Planning Portal Blog

Coastal ‘Blue Belt’ designations

23 new areas along the UK coast have been named as Marine Conservation Zones (MCZs) by the Government, extending the country’s ‘Blue Belt’ to over 20 per cent of English waters.

Marine environment minister George Eustice announced the new sites, which will protect 4,155 square miles of UK marine habitats and bring the total number of MCZs in waters around England to 50.

The new MCZs will cover areas across the country from as far north as Farnes East off the coast of Northumberland down to Land’s End in the south west, and will protect 45 different types of habitat, geological features and species – including stalked jellyfish and spiny lobsters.

Former MoD sites earmarked for homes

Defence minister Mark Lancaster has announced the release of 12 Ministry of Defence sites, all of which will be sold for new housing.

The disposal, slated to generate £500m, will provide the land for around 15,000 new homes in support of the Government’s objective of releasing sufficient publically-owned land to build 160,000 by 2020.

These sites will form the first tranche of the MoD’s plan to reduce by 30 per cent the size of its built estate. The MoD estate spans one per cent of all UK land and covers 452,000 hectares.

The 12 sites are:

Kneller Hall in Twickenham and MOD Feltham, both in south west London
Claro and Deverell barracks in Ripon
RAF sites Molesworth and Alconbury in Cambridgeshire, and Mildenhall in Suffolk
Lodge Hill in Kent
Craigiehall in Edinburgh
HMS Nelson Wardroom in Portsmouth
Hullavington Airfield in Wiltshire
RAF Barnham in Suffolk.

The MoD will announce further sites in due course.

View the recovered appeal, The Old Builders Yard, Thames Street, Newton with Scales, Preston, Lancashire

Clark approves gypsy change of use scheme

Communities Secretary Greg Clark has approved a change of use application for a residential site for three gypsy families each with two caravans on land formerly used as a builders yard at Newton-with- Scales, a village eight kilometres from Preston, Lancashire.

The SoS recovered the proposal from Fylde Borough Council for his determination. The inspector who held the inquiry recommended the three pitch scheme should be approved. An alternative scheme involving four pitches was rejected.

Clark’s decision letter made it clear that the use of previously-developed land, the location adjacent to a settlement and the unmet need for gypsy sites in the borough and wider area were factors that weighed in favour of the development.

He also agreed that the use of land as a small scale self-contained Gypsy site was sustainable. Planning permission would have benefits for the children involved in terms of education and health care, Clark concluded.

Factory built zero-carbon homes mooted for UK

Specialised solar power company WElink Energy (UK) Ltd has announced a £1.1bn strategic framework agreement with China National Building Materials Group to build zero carbon affordable housing developments in the UK.

The companies will work with Somerset based British Solar Renewables and plan to deploy thousands of factory-built zero-carbon homes designed by the European architectural firm Cesar Martinell & Associates.

Some £800m is being committed to a programme of 4,000 units in 2016-18 with a further 4,000 units to follow, the companies explained in a statement.

View the press release on the British Solar Renewables website

Removing on shore wind from the Planning Act 2008 regime

The Government has tabled the statutory instruments that will eventually remove onshore wind projects from the Planning Act 2008. This honours the election pledge that local people would have a final say on wind farm planning applications.

View the statutory instruments:

The Onshore Wind Generating Stations (Exemption) (England and Wales) Order 2016

The Infrastructure Planning (Onshore Wind Generating Stations) Order 2016

Devolution developments

Councils in the Midlands have published a summary of the draft North Midlands Devolution Agreement which is currently waiting for a government response The proposal is based on a new combined authority involving all 19 boroughs, districts and city councils in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. The strategy includes building 77,000 new homes by maximising surplus and brownfield land and creating publically-owned and controlled local development corporations. Additional planning powers are being sought and the plans include a revised system of planning fees and volunteering to pilot the new ‘permission in principle’ approach proposed in the Housing and Planning bill.
In a separate development a report commissioned by Hull City Council has backed the concept of merging the former with East Riding of Yorkshire Council to maximize the economic potential of the area. The East Riding council is against any merger. The report also argued that a combined authority for the Humber ‘region’ involving Hull and East Riding and the North and North East Lincolnshire councils would make strategic sense.
Meanwhile the legislation required for the government’s devolutionary agenda the Cities and Local Government Devolution bill has been signed off by Parliament and is waiting for the Royal Assent.

