Planning Portal Blog

Two major energy infrastructure projects have hit problems in the last week. A huge Welsh onshore wind farm has been rejected by the UK Government while ministers have delayed a decision on a key pipeline project designed to transport carbon dioxide captured from a new coal-fired power station in Yorkshire and inject it into a saline storage site under the North Sea.

The Mynydd y Gwynt Wind Farm was refused development consent by Energy Secretary Amber Rudd against the advice of the planning inspector who examined the 27-turbine proposal earmarked for a site east of Aberystwyth.

Rudd’s decision letter said consent could not be granted because the SoS could not be sure there would not be an adverse effect on the red kite population in the nearby Elenydd-Mallaen Special Protection Area (SPA).

Meanwhile Energy Minister Andrea Leadsom has announced there will be six-month delay in a government decision on National Grid’s Yorkshire and Humber carbon capture and storage (CCS) cross country pipeline scheme.

The pipeline would transport CO2 from the proposed White Rose CCS-equipped coal-fired power station via a multi-junction at Camblesforth (North Yorkshire) to a coastal point near Barmston (East Riding of Yorkshire).

The project had been the subject of an application for development consent under the planning regime for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs).

The scheme had been examined by the Planning Inspectorate and a recommendation submitted to ministers three months ago. A decision was due by 19 November.

Ministers have now exercised the right to insist on an extension before making a decision. In this case the six-month delay will allow time for a development consent decision to be made on the White Rose CCS plant. This is due next spring.

View the press release for Mynydd y Gwynt wind farm

View the ministerial statement for the Proposed Yorkshire and Humber CCS

 

Roger Milne

Latest housing stats

The Department for Communities and Local Government has published statistics on house building starts in England for the September quarter 2015.

These indicated that seasonally adjusted starts are now 100 per cent above the trough in the March quarter 2009 but 30 per cent below the March quarter 2007 peak. Completions are 28 per cent below their March quarter 2007 peak.

Annual housing starts totalled 137,490 in the 12 months to September 2015, down by one per cent compared with the year before. Annual housing completions in England totalled 135,050 in the 12 months to September 2015, an increase of 17 per cent compared with the previous 12 months.

Other findings showed that seasonally adjusted house building starts in England were estimated at 34,250 in the September quarter 2015, a two per cent increase compared to the previous quarter. The seasonally adjusted level of starts in the September quarter 2015 increased by two per cent on the same quarter a year earlier.

Private enterprise housing starts (seasonally adjusted) were one per cent higher in the September quarter 2015 than the previous quarter, whilst starts by housing associations were 10 per cent higher.

View the press release

 

Lewis urges pragmatic s106 affordable homes renegotiations

Planning minister Brandon Lewis has written to English councils asking them to be flexible and pragmatic when asked by developers to renegotiate affordable housing delivery.

In the letter Lewis voiced concerns that, following a government announcement that social rents will be reduced from 2016-17, schemes for the development of housing association properties “are not being built out at the anticipated rate”.

The minister predicted developers would be approaching councils to renegotiate section 106 agreements to adjust the type of affordable housing provision.

He urged local authorities “to respond constructively, rapidly and positively to requests for such renegotiations and to take a pragmatic and proportionate approach to viability”.

Lewis said the “minimum amount of viability information necessary” should be sought where developers proposed a reduction in affordable housing contributions. He said proposals to change the mix of tenures provided without reducing the overall affordable housing contribution were unlikely to warrant new viability assessments.

He also recommended that section 106 agreements should be drafted to allow for “the delivery of alternative forms of affordable housing if this becomes necessary”.

The minister said officials would be contacting councils to gauge the extent of renegotiations and what action was being taken.

View the letter

 

Report highlights growth deal variations

Analysis of the first suite of English Growth Deals agreed between central government and Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) undertaken by consultancy Nathaniel Lichfield Partners (NLP) has highlighted that transport schemes are the main focus of the funding and the level of private sector investment leveraged by the deals varies “widely”.

The funding is based on a formula approach and most LEPs have extended this through a process of making competitive bids to government. This means that some LEPs have received a lot more public funding and identified greater private sector leverage than others (a key condition of this public grant), particularly in comparison to relative population size.

As a result of the dual system of formula allocation and competitive bidding, the NLP assessment found there was no overall national pattern of investment to areas of relative economic strength or weakness.

