A strategy to capitalise on the opportunities that the arrival of High Speed Two (HS2) will bring to the West Midlands region has been unveiled by the Greater Birmingham & Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership (GBSLEP).
The 34-page blueprint describes how the region can use HS2 as a catalyst for major job creation, increased productivity and net national growth.
As well as regeneration and connectivity improvements for the areas surrounding the two HS2 stations at Birmingham Curzon and UK Central Interchange in Solihull, the strategy identifies practical plans to unlock additional projects as a result of HS2.
According to the strategy, the scale of the ambition includes 104,000 new and safeguarded jobs, 10 per cent of which will be created for local, unemployed residents. Overall, the plan will see the region delivering an additional £14bn in economic growth, the GBSLEP has insisted.
The strategy highlights the provision of a highly connected economic ‘growth hub’ which, when development is complete, will provide an additional 16,500 jobs within 245,972 square metres of commercial, light industrial/R&D, retail and leisure space across a range of key sectors, including advanced manufacturing, construction, utilities and ICT.
Also central to the new scheme of things will be exemplar residential communities with some 3,000 new homes and the creation of a linear park through the development as a key natural landscape and environmental asset.
The strategy also highlights the prospect of wider connectivity with improved access to Moor St Station, the extension of the Midland Metro tram network (linking to New St Station) and other local public transport improvements to spread the benefits and provide local access to jobs.
Roger Milne
Keele University housing scheme blocked by Clark
Proposals by developer Keele Seddon to replace student accommodation on the campus of Keele University as well as making provision for 92 new homes on nearby green belt land has been refused by Communities Secretary of State (SoS) Greg Clark in line with the recommendations of the planning inspector who held the recovered appeal.
All the development proposed was within a conservation area. Newcastle-under-Lyme District Council had refused the scheme.
The SoS agreed the council could not demonstrate a five year supply of housing land and acknowledged that the scheme had benefits as it would have resulted in the removal of unattractive campus accommodation blocks and administrative buildings and the refurbishment of and re-use of undesignated heritage assets.
However, Clark’s decision letter concluded that the benefits of the appeal scheme “though considerable, are insufficient to outweigh the irreversible and serious harm that would be caused to the conservation area”.
London round-up
- The multi-million pound improvement and expansion of London Waterloo, the capital’s busiest rail terminus, has moved an important step closer this week now a planning application for works to enable more trains to run in and out of the station has been submitted. These will be the first major changes to Waterloo since the 1930s, providing five new platforms for London commuter services and completely redesigning the concourse and platforms to be suitable for the hundreds of thousands of passengers passing through every day.
- A judicial review prompted by Sainsbury’s of Hillingdon Council’s decision to approve planning permission for a £100m regeneration of the former Arla Foods site on Victoria Road, South Ruislip has been dismissed. The development including 132 new homes, restaurants, a cinema and an Asda supermarket, can now go-ahead.
- Social housing provider Notting Hill Housing (NHH) has announced a record surplus of £121.3m which it says will be used to build thousands of new homes across London. NHH’s future development pipeline will deliver 8,300 homes within Greater London, with 4,990 of these as rented social housing, shared ownership housing or supported housing.
- A plan for the future of Romford town centre, developed by Tibbalds, BBP Regeneration and CampbellReith, has been agreed by Havering Council. The document defines nine areas, each with a distinct character and focus, and identifies key opportunity sites with the potential to deliver around 2,200 new homes, approximately 29,000 square metres of commercial space, and over 4,000 square metres of public open space.
Suffolk housing scheme approved again
Babergh District Council members have reconsidered proposals for 166 new homes, a third of which would be affordable, near the historic Abbas Hall in Great Cornard near Sudbury, Suffolk and once again approved the project.
Grade 1 listed Abbas Hall has a cultural association with painter Thomas Gainsborough whose famous work ‘Mr and Mrs Andrews’ is said to have been painted in the vicinity of the historic building and grounds.