Exeter bus station redevelopment

The Crown Estate’s proposals to develop Exeter’s bus station site have been recommended for approval by council officers.

The scheme, known as Princesshay Leisure, involves restaurants, significant new retail floor space, a cinema, a new bus terminal and a public amphitheatre. It would sit alongside the city council’s £26m new swimming pool and gym.

View the planning application details for land to rear of Taw Valley Creamery North Tawton Devon

London round-up

The latest London New Homes Monitor compiled by property agency Stirling Ackroyd showed that just 5,740 new homes were fully approved in the third quarter of 2015. That figure represented a fall of nearly 30 per cent compared with the previous three months. Planning approvals in the southern boroughs of Southwark, Croydon and Lambeth outpaced the rest of London.
The capital must build on low quality green belt locations around existing commuter infrastructure to solve its housing crisis, according to a new paper from the Adam Smith Institute. Building on 8,000 hectares of the Metropolitan Green Belt (roughly 3.7 per cent) would create room for the one million new homes needed (at a density of 50 houses per acre) all of which could be built within a 10 minute walk of a station.
CNM Estates residential-led mixed-use development of the Tolworth tower site in south west London has been approved by Kingston Council. The residential-led mixed-use scheme involves the revamp of the existing building and four new blocks providing hundreds of new flats.
Mayor Boris Johnson has approved British Land’s plans for a scheme in Tower Hamlets on the edge of the City at Norton Folgate involving the mixed-use redevelopment of Victorian warehouses to provide offices, flats and shops.

Sargeant minded to approve major Cardiff residential development

Welsh Planning Minister Carl Sargeant has announced he is minded to allow an appeal by South Wales Land Developments Ltd for a scheme providing up to 1,200 new homes at Lisvane on the north eastern edge of Cardiff earmarked for residential development by the recently revised and approved local development plan for the Welsh capital.

The final green light for the scheme, known as Churchlands, is subject to successful negotiations on an s106 agreement

View more information

Bridge plans for Lowestoft and Ipswich

Suffolk County Council and the New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership have submitted outline business cases to the Department for Transport for two separate new road and bridge links, one for Lowestoft and the other for Ipswich.

The former scheme would involve a third crossing of Lake Lothing between the two existing bridges, linking Peto Way and Tom Crisp Way. The latter project would involve a new crossing at the waterfront in Ipswich linking the east and west banks of the River Orwell. Each scheme is costed at around £90m.

View more information

Devon and Lancashire solar farms refused…

West Devon Borough Council has refused permission for the 58-hectare North Tawton Eco Park, a proposed 22-megawatt solar power farm, planned by Kinetica Solar for land to the rear of the Taw Valley Creamery. Planning officers told members that the scale, visibility and dominance of the development would result in an “unacceptably adverse impact”.

Meanwhile Communities Secretary Greg Clark has agreed with the inspector who considered a proposed 17-megawatt solar farm on a 37 hectare site in a green belt location at Aughton, Lancashire originally refused by West Lancashire Borough Council.

Clark agreed that Hive Energy’s appeal should be dismissed as it represented inappropriate development and would be detrimental to the landscape.

View the recovered appeal for land off Butchers Lane, Aughton, Lancashire

…and Rugby wind farm blown away

The Secretary of State has dismissed an appeal by RES UK & Ireland Ltd’s over the company’s four-turbine wind farm proposed for land at Pailton near Rugby. Like the inspector who held the recovered inquiry, Clark concluded the eight megawatt facility would be detrimental to local heritage assets and would have harmful impacts on the landscape and visual amenity.