The anticipated impacts of the new projects in terms of potential number of new jobs supported and new dwellings also varied widely. Individual LEP estimates of the impact of every additional £1m of funding from the extension of the Growth Deals ranged between 25 to 748 additional jobs supported and between 15 to 304 new dwellings.

View the report

 

London round-up

• London Mayor Boris Johnson has given his seal of approval for the capital’s largest single regeneration development, a scheme earmarked for the Greenwich Peninsula. A revised master plan for nearly 12,678 homes and 12,000 jobs on a previously disused 80 hectare former gasworks site has been signed off. The proposals are designed to create an entire new district formed of five neighbourhood zones.
• Transport for London is pushing ahead with plans to build 10,000 homes across the capital during the next decade, as it submits planning applications for three sites in Nine Elms, Northwood and Parsons Green. The group that runs London’s public-transport network has begun the first wave of its property development programme that will see it build homes across 75 sites, spanning 121 hectares of land.
• Housing developer HUB has submitted plans for 239 homes on the former site of the Chesterfield House council building in Wembley. The north west London development will be made up of two blocks of 26 and 21 storeys, one consisting entirely of affordable housing, some 43 per cent of the total provision.
• Ed Watson has been named as Westminster City Council’ new Executive Director of Growth, Planning and Housing. He will start his new role in January 2016. He is currently Camden Council’s Director of Culture and Environment.

 

Development plan pilots fund

A £600,000 challenge fund to enable local authorities to make changes to their planning service to help them deliver neighbourhood and local plans has been unveiled by the Department for Communities and Local Government.

The funding is being made available in the 2015-16 financial year to pilot authorities to help them:

• Support neighbourhood planning by piloting ways of making neighbourhood planning an integral part of their planning service, for example in relation to local plan-making
• To identify ways of involving or delegating planning decisions to neighbourhood planning groups
• To make changes to their service to ensure that they have an up-to-date local plan in place by 2017.

Pilot authorities will also be expected to deliver resources, toolkits and reports that can assist other local authorities in supporting neighbourhood and local plans. DCLG has said un-ring-fenced grants of up to £60,000 will be available to successful planning authorities.

View the publication

 

Garden village viability report

Private sector-led garden villages providing up to 5,000 homes could play a significant role in meeting the country’s housing shortage, a discussion paper prepared by house builder Barratt Developments has argued.

The builder has looked at a notional development of 5,000 mixed tenure homes, office and employment space, community services and transport and green infrastructure.

It said such a settlement could be entirely privately financed and require no public money. It would however require amendments to the National Planning Policy Framework.

Delivery could involve Garden Village Creation Company, in effect an Asset Backed Vehicle with developer(s), participating landowners and financial institutions(s), plus a so-called Promotion Vehicle to deliver the development and a Stewardship Vehicle to manage the legacy.

The paper said an economic appraisal identified total costs for the settlement of £800m and revenues that generate surpluses of £300m and an internal rate of return well in excess of 20 per cent.

The paper said: “Garden Villages present a solution for meeting housing needs because they are of a sufficient scale to deliver infrastructure and benefits for residents, but not so large as to necessitate costs and intervention that erect major barriers to delivery”.

View the press release

 

Fewer Welsh councils will mean £650m savings claims minister

Welsh Public Services Minister Leighton James claimed this week that plans to cut the existing 22 local authorities to eight or nine would result in £650m savings over 10 years.

That claim was made as the Welsh administration published the draft legislation required to slim-down Welsh local government and halve the number of planning authorities. The bill is not intended to become law until after the Welsh Assembly elections in May 2016.

View the draft local government (Wales) bill

 

Legal round-up

• A High Court judge has ruled that Lambeth Council’s decision to stop consulting on refurbishment options for a south London housing estate and focus on regeneration alone was unlawful.
• Tarmac has won a Court of Appeal battle over whether the use of waste in restoring a quarry was waste disposal or waste recovery.
• Slough Borough Council has secured a £300,000 confiscation order, its largest ever under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, in a case involving an outbuilding used for housing without planning permission.
• A QC is seeking to raise £20,000 through crowd funding to take a planning case through to the Court of Appeal. Chiswick resident Simon Kverndal QC is seeking to challenge Hounslow Council’s decision to give Lend Lease permission to develop a residential complex of 13, 8, 7 and 6 storey buildings on Chiswick High Road overlooking Turnham Green in west London.