Three years ago developer Persimmon Homes was refused permission for an earlier scheme and lost the subsequent appeal. Its current proposals are designed to meet the objections from the South Suffolk planning authority and the planning inspector who heard the appeal.
Members were recommended to approve the new proposals earlier this year but agreed to reconsider their stance under threat of a judicial review. The site is earmarked in the council’s core strategy for new housing.
Last week members decided to approve the scheme which generated objections from Great Cornard Parish Council, Sudbury Town Council, Suffolk Preservation Society and English Heritage as well as the owners of the 13th-Century Abbas Hall.
Green light for new Gloucestershire neighbourhood
A new neighbourhood consisting of 3,000 new homes to the north of Yate, South Gloucestershire has been given the go ahead by the South Gloucestershire Council. Independent design consultancy, LDA Design has prepared a master plan for 2,750 of the homes.
The revised scheme provides a green corridor, a new woodland area and a new meadow landscape area incorporating the site’s existing watercourses and floodplain.
The scheme will create a mixed-use development with residential areas and over four hectares of employment land.
The scheme will be set around a new local centre with shops, a pub, two primary schools, a mixed-use community centre, sports facilities, informal open space, allotments and play areas. Of the new homes, 35 per cent will be affordable.
The site, which lies to the north of Brimsham Park, is earmarked for residential development in the council’s core strategy and will make up the main part of the 3,000 home North Yate ‘new neighbourhood’.
Housing permission figures
Figures just released today in HBF and Glenigan’s latest Housing Pipeline report show that planning permissions for 52,167 homes were granted in England during the first quarter of this year, a 19 per cent increase on the 43,926 permissions in the corresponding quarter last year. As a result the Moving Annual Total has passed the 200,000 mark for the first time since early 2008.
Figures in the latest report show that 203,810 permissions were granted in the 12 months to April. This is the highest ‘four quarter’ total since early 2008. The number of permissions granted in Q1 was twice that in the corresponding quarter in both 2011 and 2012.
The report – which only measures permissions on sites of over 10 units – also shows that the number of sites consented has been fairly stable over the last 18 months, though at a higher level than previous four to five years.
Energy developments
Two gas fired power stations have been given development consent by the Department of Energy and Climate Change following examination by the Planning Inspectorate who had recommended approval.
Both the Progress Power Station located on the Eye Airfield Industrial Estate, mid Suffolk and the Hirwaun gas-fired power station, located on the Hirwaun Industrial Estate in South Wales, have a nominal generating capacity of up to 299 megawatts.
The shale gas firm Cuadrilla is to appeal Lancashire County Council’s decision to refuse permission to drill and frack at two sites in the county: Little Plumpton and Roseacre Wood.
Peak Park road tunnel study
Plans to build a road tunnel through the Peak District National Park aimed at improving links between Sheffield and Manchester are to be examined by consultancies Mouchel and Hyder operating as a joint-venture.
The JV has been awarded a £1.3m contract to carry out the work which will also include a possible combined road/rail link. This strategic study has been commissioned by the Department for Transport (DfT) and Transport for the North (TfN).
Exeter redevelopment
The Crown Estate and TH Real Estate’s Princesshay Partnership has submitted an outline planning application to Exeter City Council for the £70m redevelopment of the city’s bus and coach station.
The plans offer over 180,000 square feet of retail and leisure space, including a new cinema, along with proposals for a public amphitheatre.
The Partnership’s, John Grinnell said: ”There’s still a long way to go in planning and design terms, but this an important step in unlocking the true potential of this gateway to Exeter.”
Parliamentary watch
- The Commons Communities and Local Government Select Committee is to question Planning Minister Brandon Lewis on the planning proposals set out in the Treasury’s recent Productivity Plan. The all-party committee is due to quiz the minister on 7 September when MPs return to Westminster after the summer recess.
- A new All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Housing and Planning has been formed to address the national housing emergency, supported by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). The Group, previously chaired by Tim Yeo MP, will now be chaired by James Cartlidge, conservative MP for South Suffolk. It will focus on recommending wide-ranging solutions to reshape the housing market: increasing the housing stock for both rental and private ownership and speeding up building of sustainable housing in the UK, which now faces an annual shortfall in the region of 130,000 homes.