View the recovered appeal for land at Cestersover Farm, Cestersover, Pailton, Rugby

Thurrock design help

Design Council Cabe has created a design review and support panel to help Thurrock Council in south Essex prepare for major growth and investment.

Legal round-up

The establishment of the Planning Court has led to a dramatic reduction in the time from lodging to substantive hearing, according to the Lord Chief Justice’s latest annual report. By the end of October 2015 this period had been reduced to 27.3 weeks, down from 46.9 weeks in February 2014.
Smech Properties, a company owned by the ruler of Dubai has failed in an attempt to block the development of the former DERA site at Longcross near Chertsey where Runnymede Borough Council has allowed Crest Nicholson to build 200 homes on a green belt site.
The Appeal Court has been hearing joined appeals on the meaning of a key section of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) relating to “policies for the supply of housing”. In court it was claimed that three competing interpretations have emerged from recent High Court rulings.
A £35m regeneration scheme around Lime Street in Liverpool city centre is due to go ahead after the High Court rejected a legal bid by conservationists Save British Heritage to overturn planning permission from the city council.
A family in High Wycombe has been forced to pay back more than £50,000 after they illegally redeveloped an outbuilding and rented it out. The confiscation order followed legal action by Wycombe District Council. Archaeologists have claimed they have uncovered Britain’s “Pompeii” after discovering the “best-preserved Bronze Age dwellings ever found” in England.

Historic and listed building round-up

Part of a settlement made up of circular wooden houses built on stilts has been discovered at Must Farm quarry in Cambridgeshire. The settlement is thought to date to about 1000-800 BC. A fire destroyed the posts, causing the houses to fall into a river where silt helped preserve the contents. Pots with meals still inside have been found at the site.
The world’s first operational radar station, at Bawdsey on the Suffolk coast, has been awarded a grant of £1.4m to help preserve it. The transmitter block, built in 1938, is crumbling and letting in water.
A DIY nuclear fallout shelter built in a back garden during heightened Cold War fears has received Grade II-listed status. The bunker, built in Taverham, Norfolk, in 1982, was a reminder of the public’s “fear” in the Cold War years, Heritage Minister Tracey Crouch said.

Roger Milne

New Planning Portal preview: forms

by sarahchilcott

We’re entering the later stages of testing on the new Planning Portal site now and I thought I’d take the wraps off some of the new features.

First up are the application forms themselves.

The new forms are adaptive, meaning questions appear and disappear based on the answers you give – in other words you only answer the questions that are relevant to your application.

Naturally, the forms still follow the national question set approved by DCLG and are accepted by every LPA in England and Wales.

I thought I’d show you how we’ve addressed some known issues on the forms in a few areas: materials, hours of opening and the certificates.

The materials question has long been a bit of an issue and we’ve given a lot of thought to how to improve it. We’ve made it easier to add materials that are relevant (and only relevant) to your application. Take a look at the short video to see how it works (note: there’s no sound in the video).

Secondly we’ll take a look at one of the more complex questions to complete – hours of opening.

Currently this is a very long question with all entries for each kind of use case on screen by default, resulting in a cluttered user experience.

Again we’ve applied the principle that the form should work for you – not the other way around.

You select only those use cases that are relevant to your application. You can select the correct hours of opening either by clicking on the clock icon in the relevant field and selecting the time or by typing the exact time you need.

We think it results in a more usable and cleaner experience.

Thirdly, we’ve made some improvements to the certificates.

Users had complained about a persistent validation error whereby one certificate would be partially completed before the applicant realised that a different certificate should be used.

In this case the system would record two versions of two certificates causing some confusion when it came to submit the application as it wasn’t obvious which part hadn’t been completed.

