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.
The government has unveiled a further package of radical planning reforms as part of a wide-ranging Productivity Plan drawn up by the Treasury and Chancellor George Osborne.
The planning measures include a threat of direct intervention by the Secretary of State over the production of local plans where local authorities are judged to be too slow and the creation of a zonal system for brownfield land involving automatic permission for housing.
In addition, ministers want a tighter planning performance regime which would mean local authorities would be judged to be underperforming if 50 per cent or fewer decisions meet statutory timetables or who fail to process minor applications in line with a significantly tighter “planning guarantee”.
Also planned is legislation to allow major infrastructure projects with an element of housing to be considered as part of the Planning Act 2008 regime and treated as nationally significant infrastructure projects (NSIPs).
The government has announced it is scrapping the requirement on new-home developers to offset new-build carbon emissions by making a contribution to carbon reduction elsewhere.
In addition the administration is proposing to extend permitted development rights to taller mobile masts in both protected and non-protected areas in England. A call for evidence on these proposals has been published.
The Productivity Plan also confirms last week’s budget promise of a new roads fund created from all the Vehicle Excise Duty paid on cars registered from April 2017.
This fund will be invested directly in the strategic road network. A second multi-billion pound Road Investment Programme will be published for the period after 2020 before the end of the present parliament.
There has been a mixed response to the proposals, but significantly a similar reaction from planners, developers and local authorities that many of the new measures will only work if the government addresses the severe shortage of funds within local authority planning departments.
Roger Milne
Councils that fail to agree a local plan could face direct government intervention under new reforms just proposed.
Over the summer recess, the government will set a deadline by which time local authorities will be expected to have local plans in place, after which the Secretary of State will have the power “to arrange for a local plan to be written, in consultation with residents”. The government also intends to produce league tables of local authorities ranked by their progress in developing their local plans.
Ministers have committed to making local plans “more responsive to local needs”. Significant streamlining of the length and process of local plan-making is promised along with strengthened guidance on the duty on local planning authorities to cooperate on key housing and planning issues. More detail is due in the autumn.
In a further bid to boost house building the government will legislate to grant automatic planning permission for housing on suitable brownfield sites identified on the new statutory registers of such sites (subject to a limited number of technical details).
The government will also consider how policy can support higher density housing around key commuter hubs. One option under consideration would mean mayors in London and across the country could use new powers under the Devolution Bill to use development corporations to deliver higher density housing in designated areas’.
Also promised are additional compulsory purchase reforms to further modernise the system, already undergoing major changes. Details will be announced in the autumn. “These will allow local authorities and others to drive forward and shape brownfield development, but will not alter the principle of Secretary of State sign-off on CPOs”.
Roger Milne
The latest package of reforms includes a series of measures designed to improve planning decision –making as well as moves to devolve planning powers, particularly in the capital.
Ministers will:
- Legislate to allow major infrastructure projects with an element of housing to apply through the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Regime (NSIP)
- Tighten the planning performance regime, so that local authorities making 50 per cent or fewer of decisions on time are at risk of designation
- Legislate to extend the performance regime to minor applications, so that local authorities processing those applications too slowly are at risk of designation
- Introduce a fast-track certificate process for establishing the principle of development for minor development proposals, and significantly tighten the ‘planning guarantee’ for minor applications
- Introduce a dispute resolution mechanism for section 106 agreements, to speed up negotiations and allow housing starts to proceed more quickly.
Ministers have announced that the government does not intend to proceed with the zero carbon Allowable Solutions carbon offsetting scheme for new homes, or the proposed 2016 increase in on-site energy efficiency standards.
Instead it “will keep energy efficiency standards under review, recognising that existing measures to increase energy efficiency of new buildings should be allowed time to become established”.
Environmental groups are incensed at this U-turn while builders and developers have voiced concern that this move was “short sighted” and created “uncertainty”.
Ministers have promised the devolution of greater planning powers to mayors and combined authorities as well as giving the forthcoming mayor of Manchester the power to create Development Corporations and to promote CPOs.
In London, the mayor will be handed new powers to call in planning applications of 50 homes or more and to increase the density of housing by removing the need for planning permission for upwards extensions up to the height of existing buildings.
Local authorities will be required to “proactively” plan for the delivery of Starter Homes and guidance will strengthen the presumption in favour of Starter Home developments, which it has been confirmed, will be exempted from s106 contributions.