Reading offices to become student flats
Plans to transform a Reading town centre office block into flats for 400 students have been given the go-ahead. The six-storey Yell House building in Queen’s Walk will get a two-storey extension and feature a gym, cinema room and dance studio. The block is four kilometres from the University of Reading campus.
Rural development boost
New £24m Growth Programme fund for rural businesses and communities administered by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is now open for applications to help people expand or set up new businesses, develop new food processing facilities and promote tourism.
Ecological links
Bridges built to carry wildlife over roads and railways are preventing species from becoming isolated and reducing the number of accidents, according to a study just published by Natural England.
Known as “green bridges”, they are usually planted with a variety of local trees or shrubs and other vegetation to allow animals such as birds, mammals and insects to remain mobile despite the barriers that can be imposed by transport infrastructure. Although common in Europe and North America, only a handful have been built in Britain.
Legal round-up
- A property developer who painted red and white stripes on her west London townhouse has lost her planning battle challenging Kensington and Chelsea Council’s basement development policy.
- A legal challenge by IM Properties to the adoption of Lichfield District Council’s local plan has failed on all counts in the High Court.
- The Supreme Council has refused to grant relief despite finding a legal defect in the procedure prior to North Norfolk District Council’s grant of planning permission for a development in a landmark case relating to appropriate assessments, EIA assessments and mitigation measures.
Top planning QC to chair Irish PINs review
Top UK planning QC Gregory Jones has been named as the chair of a four-person group which will undertake an organisational review of An Bord Pleanála (the Planning Board), the Irish Republic’s equivalent of the Planning Inspectorate.
Alan Kelly the Republic’s Environment Minister has set up the group which is expected to report whether the organisation is fit for purpose by the turn of the year.
Clooney CCTV wrangle
Hollywood star George Clooney’s neighbours in Sonning have lodged objections to the A-Lister’s proposals – which require planning permission – to install 18 CCTV cameras at his Oxfordshire home.
Roger Milne
As part of our move out of government we’re also moving out of the government building we’ve been in for the last 12 years!
We’ve managed to find an office not far from our current Bristol base and are looking forward to our own place.
The team’s mobile phone numbers will stay the same, but landlines and email addresses will change, including the Support desk.
We’ll be moving over around the end of August and I’ll provide updated contact details nearer the time, as well as a firm date.
Planning Minister Brandon Lewis told Parliament this week that the government would intervene where local authorities had failed to produce a local plan by “early 2017”.
In a written Commons statement he said: “We will intervene to arrange for the plan to be written, in consultation with local people, to accelerate production of a Local Plan.”
The minister’s comments came as Lewis’s colleague Communities Secretary Greg Clark wrote to the Chief Executive of the Planning Inspectorate Simon Ridley voicing concern that some inspectors were taking too tough a line on shortcomings in some strategies.
The Secretary of State said: “We have recently seen significant positive plan-making progress: 82 per cent of authorities have now published local plans and 64 per cent adopted plans compared with 32 and 17 per cent in May 2010 respectively.
“It is imperative that this positive progress is maintained, and the government is open to taking further measures to achieve this if needed. As inevitably a plan cannot exactly account for future circumstances there is a real value in getting a local plan in place at the soonest opportunity, even if it has some shortcomings which are not critical to the whole plan.
“We have acknowledged this in planning guidance by setting out that local plans may be found sound conditional upon a review in whole or in part within five years of adoption. Many inspectors have already demonstrated commendable pragmatism and flexibility at examination to enable councils to get plans in place.
“I have, however, seen recent examples where councils are being advised to withdraw plans without being given the option to undertake further work to address shortcomings identified at examination. In order to maintain plan-making progress and to recognise the cost and time to a council prior to submitting a plan, it is critical that inspectors approach examination from the perspective of working pragmatically with councils towards achieving a sound local plan.”
