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With PPS3 maintaining the need for local planning authorities to demonstrate a deliverable five year supply of housing land and the absence of up-to-date development plans, many applications for housing are considering whether the local planning authority in question, can demonstrate such a supply. Click heading for more info.
Since its election last May, the Coalition Government’s policy announcements regarding planning and development have, for the most part, raised issues of serious concern for the development industry. In particular, the measures in the Localism Bill to abolish regional spatial strategies, in which the development industry had invested significant time and resources to obtain certainty; and to give local authorities responsibility for setting housing numbers. Click heading for more info.
Planning Policy Guidance Note 13: Transport was updated in January 2011 to reflect changes to parking standards and charges in England, namely removing the requirement for local authorities to set maximum parking limits for residential development in their area. The Government’s position on parking standards is that local authorities are best placed to take account of local circumstances and are able to make the right decisions for their area, based on individual circumstances. This breaks with the recent trend for Government policy to encourage sustainable travel choices and force people out of their cars with limited car parking and high parking charges. Click heading for more info.
The Government’s supported feed-in tariff (FiT) incentive scheme launched in April 2010, which sought to increase the delivery of photovoltaic installations, has fallen victim of its own success with the Government announcing a Review of the rates applied to the tariff. Click heading for more info.
HPP gain planning permission for innovative large extension to small historic cottage in the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Site: The Old Bull Pens, Nr Cheltenham, Gloucestershire
The site comprises a small 1 bedroom Cotswold stone barn conversion. Originally a bull pen building, the site forms part of a historic complex of Cotswold vernacular stone barns. The site is located within a designated Conservation Area and the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). Click heading for more info.
The publication of the South West regional spatial strategy (RSS) is being delayed while the government waits to see if the recent successful legal challenge against the East of England Plan affects it.
The strategy had been due to be issued by the end of June but this week the Government Office for the South West (GOSW) wrote to all the region’s local authorities to explain the latest position. Click heading for more info.
Two councils have launched legal challenges over the government's requirement to build thousands of homes on green belt land in their areas in the South East Plan.
Guildford Borough Council and South Oxfordshire District Council have served legal papers to the High Court. Click heading for more info.
Local authorities have been urged to be more flexible in granting planning permissions with longer time limits following new rules to extend existing consents. Click heading for more info.
Shadow planning minister Bob Neill has confirmed the Conservatives would scrap the pre-determination rule that bars politicians who have spoken out on planning applications from sitting on related committees.
Speaking at the 2009 RTPI conference on Friday, shadow planning minister Bob Neill said: "We would scrap the pre-determination rule that at the moment means that if a member of a planning authority makes a comment on an application then they are then debarred from taking part in it. Most people outside our professional world think that is just potty. Click heading for more info.
The pace of decline in the construction sector is easing, according to the latest RICS construction market survey.
Construction workloads remained in negative territory for the fourth consecutive quarter with 45 percent more surveyors reporting a fall rather than a rise in overall workloads in the first quarter, up from a net balance of -47. Click heading for more info