Now if you swap certificates the earlier version is wiped from the system resulting in quicker validation and application submission, saving you time and money.

Finally, at least for this blog post, the forms are responsive. This means they can be viewed and work properly on mobile devices. We live in an increasingly mobile-dominated world so making it easier to access your forms on the go was a key consideration.

There are many more improvements in the forms but throughout development our focus has remained on providing continuity for our customers. Everything has been refreshed but you won’t feel lost or need to ask directions.

We’ve applied best design practice but we’ve also listened to user comments for many years and we’re very excited to finally be able to pay you back for your feedback and patience.

Housing and Planning bill moves to the Lords from the Commons

View more information about the Housing and Planning bill

The Government’s flagship Housing and Planning bill completed its passage through the Commons this week unscathed. No opposition amendments were successful during the legislation’s report and third reading stages. The measures will now be scrutinised by the Lords.

The bill made history as the first to be considered under the new procedure whereby measures affecting just England are voted on only by English MPs.

Planning minister Brandon Lewis called the legislation “an historic bill in many ways. It will put homeownership within the grasp of generations that have only dreamed for many years that it could be possible. It will deliver a planning system that is the envy of the world. It will get Britain building again.”

Labour’s John Healey MP complained the legislation was “ a bad bill; it is now a very bad bill, made much worse by amendments forced through at the last minute after the Committee’s line-by-line scrutiny”.

Opposition MPs accused the Government of ending long-term rented housing and presiding over the loss of genuinely affordable homes, an issue some Conservative MPs raised.

Healey insisted. “The bill sounds the death knell for social housing. Starter homes will be built in place of affordable council and housing association homes, both to buy and to rent. Councils will be forced to sell their best properties and housing associations will not replace many of their right-to-buy sales with like-for-like homes. “

He predicted the loss of at least 180,000 genuinely affordable homes to rent and buy over the next five years. And he questioned the efficacy of an eleventh-hour amendment supported by the Government which is intended to ensure that proceeds from the sale of vacant high-value assets should be used to provide new affordable homes in London on a two-for-one basis.

Healey added “We have tried to stop the worst of the plans, but Tory ministers and back benchers have opposed our proposals to give local areas the flexibility to promote not just starter homes but homes of all types, depending on local housing need; to make starter homes more affordable and protect and recycle taxpayers’ investment; to allow local areas to protect council and housing association homes with a proper replacement of each; to limit any automatic planning permission from ministers for brownfield land; and to protect stable family homes for council tenants.”

View the transcript

Roger Milne

Clark backs new housing in neighbourhood plan areas in Norfolk and near Lewes

View the recovered appeal for land north of Bishops Lane, Ringmer, East Sussex

Communities Secretary Greg Clark has allowed two appeals involving major housing developments, one in Norfolk and the other near Lewes in East Sussex. In both cases the SoS accepted the recommendation of the inspectors who held the public inquiries into plans for a combined total of 760 new dwellings. Both schemes were in locations covered by neighbourhood plans.

In respect of the Lewes proposals (for 110 dwellings at the village of Ringmer) the scheme was partly in conflict with the neighbourhood plan (NP). However Clark agreed the scheme could go ahead as the site was allocated for housing in the NP albeit for 24 fewer units. Clark said the proposals did not represent a “significant” uplift.

The larger scheme involved proposals from developer Land Fund Ltd for an urban extension providing up to 650 new homes, a third affordable, as well as community and employment facilities at land east of the A47 and to the south of the A11 at Cringleford, Norfolk originally refused by South Norfolk District Council.

The decision letter noted that the district council could not demonstrate a five year supply of housing land and that the land was allocated for new housing under the made neighbourhood plan.

In the case of the Ringmer scheme the SoS agreed with the inspector that the proposals would be a sustainable development and contribute to the provision of both market and affordable housing in the area.