 

European lessons on how to do it

New insights from Europe show how France, Germany and the Netherlands have successfully tackled housing and regeneration by using planning skills and tools to stimulate, not just regulate, development in a way that is markedly different from the UK, according to a RTPI report.

In this new study, researchers from the University of Liverpool have identified five specific stratagems, seldom used in the UK, that have led to faster and better development, especially housing development, in Western Europe.

These involve:

• Upfront infrastructure investment to shape future development
• This investment builds support for urban extensions, so tackling ‘NIMBYism’
• Land assembly and readjustment whereby an overarching body actively seeks out and temporarily pools together private development rights
• Strong planning institutions to coordinate this development
• Regional coalition-building and strategic planning across administrative boundaries to reflect functional economic areas.

View the press release

 

Stroud local plan made

The Stroud District Local Plan has been formally adopted by the council. It is the first planning authority in Gloucestershire to have an up to date development plan.

The strategy has made provision for at least 11,400 homes to be built over the 25-year period between 2006 and 2031. The number includes over 7,700 homes which have already been built or have planning permission and 4,200 homes to be developed on sites identified in the plan. Some 1,350 new homes are planned for a development west of Stonehouse.

On average, 470 homes need to be built each year over the next 16 years to accommodate the expected needs of the district. The plan also supports the development of 58 hectares of employment land over the plan period.

View more information on the Stroud District Local Plan

 

Tallest Welsh building planned for Cardiff

Bangor-based developer Watkin Jones has submitted plans for a 42-storey student residential block for a site in Cardiff city centre which would be Wales’s tallest building.

The proposed 132metre building would dwarf the Meridian Tower in Swansea, currently the tallest in Wales.

The scheme would provide some 447 student bedrooms in a mix of cluster flats, studios and one bedroom flats, along with communal and management facilities and a commercial unit at ground floor level.

View the news story on the BBC

 

Three more successful NP referendums

Three more neighborhood plans (NPs) have passed muster following referendums organised by the relevant local authorities in, respectively, Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Nottinghamshire.

The Welbourn NP had an approval rating of 88.4 per cent on a 48 per cent turn-out; Brancaster NP obtained 82 per cent of the votes on a 33 per cent turn-out, while the East Leake NP polled 94 per cent yes-votes on a turn-out of nearly 25 per cent.

View more information about the Welbourn NP

View more information about the Brancaster NP

View more information about the East Leake NP

 

Manchester developments

NOMA, a central Manchester regeneration project on land owned by The Co-operative Group and Hermes Real Estate, has received planning permission for two office developments at Angel Square.

The buildings will collectively provide more than 32,516 square metres of commercial floor space over nine and 11 storeys, and have been designed by AHR architects. The site is opposite the newly refurbished Victoria Station.

Find out more information about NOMA

 

Ipswich listed brewery makeover

An outline planning application has been lodged with Ipswich Borough Council to turn the listed Tolly Cobbold brewery at Cliff Quay, Ipswich, into a mixed-use development providing a cafe, restaurant, business start-ups, an auditorium and a conference space with other parts of the site being turned into a health club and 222 flats.

A separate full planning application has been submitted by Pigeon Developments for a change of use from a redundant Victorian brewery to mixed commercial and residential use.

View the news story on the BBC

 

Chef to trash home

TV chef Gordon Ramsay has announced proposals to demolish his £4.4m home in Rock, Cornwall and replace it with a luxury five-bedroom villa with a swimming pool, and a three-bedroom boathouse.

View the news story on the BBC

 

Petition to save illegal mock Tudor castle

More than a thousand people have signed a petition backing calls to halt the proposed demolition of a mock-Tudor castle built without planning permission which has been at the centre of a planning and legal saga involving Reigate & Banstead Borough Council.

Farmer Robert Fidler hid the castle behind bales for four years when he built it in Redhill, Surrey. A High Court judge has ordered him to demolish it by June. If he fails to do so he will be jailed for three months.

A petition, with 1,200 signatures, calls on the council to stop the “wasteful” enforcement.

 

 

Roger Milne

Two more devolution deals involving city regions were announced this week, one for the West Midlands and the other for Merseyside.

The West Midlands agreement signed between ministers and members of the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) Shadow Board will translate into over £1bn of government investment to boost the regional authority economy.