Roger Milne
Cherwell District Council has announced proposals for the UK’s first large-scale Local Development Order for custom-built housing development.
This initiative would cover proposals for the Graven Hill site in Oxfordshire which has been earmarked for the UK’s biggest-ever custom-build scheme of around 1,900 housing units.
If adopted, the LDO would remove the need for self-builders to submit individual planning applications for each plot provided proposals comply with pre-determined building specifications.
Councillor Michael Gibbard, Cherwell’s lead member for planning, said: “This is the first time an LDO has been considered for a self-build development of this size so we are setting the benchmark for the future.
“Although we want self-builders to have the freedom to design and create their own homes at Graven Hill, we don’t want it to become a free-for-all – we need to retain some control.
“However, if our planners were to consider up to 1,900 individual applications, plus retrospective submissions, it would place a huge demand on their services and slow the planning process down for everyone – not just those associated with Graven Hill.
“The Local Development Order is a happy compromise, it allows us to set the relevant guidelines such as the maximum height, depth and building materials etc while giving self-builders the freedom to interpret those specifications to their own style without having to wait to receive individual planning consent.”
The first phase of the overall development is expected to involve some 699 properties, but the first LDO will be piloted for a smaller area of between 100 and 200 homes.
View more information on the development
Roger Milne
Communities Secretary Greg Clark has dismissed an appeal by Lugano Developments Ltd who wanted to build a garden suburb involving up to 280 dwellings and a community farm on 82 hectares of land at Birney Hill Farm.
The farm is located just over two kilometres from the built up edge of Newcastle upon Tyne near the city’s international airport and next to the existing suburb of Darras Hall.
The scheme was earmarked for green belt land and the outline application included proposals to demolish some existing buildings.
The scheme had been rejected by Northumberland County Council and was recommended for refusal by the inspector who held the recovered appeal inquiry.
Clark agreed with the planning inspector that the benefits of an “exemplar” garden suburb and a scheme offering both affordable and executive housing, where there was an absence of a five-year supply of housing land, was insufficient to outweigh the harm the scheme posed to green belt policy.
The proposed development was not considered to be sustainable because of the lack of connectivity with Darras Hall and the impact of noise from aircraft taking off and landing at the airport.
Clark’s decision letter concluded: “The very special circumstances necessary to justify a grant of planning permission for inappropriate development in the green belt do not exist.”
Roger Milne
Retail applications continue to fall
The number of applications to build new retail space in England has fallen for a sixth year in a row, according to latest research by commercial law firm EMW.
This showed there were 7,360 planning applications approved for retail premises in 2014/15, down from 7,420 last year and down 38 per cent from 11,900 at the peak in the expansion of the retail sector in 2008/09.
EMW said that there has been a shift of focus away from expanding store portfolios to a more concerted effort by many retailers to compete with their online rivals by introducing new services such as “Click and Collect”.
Giles Ferin, Principal at EMW, explained “The fall in retail applications reflects a seismic change in shopping habits.”
“High street retailers are opting to provide a greater range of online services as they try to adjust to this more competitive online market.”
EMW added that the changing nature of the retail sector has resulted in many premises being converted to office or residential use. There were 410 units converted from retail to residential use in 2014/15.
Pembrokeshire “hobbit house” wins appeal
The couple who built a “hobbit-style” roundhouse in Pembrokeshire without planning permission have finally saved their eco-friendly dwelling from the threat of demolition.
This week a planning inspector allowed their appeal against Pembrokeshire Council’s refusal of retrospective planning permission for the building constructed from straw bales and other natural material.
The inspector decided that the building was acceptable because it satisfied the Welsh Government’s policy on so-called One Planet Development.
The building has been the focus of a long drawn-out planning wrangle involving refused permissions, enforcement action and legal action.
View more information on the One Planet Development policy
Chippenham growth
Wiltshire Council’s cabinet met this week to approve proposed amendments to the Chippenham Site Allocations Plan which outlines proposed strategic sites to ensure the delivery of housing and employment growth for the town by 2026 in line with the requirement of the Wiltshire Core Strategy.
The plan allocates 2,500 new homes and approximately 28 hectares of employment activity in three mixed use developments on the edge of the town.
The proposed developments include substantial country parks focused on the river corridor, the completion of an eastern link road between the A350 to the north and the A4 to the south of Chippenham and new primary schools.