Clark stressed the importance of inspectors highlighting significant issues to councils very early on, and of giving councils full opportunity to address issues.
He also highlighted a recent note published by the Planning Advisory Service where commitment to early review has featured in recently adopted local plans.
View the letter to the Chief Executive of the Planning Inspectorate
Roger Milne
Energy Minister Lord Bourne has granted a development consent order for the Preesall underground gas storage project proposed by Halite Energy on the east side of the Wyre Estuary in Lancashire. The project will be used to store and extract gas from local underground salt caverns.
Bourne said investment in the new infrastructure would provide sufficient storage space for initially 130 million cubic metres of gas (which could rise to 900 mcm provided certain extra conditions are met) and was “essential” to help keep the lights on and bills down.
The minister took the decision rather than Energy Secretary Amber Rudd following mounting concerns over an assumed conflict of interest involving her brother Roland Rudd whose lobby firm had canvassed the government to back the project.
Halite’s proposals were originally snubbed by the Coalition administration last year against the advice of the planning inspectors who examined the scheme. That refusal was over turned after a High Court challenge and reconsidered by ministers.
Earlier gas storage plans for the site proposed by Halite’s predecessor Canataxx had been unsuccessful following widespread local opposition including both Lancashire County Council and local planning authority Wyre Borough Council.
The decision letter issued by the Department of Energy and Climate Change said there was a “pressing national need for the development of new nationally significant gas storage infrastructure of the type proposed.”
Roger Milne
The government has published the draft regulations which set out the conditions under which hydraulic fracturing would be allowed to take place beneath National Parks, Areas of Outstanding National Beauty, the Broads and World Heritage Sites. The administration is stipulating that fracking can only take place below 1,200 metres in those areas.
The government pointed out that drinking water aquifers were not normally found below 400 metres.
The statement said that the government had a “clear commitment to ensure that fracking cannot be conducted from wells that are drilled in the surface of National Parks and other protected areas in such a way as to not impact on conventional drilling operations”.
This does mean that operations under protected areas could still take place from outside their boundaries. Environmentalists have voiced concern that these particular safeguards do not include sites of special scientific interest as originally expected – and promised.
A DECC spokesperson said “The National Planning Policy Framework already makes clear that development should not normally be permitted if it is likely to have an adverse effect on a site of special scientific interest.”
The draft regulations surfaced in the wake of the publication of the latest report from the industry-backed Task Force on Shale Gas which insisted local environmental impacts from fracking projects can be kept within “acceptable limits”, provided best practices are embraced and stringent regulations are introduced and adhered to.
The report proposed forward a series of measures designed to strengthen the monitoring of shale gas wells and ensure full disclosure of the chemicals used in fracking projects.
The report also called for a relaxation of current planning requirements that require full planning consent before boreholes can be drilled for monitoring purposes.
Roger Milne
Communities Secretary Greg Clark has backed a Lincolnshire planning authority and dismissed an appeal for a mixed-use sustainable urban extension of up to 970 new homes at Louth.
East Lindsey District Council had earlier refused outline permission for the scheme by developer Gladman Developments who wanted to locate the proposals on farmland some 2 kilometres south of the Lincolnshire market town.
The plans included a local centre with a community hall, shops, offices and a GP surgery.
Clark agreed with the inspector that the scheme would not be sustainable and would cause “adverse effects on the function and character of the town and the surrounding countryside”.
Clark gave “significant weight” to the provision of housing, including 30 per cent affordable housing, in an area without a demonstrable five year supply of housing land. He also acknowledged the “modest” benefits of providing a primary school, shops, a doctor’s surgery, a community centre, public open space, and transport improvements.
However Clark agreed with the inspector that the proposals would be intrusive to landscape views and would extend Louth into the surrounding open countryside “in an incongruous manner”.
The communities secretary’s decision letter concluded that the negative impacts of the scheme were sufficient to “significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits … taken as a whole.”
Roger Milne
The government has granted Cornwall the first of its new county deals, devolving powers over health and social care integration, bus services and economic development to the unitary council.