The deal puts Britain’s second city and the wider West Midlands in line to be governed by a metro-mayor. They will work together across an area that runs from Telford and Wolverhampton in the west to Coventry and Nuneaton in the east and from Tamworth in the north to Redditch in the south.

Voters in the West Midlands will now choose a directly elected mayor in 2017, who will take on a raft of new powers including local transport budgets and franchised bus services and increased responsibility over employment support and skills provision.

The Government has also backed key transport ambitions for the region including funding the Curzon Street Enterprise Zone extension and funding the Metro extension to Eastside, subject to a business case.

Planning powers will be conferred on the mayor, to drive housing delivery and improvements in housing stock, and give the same competencies as the Homes and Communities Agency.

The Government will also work with the WMCA Land Commission, has committed to support the first part of the HS2 Growth Strategy and will work with the Combined Authority through the development of the second Roads Investment Strategy to explore options for reducing congestion on the strategic road network in the West Midlands.

In respect of Merseyside the agreement is scheduled to provide some £900m in government spending to help unlock the economic potential of the River Mersey and its new super port as well as maximising the opportunities from HS2.

The deal also includes support for Liverpool’s strengths in attracting major international events, with backing for the city’s International Festival for Business as well as its cultural attractions.

The new, directly elected Liverpool City Region Mayor will act as chair to the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority and will exercise the following powers and functions devolved from central government:

• Responsibility for a devolved and consolidated local transport budget
• Responsibility for franchised bus services, which will support the Combined Authority’s delivery of smart and integrated ticketing
• Powers over strategic planning, including the responsibility to create a Single Statutory City Region Framework, a Mayoral Development Corporation and to develop with government a Land Commission and a Joint Assets Board for economic assets.

View the news stories on .GOV.UK

Historic devolution deal to power the Midlands Engine

Liverpool devolution deal boosts the Northern Powerhouse

 

Roger Milne

Andrew Adonis, interim Chair of the National Infrastructure Commission, has set out his organisation’s immediate priorities and launched a major call for evidence which focuses on three of the UK’s most critical infrastructure challenges.

The call for evidence puts the spotlight on:

• Northern Connectivity: Particularly identifying priorities for future investment in the North’s strategic transport infrastructure to improve connectivity between cities, especially east-west across the Pennines
• London’s Transport System: Particularly reviewing strategic options for future investment in large scale transport improvements on road, rail and underground including Crossrail 2
• Energy: Reviewing how the UK can better balance supply and demand.

The call for evidence will close on 8 January 2016. The Commission has been asked to publish its report on these three areas before next year’s Budget. It will welcome submissions from local government, NGOs, academics and all interested parties involved with infrastructure provision.

In a related development ministers have decided to merge the Major Projects Authority and Infrastructure UK  to create the Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA).

The IPA will bring together government expertise in the financing, delivery and assurance for projects, which range from large scale infrastructure schemes such as Crossrail and the Thames Tideway Tunnel to major transformation programmes such as Universal Credit.

This new body will be formally created on 1 January 2016 and will report to both the Chancellor and the Minister for the Cabinet Office. Its first chief executive will be the existing chief executive of the MPA, Tony Meggs.

View the news story

 

Roger Milne

Over the last decade 12,500 new homes and businesses have been built in coastal areas in England, Wales and Northern Ireland which are at risk of significant erosion or flooding, according to a report compiled for conservation charity National Trust (NT).

It has urged greater action from the Government and environmental agencies to make sure all coastal areas are ready for the challenges presented by more frequent sever storm and rising sea-levels. The NT pointed out that coastal development had gone ahead despite strong official advice to the contrary.

The report also highlighted that only one in three coastal planning authorities in England have up-to-date planning policies in place to deal with the impact of climate change caused by global warming.

The Trust has argued for what it called a bolder and more imaginative approach to coastal management, one that relied more on understanding how nature works and is based on adaptation rather than engineered defences.

The report said this would mean an end to the ineffective cycle of continually rebuilding concrete sea defences and instead relocating buildings, infrastructure and habitats to safe areas further inland.

Phil Dyke, Coastal Marine Adviser at the charity, said: “We need to actively transition from maintaining old defences to working with natural processes, where and when it’s appropriate, to conserve the beauty and wildlife of our coastline.”