The location is part of a wider area covered by an emerging local plan under preparation jointly by the South Downs National Park Authority and a number of local planning authorities including Lewes District Council which had earlier refused the project.

View the recovered appeal for land east of A47 and north of A11; land south of A11, east of A47 and west of Cringleford, Norfolk

Roger Milne

Ministers consult on the new National Infrastructure Commission

The Government has launched a consultation on the governance and general modus operandi of the newly minted National Infrastructure Commission.

The commission is expected to produce long-term needs assessments and detailed reports on specific issues. The former will be known as the National Infrastructure Assessment (NIA). The latter will be a series of priority infrastructure studies.

The sectors it will cover are the same as the Planning Act 2008 (energy, transport, water, waste water and waste) plus flood defences and digital communications.

What the commission will not do is reopen existing programmes like Smart Metering, the Roads Investment Strategy or the rail equivalent nor the recent decision of the independent Airports Commission.

The Government won’t have to do what the commission recommends, but it will have to say either how else it will meet the identified needs, or how it thinks the assessment is wrong. If the recommendations of a priority infrastructure study are endorsed by ministers, they become government policy and will be known as Endorsed Recommendations (ERs).

It is expected that ERs will incorporated into revised NPSs by government departments and will be material considerations when considering planning applications.

The commission’s remit will be set by the Chancellor and will be fiscal and economic. The Government has indicated that the commission will cover UK government areas, but can be invited by devolved administrations to work on their areas too.

View the news story

Roger Milne

PM unveils estate regeneration initiative

The PM has unveiled an initiative to target the country’s 100 worst housing estates and redevelop them. This could involve complete demolition and rebuilding in some cases.

A new Advisory Panel will be established, chaired by the indefatigable Lord Heseltine which will draw up a list of post-war estates across the country that are “ripe for re-development”.

The panel will work with up to 100,000 residents to put together regeneration plans. “For some, this will simply mean knocking them down and starting again. For others, it might mean changes to layout, upgrading facilities and improving local road and transport links” explained David Cameron.

The panel will also establish a set of binding guarantees for tenants and homeowners so that they are protected if regeneration work means they have to move out.

This initiative will be financed through a new £140m fund that would, said, Cameron, “pump-prime the planning process, temporary re-housing and early construction costs”.

He promised that this estates regeneration strategy would “sweep away” planning blockages and reduce “political and reputational risk for projects’ key decision-makers and investors”.

The PM added: “The mission here is nothing short of social turnaround, and with massive estate regeneration, tenants protected and land unlocked for new housing all over Britain, I believe that together we can tear down anything that stands in our way.”

Roger Milne

House builders deny land-banking after councils highlight unbuilt residential development

House builders have hit back at claims by local authorities that they are ‘land-banking’ and building-out schemes more slowly than in the past.

Industry body the Home Builders Federation reacted angrily to research published by the Local Government Association which showed that 475,647 homes in England had been given planning permission but had yet to be built.

The research also indicated that developers are taking longer to complete work on site. It now takes 32 months, on average, from sites receiving planning permission to building work being completed, 12 months longer than in 2007/8 according to the LGA.

The LGA argued that this underlined the need for councils to be allowed to invest more in house-building and more action to address skills shortage in the construction industry.

The HBF denied its members were land-banking. In a statement it insisted: “The vast majority of the 475,647 homes quoted by the LGA are either on sites where work has already started, or where there is not a fully ‘implementable’ permission and where it is not legal for builders to commence construction.

“Speeding up the rate at which permissions are granted, i.e. the move from ‘granted’ to ‘implementable’, is one of the keys to significant, sustainable increases in house building.

“Too many sites are stuck in the planning system, with an estimated 150,000 plots awaiting full sign off by local authorities.”

Roger Milne

Planning round-up 14 January

Watchdog queries deliverability of major government projects

A third of major government projects due to deliver in the next five years are rated as in doubt or unachievable unless action is taken to improve delivery, the National Audit Office has reported.

