of course, from 1st September 2020 at the earliest or from 31st July 2021.

PDR "done well" opens up a limited opportunity to re-think, re-make and re-energise towns and smaller cities by dint of repurposing existing buildings and plots to meet both housing demand and the rapidly emerging demand for new types of office space and business services in the wake of an expanding WFH reality (more, smaller offices in regional hubs for starters, with IWG seeing growth in such enquiries and homeworking fans Schroders putting their money where their mouth is).  By all accounts, in addition to the 1m planning approvals in the pipeline, there could be over 1m PDR "opportunities" for developers.  At the same time LPAs could use any muscle they had left to promote development of previously developed land (PDL, often termed brownfield). 

With a recession brewing property prices are at best stagnant in most areas and it may be that the need to break ground drives changed developer attitude to those unbuilt approvals for fear of losing them and moving housing construction towards that 300,000+ target per year.  With PDR being loosened others may look at less risky conversion to keep the count going.  Some see PDR as a mechanism to eliminate "laborious" and "costly" processes that hold up development - something that contrasts with those 1m shovel ready approvals. 

Those less-risky-to-developers opportunities stem from a new Use Class E covering retail, restaurant, office, financial/professional services, indoor sports, medical and nursery uses along with “any other services which it is appropriate to provide in a commercial, business or service locality” with changes within this class not constituting any form of development at all.  Among other things this has the potential to introduce non-office type activities (including retail) into traditional out of centre business parks, which runs contrary to current national and local planning policies. Meanwhile some use classes are protected (or limited) from change or introduction. Landlords will be looking at leases and developers will be on the look out while there is a call for evidence wrt registering land controls closing on 30th October.  As the law society observes "The proposed increases in the transparency of contractual arrangements used to control the buying or selling of land may concern some beneficiaries of such arrangements".

With Covid and parliamentary recess there is reduced opportunity for scrutiny of proposals that if adopted wholesale will see substantial changes to the planning framework.  The documents are short on the details, shorter still on consequences, intended or otherwise and seem to absent any thoughts as to the implications of the shape of #netzero, #housing quality, commuting/transport, working and retail in the wake of Covid.  Use your chance now to challenge and to retain the power locally to shape your local area and this the wider national urban fabric.