London round-up
- Architects Allies & Morrision has revealed plans for up to 1,000 flats and a new campus for the London College of Communication on the site of the Elephant & Castle Shopping Centre. The new plans have gone on public display 18-months after the 50-year-old south London shopping centre was sold by developer St Modwen to current owners, property investor Delancey and pension fund APG, for £80m. Under the latest proposals, the shopping centre will retain its ‘retail heart’ with a ‘three-tiered open area’ forming part of a new town centre. A 36-storey tower will anchor the southern edge of the site and new east-west links will open up the development and link the public space to the railway station.
- Mayor of London Boris Johnson and Housing and Planning Minister Brandon Lewis have officially launched the London Land Commission. Real estate research firm Savills has been appointed to compile the preliminary stages of a so-called‘Domesday Book’ of all brown field public land in London, to be completed by the end of 2015.
- Residents of Fortune Green and West Hampstead have voted in favour of a neighbourhood plan for their wards following a referendum held last week by Camden Council. The referendum was only the second of its kind yet held in the capital.
- Wandsworth Council has launched an investigation into the unauthorised demolition of a landmark Victorian-era public house in Battersea and could order the developer responsible for its disappearance to rebuild it brick by brick.
Report says LEPs need staff and clearer status
Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) could play a critical role in devolution to cities and regions and in promoting economic growth, but their potential is being held back by their unclear status and unfamiliarity with town planning, as well as a lack of personnel, a new study by the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) has concluded.
The first comprehensive analysis of the roles of all LEPs showed that they have considerable potential to work across different policy areas such as planning, and to shape strategy and implementation from housing to employment across local authority boundaries.
But the analysis by the RTPI highlighted that LEPs operated with an opaque remit and lacked firm institutional foundations. This limited their effectiveness as brokers of cross-boundary, strategic planning issues, the report found.
West of England councils urge devolution
Council leaders across a West of England sub-region have agreed to work up a case for more powers from Whitehall under the government’s devolution agenda.
At a meeting of the region’s Strategic Leaders’ Board last Friday, the Mayor of Bristol and Leaders of Bath and North East Somerset Council, North Somerset Council and South Gloucestershire Council agreed that a governance review should be the next step as the partners look together at developing a detailed local case for devolved powers.
A Strategic Review of Governance is a formal process looking at the governance structures that would best fit the devolution of certain functions to the four authorities. It is not a review of governance arrangements of the four local authorities. The review is expected to take between nine and 18 months.
New salt marsh project makes waves
Sea defences on an island off the Essex coast have been deliberately breached to create new habitat for wildlife. It is the latest phase of the Wallasea Island Wild Coast project, which aims to create salt marsh on 670 hectares of former farm land.
The RSPB, the UK’s biggest wildlife charity, is behind the scheme, which has been helped by the London Crossrail project which has provided soil excavated from its tunnelling work under the capital. The aim is to attract wading birds, seals and plants such as samphire.
View more information about the Wallasea Island Wild Coast project
Solent waterfront scheme
Proposals for a multi-million pound revamp of part of Southampton’s waterfront have been unveiled for public scrutiny.
The Royal Pier Waterfront development includes plans for 730 flats, restaurants, up to 50 shops and a 250-bed hotel.
It would also involve a casino, which has been granted a licence by the government for up to 150 slot machines and 30 blackjack and poker tables.
The scheme would see an enlarged Mayflower Park with a new larger than life-size Spitfire sculpture in the city where the plane was first built.
The waterfront proposals have been drawn up by RPW (Southampton) Limited, Southampton City Council’s development partner for the scheme.
Liverpool Chinatown revamp
Developer North Point Global and BLOK Architecture’s plans for the regeneration of part of Liverpool’s historic Chinatown quarter have gone on show on Merseyside.
The project has a £200m price tag and would involve development along the frontage of Great George Street. The concept is for a new urban quarter comprising up to 1,000 homes and 18,580 sq metres of new commercial and retail space. One of the elements is a Chinese themed retail area as well as a substantial number of live-work spaces providing accommodation for new Chinese businesses to set-up in the city.
Although the proposals are at an early stage, the developers are hoping to submit a planning application for the first phase of the project before the end of the summer.
Green belt helicopter base project
Plans to build a new helicopter base on green belt land have been backed by South Gloucestershire Council. Approval for the base near the M4/M5 interchange at Almondsbury is conditional on government ministers deciding not to intervene.