However the devolved powers fall short of Cornwall’s wish-list. It had requested to be allowed to use a share of fuel duty paid locally to help maintain roads; retain a share of stamp duty to finance affordable housing and take control of government-owned land to provide social housing.
Cornwall had also made a case for retaining part of the income from right-to-buy sales to invest in building new homes. In addition it wanted greater influence over the development of the power grid and geothermal energy and more local control over coastal protection.
John Pollard, Leader of Cornwall Council, welcomed the government’s announcement. “This is the first stage of a longer journey towards delivering the full case for Cornwall,” he said. “Cornwall has the opportunity to develop a devolution deal which will provide a blueprint for other areas. This is no short term fix. We are serious about a different approach to economic growth and strong communities.”
In a separate but related development the government suffered a defeat in the Lords over its proposal to require elected mayors as part of devolution deals in major conurbations.
During a debate on the Cities and Local Government Devolution bill, peers passed an amendment which said that a secretary of state for communities and local government could not use their power to make an order creating an elected mayoralty “as a condition for agreeing to the transfer of local authority or public authority functions”.
Roger Milne
Beagle-breeding facility allowed on appeal by Clark
Communities Secretary Greg Clark has allowed on appeal controversial proposals for a facility where beagles will be bred for use in animal experiments at Grimston near Hull originally refused by East Riding of Yorkshire Council. The scheme involves listed building consent.
The inspector who held the recovered appeal had recommended that listed building consent should be allowed but argued that full planning permission for the erection of a new building and the demolition of existing buildings at the site should not be permitted.
Clark concluded that the scheme should be allowed as it was broadly in line with development plan policies and the harm to heritage assets would be of a low order.
Hatfield energy from waste project blocked a second time
Environmental services company Veolia’s proposed waste recycling and energy recovery scheme at New Barnfield, Hatfield has hit the buffers again.
Communities Secretary Greg Clark, acting on the recommendation of the planning inspector who held the recovered appeal, has refused the project which was backed by Hertfordshire County Council but bitterly opposed by local residents, Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council and local MP Grant Shapps, a former housing minister.
The proposals had been earlier refused by former Communities Secretary Eric pickles but the refusal was quashed by a High Court ruling a year ago.
However Clark ‘s decision letter following the redetermined appeal concluded, like the planning inspector, that the scheme represented inappropriate development in the green belt and posed harm to the setting of heritage assets at Hatfield House and Park.
London round-up
- The British Property Federation (BPF) has urged government to use its promised review of the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) to stop London councils setting ‘sky-high’ charges which risk constraining growth of the UK’s Higher Education sector.
- A new report says that housing conditions in London are ‘worsening at a much faster rate than the previous decade’, with 59,000 homes per year needed to meet demand. That’s the conclusion of London School of Economics researchers in an assessment, produced for housing association Family Mosaic, the researchers warned that a shortfall of 30,000 homes a year in London is ‘entirely plausible and may well be a major underestimate’.
- A new report from business lobby group London First and Terence O’Rourke has analysed progress across all 38 Opportunity Areas in the capital and identified the challenges they face.
- Proposals for what would be the City of London’s new tallest tower have been submitted for 22 Bishopsgate. The £1.5bn 62-storey office block would be a 278 metre-high skyscraper, taller than the Shard.
- London Mayor Boris Johnson has announced a new ‘Growth Commission’ to help realise Crossrail 2’s full economic potential across the capital and the UK
- North London Islington Council is consulting on new rules to make it harder for developers to ‘game’ the planning system and avoid building affordable homes.
- Londoners are being invited to give their opinion on four new designs for a bridge across the River Thames between Nine Elms and Pimlico.
Big four retailers fail to activate a third of proposed new stores
Just under a third of planning applications submitted by the ‘big four’ supermarkets across the UK have been built, according to latest research compiled by construction industry data provider Barbour ABI.
Its figures show that of the 556 projects approved for Tesco, Asda, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s since January 2010, only 179 schemes are under construction or have been completed.
