December 2001

Introduction
After months of waiting, the Government has published its planning green paper, 'Planning: Delivering a Fundamental Change', which sets out the Government's ideas for the reform of land use planning in England.

An electronic version of the green paper is available on the Department of Transport, Local Government and the Region's website at http://www.planning.dtlr.gov.uk/consult/greenpap/index.htm The devolved administrations will be issuing separate consultations. In addition, papers are due in the coming weeks on (1) the compulsory purchase process, (2) Parliamentary procedures for major infrastructure projects and (3) planning obligations.

The BCC's immediate response to the green paper has been positive. The document recognises our major concerns about the impact of planning on economic competitive and attempts to address a range of issues around layers of bureaucracy, unwieldy development plans and inefficient processing of planning applications.

The Government is asking for responses by 18 March 2002. I am therefore asking for your responses by Friday 1 March to have time to collate the BCC's response.

In order to help this process, I am setting out overleaf the key proposals in the document and providing initial BCC commentary based on our submission to the green paper earlier this year. You will see a great deal of similarity with the BCC's submission, which I am also attaching in its entirety. I am particularly interested in your views on the following points:

• Local Development Frameworks, including their statement of core policies and action plans and how these should operate.
• How business community involvement is best delivered.
• What method other than public local inquiry can be used to test the new Local Development Frameworks.
• Regional Spatial Strategies and the extent to which they answer the confusion at regional level.
• Who is best placed to draw up Regional Spatial Strategies.
• A new process to replace outline consents with a certificate from local authorities.
• Whether we should press for Chambers to have statutory consultee status, given it would mean guaranteed consultation, but also a vastly increased workload.
• Delivery contracts for bigger developments and how these should work.
• Review of permitted development rights.
• Business planning zones.
• Fee levels and charging for pre application discussions.

With best wishes

Kirsty McHugh,
BCC Policy Unit

Problems
Chapter four of the green paper is devoted to identifying the problems with the current planning system. The following are specifically mentioned:

1) Complexity: the multi-layered structure of plans and inconsistencies between tiers of plan; national planning guidance that is too long and unfocused; lack of clarity about rules apply to types of development (ie type of consent needed); and obscurity of the planning appeals procedure.
2) Speed and predictability: slow and variable speed of decision making; lack of predictability, slow and expensive procedure for updating plans; and slowness in dealing with appeals and call-ins.
3) Community engagement: procedures which are very consultative, but fail to engage communities; protracted procedures for the adoption of plans favouring those with time and money; planning committees not giving applicants or objectors enough opportunity to make their case; and legalistic planning procedures demanding specialist knowledge.
4) Customer focus and standards of service: difficulty in obtaining straightforward advice on applications; user-friendly information not readily available; local planning authorities burdened with householder applications and giving too little time to complex commercial and industrial applications; serious skill and resource shortages in planning departments; and poorly training councillors on planning committees.
5) Enforcement: often ineffective.

BCC comment: We identified the majority of these in our submission to the green paper. We also mentioned lack of coherence at regional level, out-of-date development plans, lack of integration between regeneration objectives and local planning policy, chronic underfunding and lack of clarity around s106 agreements (planning gain). Some of these issues are addressed later in the document.

Proposals: Plans
The green paper is proposing to keep the plan-led system. However, it believes there must be fundamental reform. Namely:

• Simplification of the plan hierarchy, reducing tiers and clarifying the relationship between them;
• Shorter, more focused plans at local level which can be adopted and revised more easily;
• Communities engaged more closely in the process of plan preparation; and
• Improved integration with other local strategies and plans.