View the press release

 

Roger Milne

The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) has called for an overhaul of the way local authorities set housing targets after claiming the present system led to countryside being lost unnecessarily.

The pressure group claimed in a report that research it has commissioned showed that local authorities were being asked to base their plans on aspiration rather than need. This resulted in ever higher housing targets and the consequent unnecessary release of countryside for development without an increase in overall house building.

CPRE commissioned Housing Vision, housing market consultants, and Tibbalds Planning and Urban Design, to review the methodologies used to determine “objectively assessed need” for housing since the introduction of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) in 2012.

CPRE insisted there were a large number of problems with how the targets are calculated and said the research found a lack of clear guidance in the process, a lack of objectivity in the calculations, and a lack of concern for land availability and environmental impacts.

The organisation said the research demonstrated that the unrealistic targets were putting undue pressure on the countryside. “Setting targets far higher than can be realistically built just means that developers have more sites to choose from: as static building rates show, higher targets do not mean faster delivery” argued CPRE.

View the press release

 

Roger Milne

The Department for Communities and Local Government must work with local areas to strengthen local scrutiny and accountability arrangements as City Deals are implemented, MPs have insisted.

In a report on the first wave of City Deals, the influential Commons Public Accounts Committee voiced concern over who was accountable for public funds devolved through this devolution. This issue was particularly important for devolved healthcare spending, it said.

The all-party committee was also concerned at a lack of monitoring and evaluation in the first wave of deals. This had made it difficult to assess their overall effectiveness.

MPs were critical of the fact that the administration could not explain clearly and simply whether responsibility for the outcomes of individual City Deal programmes rested with local or central government.

MPs proposed DCLG should agree a common approach to measuring and evaluating the outcomes of growth programmes, including job creation, with other government departments and local areas. This was needed “to ensure one geographical area is not ‘growing’ at the expense of another” argued the MPs.

Meg Hillier MP, chair of the PAC, said: “The fact that the Government cannot adequately explain where responsibility lies for the success or failure of City Deal programmes should sound an alarm.”

The Commons is currently considering the government’s latest legislation on this front, the cities and local government devolution bill.

View more information about the cities and local government devolution bill

 

Roger Milne

House-building booms

House-building in England during 2014-15 was up by 25 per cent on the previous year, according to official figures.

Data released last week by the Department for Communities and Local Government also showed the highest annual percentage increase in net additional homes for 28 years.

In addition the statistics indicated that the number of Right to Buy sales had risen by five per cent over the preceding 12 months.

These figures showed that annual housing supply in England amounted to 170,690 net additional dwellings in 2014-15, a 25 per cent increase in net additional dwellings from 2013-14.

The 170,690 net additions figure for 2014-15 comprised 155,080 new build homes, 4,950 additional homes resulting from conversions, 20,650 additional homes resulting from change of use, 630 other gains and a loss of 10,610 homes through demolitions.

Since 2010 there has been a net increase in housing supply of 704,310 new dwellings across England. The Government claimed the figures were evidence that changes to housing and planning policy was having an impact.

View the press release

 

Blackpool Airport gains Enterprise Zone status

Blackpool Airport has been given Enterprise Zone status. This will pave the way for the first planning application to be submitted, a proposal for energy headquarters for Lancashire.

Enterprise Zone status, which comes into effect in April 2016, will transform the area into a key employment site with the potential of nearly 140 new businesses and as many as 3,000 new jobs up to 2030.

The airport, which shut last year, has become a new arm of the Lancashire Enterprise Zone currently made up of sites in Warton and Salmesbury.

The Blackpool Airport corridor site provides five development zones capable of supporting some 175,000 square metres of activity.

The layout of the site has been designed so that commercial airport use of the site in the future remains a possibility, particularly with proposals for a new passenger terminal and the runway remaining in place The green belt status of some areas of the site is unaffected by the EZ designation.

View the press release

 

Chippenham sites plan criticised by inspector

Wiltshire Council has agreed to review key elements of a draft site allocations plan for Chippenham after a planning inspector raised “fundamental concerns” over the adequacy of the site selection procedure adopted by the planning authority.

At issue was the ranking exercise used, the adequacy of the sustainability appraisal and question marks over deliverability.

The inspector said substantial further information and work was needed which meant the public examination should be suspended for perhaps six months.