The National Police Air Service (NPAS) and Great Western Air Ambulance Charity welcomed the decision and hoped for a “positive outcome” from the government. Critics said the new base would “destroy the rural character” of the village.
The proposals include a hangar, car park, Met Office weather station and new access to the A38. The NPAS and Great Western Air Ambulance are currently both based at Filton Airfield which is to be redeveloped.
Capita snaps up GL Hearn
Business services and out-sourcing specialist Capita has announced it has acquired GL Hearn, a leading UK property and planning consultancy for £25m.
GL Hearn’s client list includes some of the UK’s largest retailers and developers, as well as a number of blue chip companies. The consultancy reported an operating profit of £5.8m on turnover of £31.2m in its last financial year up to 31 May 2015.
The company is a market leader in planning, development and regeneration. It employs over 250 staff, and has a head office in London and seven regional offices including Glasgow, Manchester and Southampton.
Peers probe built environment
The new House of Lords Committee on National Policy for the Built Environment has begun taking oral evidence for its first inquiry. Last week the peers quizzed experts specialising in planning and design.
They included Professor Rachel Cooper OBE, Professor of Design Management, Lancaster University; Dr Richard Simmons, former Chief Executive of the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) and Professor Mark Tewdwr-Jones, Professor of Town Planning, at Newcastle University.
The committee is considering the legacy of the last 30 years of commercial and residential developments and whether there should be a greater focus on retrofitting than new-build. The peers are also keen to find out why the UK is so poor at meeting house-building targets.
Legal round-up
- A High Court judge has quashed the decision of Ryedale District Council to allow a new supermarket and petrol station at Malton’s Wentworth Street Car Park. The court ruled that members of the planning committee had been misled because they had not been informed of the benefits of rival store proposals.
- A £500m energy from waste project looks set to be built near Gloucester now Stroud District Council’s legal challenge over the planning inspector’s recommendation to the then Community Secretary Eric Pickles to approve the controversial facility has failed. Plans for the scheme at Javelin Park were approved by the then Secretary of State, following a public inquiry. Stroud District Council had hoped to persuade the High Court the planning inspector had “made errors”. The judge disagreed.
- A High Court judge has ruled that high street giant Sainsbury’s had the right to withdraw from an agreement to redevelop Bristol Rovers’ memorial Stadium after the club was unable to obtain an “acceptable” planning permission for the scheme.
Dorset coastal path route proposed
Proposals for a further section of Dorset’s Jurassic coastline to form part of the England Coast Path have been revealed by Natural England (NE). NE wants to develop a new route along a 67 kilometre long stretch of the coast between Lyme Regis and Rufus Castle.
The path would join up with the section between Rufus Castle and Lulworth Cove where work is currently underway.
Kent theme park land deal
Developers behind the proposed £2bn Paramount Park theme park have bought seven hectares of land in North Kent.
A former landfill site, known as Bamber Pit, and a sports ground on the Swanscombe Peninsula have been purchased by London Resort Company Holdings.
The theme park, proposed for 400 hectares of land near Dartford, is due to be the subject of an application for a Development Consent Order, the first project of its type to be a candidate for treatment as a nationally significant infrastructure project under the Planning Act 2008 regime.
Norfolk local plan examination held up over habitat issues
The examination of the Borough Council of King’s Lynn & West Norfolk’s local plan has been adjourned following concern voiced by the planning inspector over flood risk and habitat issues surrounding housing site allocations.
The Inspector needs reassurance that either mitigation can be provided at the new housing sites where required or that the council has a fall-back position in the event that mitigation cannot be successfully achieved.
The planning authority expects to take three months providing further information and will work with the Environment Agency, the Internal Drainage Board and conservation groups like the RSPB and the Norfolk Wildlife Trust.
Dorset dig finds pre-Roman settlement
A pre-Roman town of 150 roundhouses has been found by university students during an archaeological dig in Dorset.
The discovery of the town lying along a hill-slope near Winterborne Kingston has been described as “extremely significant” by archaeologists who said that what had been found was “one of the earliest and largest open settlements in Britain.”
Roger Milne
When we refresh our website in the Autumn we’re also going to take the opportunity to refresh our Buy-a-Map service, which many customers use to buy site location plans for their planning applications.
I emailed many potential partners last week, but if I missed you and you are interested in applying to be a partner please get in touch.
This would be a commercial relationship, but the selection is primarily based on technical and quality standards.
Planning Portal Blog 