Tesco has the lowest planning-to-construction ratio, at 21 per cent. Morrisons, on the other hand, has a planning-to-construction ratio of 56 per cent.
Council submits draft local plan despite DCLG housing land concerns
Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council has decide to submit its draft local plan for examination despite being told by the Department for Communities and Local Government that latest household projections indicate the council should be making provision for significantly more new homes.
The Merseyside planning authority is proposing sites for 615 new units every year during the lifetime of the strategy. Latest projections suggest that figures could nearly double and be over 1,200 new homes annually.
Landmark traveller appeals redetermined and allowed
Two gypsies who earlier this year won a landmark ruling that the former Communities Secretary Sir Eric Pickles had discriminated against travellers by intervening in appeals involving pitches at green belt locations in the London Borough of Bromley and Dartford, Kent have this week had their appeals allowed by planning inspectors.
Brummie CIL scheme due to start next year
Birmingham City Council is set to adopt a Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) charges scheme for England’s second biggest conurbation. The regime is due to come into force from January 2016.
The council is one of a handful of planning authorities who have given the go-ahead to implement the CIL in advance of an adopted development plan.
Ministers decide not to intervene over potash project
Ministers have announced they will not intervene and hold a public inquiry into controversial plans for a £1.7bn potash mine beneath the North York Moors National Park. Charity the Campaign for National Parks, said it was considering a legal challenge over approval of the project.
Third time lucky for Derbyshire theme park redevelopment
Plans by developer Waystones for 300 homes on the site of a former Wild West-themed amusement park in Derbyshire have been approved by Amber Valley Borough Council after two previous bids for the redevelopment of the site were unsuccessful. The American Adventure in Derbyshire closed in 2007 and the land has been unused ever since.
Gloucestershire football club’s ambitious goal
Forest Green Rovers which hopes to be a Football League club within five years has unveiled ambitious proposals for a £100m sports facility which will include a new stadium for the club.
The development, dubbed ‘Eco Park’, will be a 100-acre sports and green technology centre at Junction 13 on the M5.
Half of the scheme will be dedicated to creating state-of-the-art sporting facilities, including an all-seater stadium, training fields, 4G pitches, multi-disciplinary sporting facilities, as well as a sports science hub. The other half will involve a green technology business park, providing up to 4,000 jobs.
Energy projects round-up
- The site for a £10bn nuclear power plant scheme in Cumbria has been confirmed after a deal to secure land near the existing Sellafield complex was completed. Joint venture group Nugen said it had paid an undisclosed sum for a vast tract of land at Moorside where possibly three new nuclear plants may be sited.
- Green Power Company EDF Energy Renewables has decided not to proceed with its appeal against refusal of permission for a 14-turbine wind farm proposed for a site north of the A303 at Bullington Cross near Winchester. The application was turned down at a joint meeting by three Hampshire councils last year.
- Plans for a solar farm on 44 hectares of land at Charborough Estate which is owned by Dorset MP Richard Drax and will be run by green power company Good Energy have been given the go-ahead by East Dorset District Council.
Legal round-up
- The long-running legal battle by supermarket giant Tesco to block rival Asda’s plans for a new out-of-town superstore at Lydney in Gloucestershire has moved to London’s Court of Appeal. Tesco, which claims that it will lose more than a third of its town centre store’s trade to the new Asda, hopes the Court of Appeal will reach a different decision than High Court judge Mrs Justice Patterson, who dismissed its claim last year.
- A lawsuit against the planned Hinkley Point C nuclear power station has been filed by green power supplier Greenpeace Energy and nine German and Austrian utilities.
Awards and competition corner
Members of the public are being asked to take part in a new competition designed to celebrate England’s ten most attractive and inspiring places. England’s Great Places has been launched as part of the celebrations to mark the centenary of the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI).
RTPI president Jane Askew said:
“Your great place could be a natural landscape, a historic town, perhaps a national park. It might be a vibrant and diverse community you are especially proud of, a special place within a city, a stunning cultural quarter or a neighbourhood. You could nominate an area that has undergone significant regeneration and has been transformed by that process.”