The spending watchdog said it was “particularly worrying” that 37 out of 106 projects which include key infrastructure schemes like Crossrail were rated as red or amber-red.

It added that initiatives had been designed to improve the oversight and delivery of these kinds of projects, but their impact had been unclear.

The NAO noted how the Infrastructure and Projects Authority (the former Major Projects Authority) and Whitehall departments had taken “many positive steps” to develop capability and provide greater assurance on improving project delivery.

The watchdog said it was difficult to tell whether performance was improving “without reliable and consistent measures of project success”.

It complained about the limited data published by departments; inconsistent reporting of costs; and the absence of systematic monitoring of whether intended benefits have been achieved.

View more information on the Thanington Park website

Canterbury homes boost

Developer Pentland Homes has obtained outline planning permission for Canterbury’s largest housing scheme in decades. The company is set to build up to 750 homes on land near Harington in Kent.

The development, known as Thanington Park, includes a business park, community centre, primary school, allotments and sports pitches, as well as a wildlife corridor linking to the adjacent Larkey Valley Wood nature reserve. It would also include a new slip-road linking the A2 and Wincheap as well as a park and ride service.

Solar power moves

North Lincolnshire Council has approved a supplementary planning document (SPD) covering solar photovoltaic (PV) power development. This expects schemes to be proposed for previously developed or industrial land, on existing roofs or integrated into new roofs and buildings. Where proposals involve farm land sites only poorer quality agricultural land will be acceptable.
Swansea Council planners have recommended approval for a solar farm at Pontarddulais despite criticism over the local authority’s lack of policy on such projects and fears the scheme might cause a glare risk to drivers on the nearby M4.
Meanwhile a 20,000 panel solar farm planned for a site in Peterlee has been approved by Durham County Council.

Crossrail 2 concerns

Crossrail 2, the proposed new rail route running from north London into Surrey, should extend as far as both Woking and Dorking, according to the county council.

Those are key findings of a study for the local authority examining ways to get the maximum benefit for Surrey’s businesses and commuters from the scheme.

Plans for the cross-London line currently take in Shepperton, Epsom, Hampton Court, Chessington South and Surbiton stations on its southern tip.

Meanwhile Hackney Council wants a fundamental rethink over proposals for a new Crossrail 2 station in Dalston, east London, which would see homes and businesses demolished and Ridley Road Market disrupted.

The council has also urged Transport for London not to use Shoreditch Park or the Britannia Leisure Centre for an access and ventilation shaft to serve the project.

In a related development amenity body the Victorian Society has warned that historic buildings which have been part of central London since the 19th century could be demolished to make way for the new rail line. The sites identified at risk by the group include several Grade II-listed buildings and part of Angel station in Islington, built in 1902.

View more information on the Crossrail 2 website

Knowsley adopts Core Strategy and deallocates nine green belt areas

Knowsley Council has formally adopted its Core Strategy which sets out how the Merseyside planning authority will deliver 8,100 new homes and develop 164-hectares of employment land by 2028. The strategy, found to be sound by a planning inspector, will involve the release of nine areas of green belt land for strategic urban extensions.

View more information on the core strategy

London round-up

Up to 360,000 extra homes could be created in London by redeveloping council estates to a higher density along street patterns, according to a government-commissioned report from real estate company Savills.
Meanwhile a new report from Atkins has claimed that the capital is significantly underestimating the level of development required to keep up with the city’s growth over the coming decades. The report highlighted concern that official infrastructure strategies are falling significantly short of projected growth rates. The document forecast that the conurbation’s population will reach 12 million by 2050, rather than the 11.3 million anticipated in the Greater London Authority’s (GLA) London Infrastructure Plan.
Recent blog by legal firm BDB’s infrastructure planning guru Angus Walker warns of trouble ahead over Heathrow expansion given current problems over air pollution in London and the prospect of legal action. View more information

Coventry land use strategies

Coventry City Council has approved for consultation a new draft local plan which identifies where up to 42,400 new homes could be built in and around the city over the next two decades.