A Wiltshire Council spokesman said: “We followed an approach agreed by a previous core strategy inspector. However it became apparent early on that this inspector had concerns with elements of the process.

“The council remains committed to delivering a plan and is keen to develop a process that fully allays the inspector’s concerns. We are considering our response and expect to respond to the inspector around the end of the month.”

View more information

 

Fund to tackle ‘beds-in-sheds’

Ministers have announced a new £5m fund to help councils tackle rogue landlords and crack-down on ‘beds in sheds’. Councils can use the money to:

• Increase inspections of property
• Carry out more raids
• Initiate more enforcement action and prosecutions
• Demolish sheds and buildings that are prohibited.

View the press release

 

Turbine trouble in Scotland and England

Scottish minsters have refused consent for a 22 turbine wind farm located at Sallachy and Duchally estate in central Sutherland and a 23 turbine wind farm situated at Glencassley Estate, by Lairg also in Sutherland.

Ministers decided the projects would have an unacceptable impact on a National Scenic Area (NSA) and the Reay-Cassley wild land area.

Meanwhile south of the Border Communities Secretary Greg Clark has refused another two onshore wind projects.

This time the schemes, each for a single turbine, were on neighbouring farms at Thorpe Satchville near Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire. Both had also been the subject of a legal challenge.

In the case of the proposal for Hall Farm, which had been built, the inspector who had held both recovered appeal hearings had recommended the appeal should be successful. In respect of the Park Farm scheme he recommended dismissal of the scheme.

Clark determined that neither turbine should be allowed, citing conflict with local development policies, the cumulative effect when taken into consideration with other projects and the fact local concerns had not been addressed.

View the press release

 

Three more neighbourhood plans voted through

Three more neighbourhood plans made the grade last week after referendums including one (for Elkesley in Nottinghamshire) which was the first for anywhere in that county and the first involving Bassetlaw District Council. On a 36 per cent turn-out the strategy polled a swingeing 93 per cent in favour.

The other two plans were for South Wootton in west Norfolk and Ringmer near Lewes in East Sussex. The former polled 90 per cent approval on a 23 per cent turn-out. The latter came home comfortably with 92 per cent voting yes on a turn-out of 42 per cent.

View more information on the local plans:

Elkesley neighbourhood plan

South Wootton Parish neighbourhood plan

Ringmer neighbourhood plan

 

Transport moves

• A multi-million pound project to extend the Nottingham tram system to Derby is being treated as a “priority” for the devolution package under consideration by East Midlands local authorities The tram scheme, which currently serves the Nottingham area, would also run to East Midlands Airport and the proposed HS2 station at Toton.
• Oxfordshire County Council has started consulting on two route options for a so-called South East Perimeter Road in Bicester. The new road would support employment and housing growth in the town and relieve pressure on the A41.
• Leeds City Council starts public consolations shortly on three options for improving access to Leeds Bradford Airport. Two would see the creation of a new link road while the alterative would involve widening existing roads and upgrading junctions. The project could cost between £15m and £75m.
• A 46-strong team has been appointed as the independent design panel that will support the High Speed 2 (HS2) project. The Panel is chaired by Sadie Morgan, a founding director of dRMM Architects who will act as the project’s independent advisor.
• Bath and North East Somerset Council has agreed in principle on a new park-and-ride site on the outskirts of the city but has deferred a decision of the exact location at Bathampton Meadows. The council will review the three alternatives. Local residents are concerned the proposed facility could compromise Bath’s World Heritage Site status.

 

Energy developments

• Plans for a major new energy infrastructure project linking Great Britain’s electricity transmission network to France will go on display at a number of venues in the Fareham and Gosport areas of Hampshire. The high voltage direct current (HVDC) 1,000 megawatt power link will involve sub-sea cables under the Channel between Hampshire and Normandy and a convertor station at the Daedalus airfield near Fareham.
• Doncaster Council has voiced concern over potential health and safety issues at the Hatfield Colliery site in the wake of Historic England’s decision to spot-list the former colliery’s two headstocks as Grade 11 structures. The South Yorkshire planning authority says it faces a £1m bill to make the structures safe. They were due to be demolished.
• Hinkley & Bosworth Borough Council has approved proposals for two separate solar power projects on Leicestershire farmland with a combined capacity of nearly nine megawatts.

