Simple Solution to allocation refusals?
Following yesterdays "future of planning" session in the HoC CLG committee I wanted to share a thought paraphrased from my response to PFTF. It would be nice to see where people think this sits on the crazy scale.
The White Paper proposal to make an allocation equal to a permission is a flawed response to the issue the Phillip Barnes raised – committee refusals of allocated site OUT or RMs against officer advice.
The Outline permission is where phasing, affordable housing, drainage, access, infrastructure and other technical issues are worked out, and this step can not be omitted. Allocations often come with specific requirements for technical work, and many allocations will self-evidently require EIA. To front load all technical requirements onto plan makers is a hiding to nothing.
It occurs to me a simple solution would be to set out in statute that once something is allocated in a local plan some sort of National Scheme of Delegation could kick in in which decisions on Applications for major allocated sites become officer decision with no committee stage. If the scheme is refused for a legitimate technical reason (e.g. drainage) then the applicants can run a s78 appeal, but it would be more likely that they will work with the LPA to resolve the issues and “get to yes”. The “free go” resubmission could also be used to progress the technical details.
It is obvious that elected members may still seek to exert political pressure, but professional planners, backed by their professional institute, should be capable of standing up to this. And frankly many members would welcome the opportunity to say “nothing to do with me, guv.”
I can’t begin to unravel the legal position in relation to s101 of the Local Government Act 1972 (which provides for delegation from committees) but would be interested to hear if there was some straightforward solution to the problem of politically-driven spurious refusals – without reinventing the entire nature of allocations and outline approvals.