Each place nominated will also be judged against how it was shaped, protected or improved by planners and the planning system.
Members of the public can make their nominations until 1 September. An eminent panel will then produce a list of 10 regional winners, who will all go forward to a public vote to find England’s Greatest Place.
In a separate but related matter the overall winner of the inaugural Civic Voice National Design Award is the motorway services area between junctions 11a and 12 on the northbound stretch of the M5 in Gloucestershire.
View more information on RTPI’s England’s Great Places
Roger Milne
The single biggest issue reported to us by LPAs when processing online applications is receiving amended (or resubmitted) applications via the Planning Portal.
With the impending launch of our new website this autumn, we are working with our supplier to improve this function.
Local authorities have told us that ideally they would like to receive only the new or amended documents as part of a new process.
However, we are constrained by what can be delivered as we cannot change the 1APP connectors or the XML schema (our common data standard) for communicating applications to LPA back-office systems without a schema version update.
This is because one of the key requirements for the phase 1 launch of our new website is to minimise any impact on LPAs and their ICT Suppliers, we have therefore taken the decision to not introduce any schema changes for the initial go live.
So, with this in mind we will be introducing the following additional functions to the amendment process to let LPAs better understand the changes made from the original submission.
1. Capturing what’s changed
On the current system the applicant is asked to choose one of the following options:
Changes to the supporting documentation ONLY
– this is free and you may do this more than onceChanges to the forms and documentation
– according to the changes made charges may apply
We will be retaining this question on the new system. However, we will also ask the applicant to provide details of the amendment changes made. This will be a mandatory question.
Capturing this from the applicant will support the existing ‘attachment summary‘ that details any changes to attachments.
The system will also create a new amendment supporting document (a new Planning Portal auto-generated document) that will capture the details provided by the applicant of the changes made, the amendment option they selected and information on when the original application was submitted and transferred to the LPA.
2. Changes to application email notifications
In addition to this we will introduce new email notifications to LPAs for amendment applications rather than send a generic application notification as per the current service.
The amendment email notification will have different email subject text to highlight it’s an amendment and will include details of when the original application was submitted and downloaded by the recipient LPA i.e. times and dates, along with the particular amendment type selected by the applicant.
Receiving additional information at both of these key stages should ensure that LPAs receive clear information and notification that it’s an amended application.
This will inform the LPA’s planning registration team that a previous application has been received and prompt them to cross-reference it with the original to understand the changes made and what the applicant is proposing to change.
This should help avoid amended applications being treated as new applications and registered separately, which currently causes LPAs a myriad of processing issues.
3. Amendments to applications with ‘submitted’ status
We’re also fixing the issue where the original application has a status of ‘submitted’ – in other words it has been sent to the LPA but hasn’t been downloaded.
To address the instances where the original application has a status of ‘submitted’ (i.e. it’s been sent to the LPA but it hasn’t been downloaded to the back-office system and the applicant subsequently amends the application, these are currently removed from the LPA’s queue of applications awaiting retrieval.
This causes great confusion as the LPA receives the initial email notification of the submission but the application cannot be found or accessed by their 1APP connector.
In these instances the LPA has no idea about what has happened to the application, generating Service Desk calls.
To improve this process on the new website (i.e. the applicant amends an application with a status of ‘submitted’), the service will send an email notification to the LPA advising them that the application has been withdrawn pending further amendment.
This will avoid confusion of why it’s not been retrieved correctly into the back-office system and inform the LPA’s planning registration team to take no further action.
4. Improving the content that sits around this function
We shall review the content that sits around the process and improve this by highlighting instances of when applicants should use the amendment process and or alternatively email supporting information to the LPA if the application has been registered.
We hope you’ll agree these are much-needed change and with the planned changes will help LPAs to quickly and easily identify amended applications.
More will follow shortly on other improvements we’re developing for the new website.
Planning Portal Blog 