 

New Truro stadium inches closer

Communities Secretary Greg Clark has decided not to call-in proposals for a new 4,000-seater stadium which Truro City Football Club wants to build which would be paid for by the redevelopment of its existing home in Treyew Road as a retail park.

View the press release

 

SuDS advice

What is claimed to be the UK’s most comprehensive guidance on Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SuDS) has just been published by construction industry body CIRIA. The advice focuses on the cost-effective planning, design, construction, operation and maintenance of SuDS.

View the press release

 

Space shaping

Fields in Trust, the successor to the National Playing Fields Association, has published its latest and most up to date guide to open space provision and design.

Called ‘Guidance for Outdoor Sport and Play: Beyond the Six Acre Standard’ the publication is aimed at local planning authorities, developers, planners, urban designers and landscape architects involved in the planning and design of outdoor sport, play and informal open space.

View the press release

 

Reading BC mulls further controls on HMOs in conservation areas

Further measures to curb the number of Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMO) in Reading’s conservation areas are being considered by the borough council. These include the making of a ‘non-immediate Article 4 Direction’ to remove permitted development rights to convert property into HMOs.

While this will not ban the future creation of HMOs it means planning permission will be required. There is already an Article 4 Direction in place for the Jesse Terrace area covering all external alterations.

View the press release

 

Kent round-up

• An egg producer has withdrawn plans to build a huge chicken farm in Kent big enough to accommodate 64,000 birds. The company, Fridays Ltd, has decided not to proceed with the scheme earmarked for a site on the outskirts of Hormonden claiming the local planning authority, Tunbridge Wells Borough Council, wanted further technical material to support the application.
• Sevenoaks District Council has announced it is starting work on a new master plan as part of proposals to regenerate Swanley and Hextable which will include a major revamp of Swanley’s town centre and its ageing shopping centre.  The council has been approached by U + I Group (formerly called Development Securities) the major landowner in Swanley town centre. The company has signalled interest in redeveloping the centre with a mix of retail and business space as well as new housing and a new hotel.

 

Capital development

• Kingston Council has confirmed that a developer is eyeing up the possibility of building hundreds of flats as well as providing a swimming pool, leisure centre and a football pitches at the Chessington Golf Centre which is located in green belt on the south west flank of London.
• Haringey Council has announced plans to create a company to help build 5,000 new homes across 20 different council sites in Tottenham and Wood Green in north London.
• The City of London Corporation has approved Lipton Rogers’ 62-storey skyscraper proposed for 22 Bishopsgate in the heart of the Square Mile.

 

Legal round-up

• The Court of Appeal has granted Central Bedfordshire Council permission to appeal against a judge’s decision to refuse permission for judicial review after a planning inspector found that the authority had failed to comply with duty to cooperate when preparing its local plan.
• The High Court last week heard a challenge brought by the French Government over the validity of certificates of lawfulness issued by the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea for works to the basement of a property next door to the French embassy. The owners of the property (the former Soviet mission) are Jon Hunt, founder of the Foxtons estate agency, and his wife Lois. They intend to house their collection of vintage cars in the expanded basement.
• Three separate groups of campaigners are using the Crowd Justice website in a bid to fund legal battles over renewable energy projects. Two are in Devon (at Harberton and on the Frogmore Estuary) while the third is the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire.
• A High Court judge has dismissed a judicial review challenge over the introduction of a so-called ‘mini- Holland’ cycling scheme in north-east London drawn up by Waltham Forest Council with £27m of funding from Transport for London secured in 2014. The project is intended to make the borough more cycle friendly and encourage more people to take up cycling and walking.

 

Bath bridge

A French architect has won the competition to design a new bridge across the River Avon in Bath. Marc Mimram’s pedestrian and cycle bridge, called Between History and Modernity, will link the new Bath Quays development with the city centre.

View the press release

 

Heseltine to chair new Tees Valley initiative

The Government has appointed Lord Michael Heseltine to chair a new inward investment programme initiative for the Tees Valley, following the closure of the SSIsteelworks in Redcar. This move will support existing local plans.

View the press release

 

Circuit of Wales project common land deal approved

Welsh ministers have approved plans to deregister common land needed for the controversial Circuit of Wales project near Ebbw Vale.

A land swap is part of the deal which now means the £315m scheme should start to climb off the drawing board in earnest.  However, questions still remain over the funding for the proposals.

View more information

 

Roger Milne