Assetz Capital

I’m not usually one to rant on here about the planning system in this country but this is a prime example of everything that is wrong with it. Reserved matters application submitted on an allocated site with an outline consent. Positive Pre App with the Council in advance of submission. Halfway through the application process, the Council went silent. Refused any meetings with ourselves, would not let us engage with either the highways team or the LLFA. One year after submission, they refused the application with TWENTY reasons for refusal under DELEGATED authority. On an RM. Only four objections were received. We appealed. The appeal was heard via Inquiry which closed early February 2025. Ten reasons for refusal were dropped before or during the appeal. The Inspector rejected every aspect of the Council’s case and quite rightly, we won. This entirely unnecessary delay cost us hundreds of thousands of pounds. It cost the Council and its tax payers thousands of pounds. It delayed the delivery of affordable and open market housing by over two years for a Council that is now unable to demonstrate a 5YHLS. Look at the image below, how can poor design be a reason for refusal, amongst countless others? On the flip side, I got to work alongside a tremendous team for the Appeal who all put in so much effort to ensure the right decision was achieved. And it was. Huge thanks to Chris Young KC and Anna Stein at No5 Barristers' Chambers, Vicki Davies at DLA Town Planning Ltd, Andrew Williams at Define Planning and Design Ltd, Nigel Millington at PJA, Alexander Bennett at MEC Consulting, Richard Edge and Ben Williamson at PRP, Andrew Willerton at James Blake Associates, Phil Tomes, Stuart Wilson at Stomor Ltd and Ranjit Sond And all the team at Cala Group Limited including Jim Brunt, Liman Metolli, Miguel Castro Fernandes and Alexandra Deol and James Meredith Another one in the bag and let’s get going on site!

Fake NIMBY objections referred to the police.? Maybe I am just too honest… or na?ve but I was genuinely shocked last week to read that a Council had to refer fake NIMBY objections on a planning application to the police for investigation.?Officers said they “have strong reason to believe that a significant number of the objections received may not be legitimate”. In other words, the report adds, they “may not have been made by the person whose name is registered to the objection” and so have “referred this matter to the police to investigate”. It turns out there was a NIMBY objection factory churning out dodgy objections… nearly 3,000 of them! A simple Google search then also threw up some very interesting results of people (non NIMBYs) asking advice after discovering that objections had been submitted in their name and using their address. Now don’t get alarmed but, anyone can actually access the electoral roll. You can pay companies to view it online or you could simply pop down to your local library and ask to see a copy of the electoral roll. It will give the dodgy NIMBY objectors factory everything they need. A few days later I then had a client who got in touch and said they suddenly had a flurry of objections from “neighbours” on a fairly small and innocuous application. I examined the “objections” and started seeing some patterns. Now it could be neighbours sharing the same concerns, but it suggested to me perhaps a bit more. We then sent a CCP team to go knock on doors and speak to the large number of objectors. This is where the story turns a bit sinister. Yes, we found two very vociferous objectors and then some lesser concern amongst their immediate neighbours. What we didn’t find was anything even near the number of objectors who had taken the time to submit objections to the council’s planning portal. In fact, quite the contrary, outside those immediate neighbours we found support and, in some cases, quite strong support. We can’t see the details of the people who submitted these objections (no names or addresses), quite rightly, this is protected by GDPR. The only way to verify this would be for the planning department to contact each one of the “objectors” to verify that they indeed submitted the comment. The Planning Portal requires their name, address and an email address. Now a fake e-mail is easy to create so that is no way to verify. This means writing a letter, printing it, posting it… by which time you are ￡2 in per letter. Why doesn’t the planning officer have time to determine your application? Because they are bogged down in NIMBY fraud. My blood honestly is boiling about this. I will be watching the case mentioned at the beginning very carefully and we will be talking to the council in question where we found the dodgy comments and I will update you. We probably need a good bit of case law and a NIMBY to spend some time at His Majesties Pleasure as a warning to others. Until next week, Henry 07736121014