05 May 2021
The Court Judgement has been issued which confirms that new primary legislation is needed to extend virtual planning meetings. Therefore while Robert Jenrick has indicated that there is a case for this, until and unless new legislation is brought forward all meetings after 6 May 2021 will need to be held in person.
05 May 2021
Two Chief Planner letters have been released this month. The first provided details of the amendment to the GPDO, which allow for the change of use to resi (effective from 1 Aug 2021); allows for larger extensions to schools, colleges, universities, hospitals and prisons and make it a requirement that planning permission must be sought to remove a statue, monument or memorial where it has been in place for 10 years.
The latter later provides details of funding the Government is making available to support the uptake of Neighbourhood Planning, particularly in urban areas where the take up has been low.
Chief Planners Newsletter April 2021 (publishing.service.gov.uk)
Chief Planner letter on additional support for neighbourhood planning (publishing.service.gov.uk)
05 May 2021
This recent ‘Bramshill’Judgement has concluded that the crucial test of whether new homes are isolated is whether the homes are remote from a settlement, as opposed to other existing buildings. Therefore it could make it easier for authorities to resist new homes under this judgement, as reflected in the recent appeal decision (link below) see footnote 3.
How a court ruling will affect decisions on whether new homes are too isolated | Planning Resource
Heading 9 (cornerstonebarristers.com) appeal decision quotes above case
19 Jan 2021
A local resident was successful in her case that Council officers had not advised of members of the statutory requirement to have special regard to preserving historic or architecturally important buildings in accordance with the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act and para’s 193 and 194 of the NPPF which require great weight to be given to conserving heritage assets. The Court found that Guildford officers had not properly advised on the heritage tests and in so doing advised members to balance less than substantial heritage harm against public benefits without taking into account the requirement to accord ‘considerable importance and weight’ to a finding of harm to a listed building. The officer report had therefore mislead committee members, leading to the Courts decision to quash the planning permission.
19 Jan 2021
In this appeal the Inspector found a pre-existing Class Q prior approval permission for a barn conversion amounted to an implementable fall-back position. By comparison of the appeal proposals with the fall-back position the Inspector was satisfied that there would be a reduced impact on the openness of the Green Belt, by virtue of reduced floorspace and volume and these amounted to VSC to justify inappropriate development in the Green Belt. Having satisfied the VSC test the Inspector found there was no reason to refuse under the first limb of paragraph 11d of the NPPF and in the absence of 5yr HLS the appeal proposal could benefit from the tilted balance.
https://acp.planninginspectorate.gov.uk/ViewCase.aspx?Caseid=3255105&CoID=0
19 Jan 2021
Ending at the end of this month the consultation seeks views on extending the prior approval process further to support the delivery of homes from commercial premises within the new broad E use class.
Supporting housing delivery and public service infrastructure - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
19 Jan 2021
Bucks Council are currently consulting on Further Main Modifications with an end date of 9 Feb 2021. The LP Inspector has already confirmed in December 2020 that he is minded to hold further hearing sessions. In doing so the Inspector indicates he does not reject the Council’s responses to the representations received, including that to a new housing allocation, but that the range and complexity of further representations received merit a further debate, at which interested parties can contribute.
https://www.aylesburyvaledc.gov.uk/valp-further-main-modifications-consultation-2020-2021
16 Sep 2020
Local Plan Inspectors have written to St Albans Council (link to letter below) confirming the Council’s failure to comply with the Duty to Cooperate in preparing their Local Plan which cannot be remedied through Examination. The letter invites the Council to confirm if they wish Inspectors to write their report confirming failure to satisfy the Duty to Cooperate or whether they intend to withdraw the Local Plan.
16 Sep 2020
A Court of Appeal judgement has been handed down which considers the meaning of out of date policies for the purposes of paragraph 11(d) of the NPPF. The case concerned dismissed housing schemes due to their impact on the Worsley Greenway, protected by saved policies of the Council’s UDP. The case was brought on the basis that the UDP was time expired running to an end date of 2016 and therefore relevant policies used in dismissing the cases were out of date.
Notable sections of the Judgement which dismisses the case, include: Paragraph 68: – It is obvious that many policies will not expire with the plan but will survive beyond the plan period. Policies which address environmental protection clearly have a life beyond the expiry date of the plan; and Paragraph 71 – Whether a policy becomes out of date and if so what consequences arise from that are matters of pure planning judgement, not dependent on issues of legal interpretation.
Accordingly, policies are “out-of-date” for the purposes of para. 11d of the NPPF if they have been overtaken by things that have happened since the plan was adopted, either on the ground or through a change in national policy, or for some other reason.
https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2020/1175.html
16 Sep 2020
A campaign group ‘Rights: Community: Action’ have been granted leave to challenge the introduction of the latest changes to the UCO and GPDO. The challenge stops short of seeking the suspension of the measures. The challenge which is brought of five grounds includes that the SoS failed to consider the weight of evidence against such radical review, including failure to undertake prior consultation and consider responses and the advice of experts. The case is expected to be heard between 8th and 15th October, yet legal commentators anticipate there to be a good likelihood that the case could go to the Court of Appeal which would mean there being some uncertainty for some considerable time.