The document sets out potential brownfield sites, a number of green belt locations within the city’s boundaries and at other sites beyond the city’s boundaries in Warwickshire.

The development strategy also highlights areas for new employment sites, services and infrastructure and proposals to further protect a number of key green areas by re designating them as local green space.

In a separate but related development car giant Jaguar Land Rover has announced its intention to invest more than £500m in its research and development complex at Whitley in addition to earlier plans to double the size of operations at the facility signalled last year.

View more information about the Coventry local plan

Mineral and waste planners like their jobs

Planners working in the minerals and waste sector have a high level of job satisfaction, according to a questionnaire survey conducted by the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI)

Some 78 percent of respondents said they “like their job” or “would not do anything else”, despite the sector often being perceived to be less attractive than other planning specialisms.

However the survey also highlighted that over 80 per cent of respondents pointed to a growing shortage of skilled and experienced mineral and waste planners, both in local authorities and the private sector.

Go-ahead for Manchester housing

Manchester City Council has approved three residential-led projects across the city at its first planning committee of 2016, including the first phase of development at the former BBC Oxford Road site now rebranded Circle Square by joint venture Bruntwood and Select Property Group.

The first planning approval for the site involved two serviced apartment buildings, 12 and 15-storeys high, providing 600 flats targeting postgraduate and mature students. The blocks will include a business incubator unit and will be surrounded by public realm space.

At Whitworth Street and Princess Street, Urban & Civic has been granted permission for two residential towers totalling 238 flats, alongside a hotel with ground floor commercial uses, a restaurant and café, and public realm.

In Hulme the council has approved a development involving the building of 172 new homes for market rent on Royce Road and Leaf Street.

The project, known as ‘Hulme Living’, will see a mixture of two-bed flats and three-bed townhouses built across the two sites by housing association One Manchester.

View more information

Horsham business and science park ambition

West Sussex County Council has unveiled an ambitious project to transform a site vacated by pharmaceutical giant Novartis at Horsham into a science and business park, financed by housing.

The council has agreed to buy the eight hectare site at Wimblehurst Road. Subject to planning approval, two thirds of the site will be redeveloped as a science park, while one third will be set aside for housing.

The council is now working with architects and planners on designing a mix of research and laboratory floor space, office accommodation and start-up facilities.

Under the agreement with Novartis, all buildings on the site will be cleared except the locally important 1930s Art Deco building. That will be converted for residential use and the avenue of cedar trees leading to its door will also be protected.

Rhymney Valley opencast mine appeal

Mining company Miller Argent has decided to appeal following Caerphilly Council’s rejection of its proposal for a 478 hectare opencast mine in the Rhymney Valley at Nant Llesg.

Legal round-up

The High Court has dismissed Sainsbury’s and developer Eshton Gregory (Hebden Bridge) Ltd’s legal challenge to a planning Inspector’s dismissal of their appeal over Calderdale Council’s refusal of planning permission for a new store and three flats and five town houses on the site of the former Hebden Bridge’s fire station at the heart of the town’s conservation area.
NHS Property Services is mounting a legal challenge to Surrey County Council’s decision to register land in Leatherhead near a hospital as a village green.
A property owner who put red and white stripes on her mews house in London has been ordered to comply with a section 215 notice issued by the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea and repaint her home, which is in a conservation area, white.

RTPI streamlines chartered membership

The Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) is to streamline the ways that professionals can achieve chartered membership.

From January 2017 onwards, the requirements to become a chartered member (MRTPI), for those who do not follow the accredited Assessment of Professional Competence (APC) route (used by graduates of RTPI-accredited planning schools), will be changing to competency-based routes.

The RTPI is also re-designing its membership structure to ensure existing technical members have a clear route to achieve chartered status.