• The abolition of structure plans, local plans and unitary development plans and replacement with a new single level of plan called a Local Development Framework (LDF). This would consist of a statement of core policies, more detailed action plans for smaller areas of change (see below) and a map showing key sites and areas. These would be easier to prepare, amend and keep up-to-date. Development control decisions would be made against the Local Development Framework.
• The LDF's statement of core policies would set out the Framework's role in delivering the long term vision in the Community Strategy, clear objectives for what the local authority wants to achieve, a strategy for delivering objectives, a statement of community involvement and criteria based policies to help development control (transport, planning obligations, waste disposal, etc).
• The LDF's action plans would most likely focus on areas of intense change or areas that need protecting. These could be for major regeneration areas, villages or green belt boundaries, etc.
• Community involvement would be achieved through the Local Strategic Partnership and would be expected to involve all sectors, including local businesses. There should be a statement in the Framework setting out what involvement the community could expect. Compliance with the statement would be a material consideration when considering a planning application.
• A sustainability appraisal would be needed.

Regional and sub-regional level

This means in practice:

• Key issues currently addressed by structure plans (house building, location of new employment sites, etc) would be transferred to regional level.
• Regional Planning Guidance would be replaced with Regional Spatial Strategies (RSSs). These would be more concise, avoid repetition, address specific regional and sub-regional issues and be outcome centred. They would also have statutory status.
• RSSs would provide the longer term planning framework for Regional Development Agency strategies (best practice will be published on how this can be achieved).
• The green paper specifically asks what changes should be made to the institutional arrangements guiding the production of these new Regional Spatial Strategies. It suggests that these should represent a broad range of stakeholders and not be just local authority representatives.
• Strategies would need to be drawn up for areas that straddle administrative boundaries.
• Where there is directly elected regional government, it should be responsible for drawing up RSSs.
• National level
  This means in practice a review of the whole body of national planning guidance.

Proposals: Development Control
Chapter five of the green paper has as its avowed aim a responsive, quicker and better quality development control service that genuinely involves the community. It is proposing to:

• Introduce a planning checklist so that people know how to submit a good quality planning application;
• Tighten targets for determining applications and deal with delays caused by statutory consultees:
• Encourage masterplanning;
• Promote better community involvement by offering advice on planning;
• Introduce delivery contracts for planning for major developments
• Introduce business zones where no planning permission is required for certain development; and
• Seek better and tougher enforcement standards.

• A user-friendly checklist that would clarify to applicants what document and evidence is needed and what they need to do by way of consultation, etc.
• Local authorities would be able to charge for pre-application advice, although levels should not be set at a level that discourages discussion which would improve the application.
• Named officers so that applicants would know where to turn for advice.
• £6 million in Government funding for a new electronic 'planning portal' to provide information and advice on planning, put applications on-line and allow people to track progress.
• New standardised application and administrative procedures, with planning authorities encouraged to adopt a one-stop-shop approach.
• New targets for determining applications. This would mean determination targets of 60% for major commercial and industrial applications within 13 weeks; 65% of minor commercial and industrial in 8 weeks; and 80% of other applications in 8 weeks.
• Delivery contracts for bigger developments. Businesses and local authorities would determine a timetable and project plan at the outset, which would cover consultation and the need to agree planning obligations. A model would be developed with business and local government. If the application were not decided without good cause, it would go to the Planning Inspectorate, where it would be automatically fast tracked.
• A reduction in the number of statutory consultees and a statutory duty imposed on to respond within a statutory timescale.
  The banning of repeat applications and twin tracking identical applications. Consents would last for three years rather than the current five.
• More encouragement of masterplanning for larger developments. The paper is specifically asking views on a new arrangement to replace outline consents whereby a developer can seek a certificate from a local authority giving agreement for a defined period to work up a detailed scheme against agreed parameters.
• Applicants would have three months rather than six to submit planning appeals. Planning inspectors would have jurisdiction over an application in a case against non-determination.
• There would be greater transparency about permitted development rights. This might mean cutting red tape in some areas and increasing it in conservation areas. The green paper is worried however that this could lead to confusion and inconsistencies and requests views.
• Would introduce a duty to hold public committee meetings and give greater speaking rights.
• Greater access to planning papers through websites and more access in public buildings.
• Plus a review of planning enforcement to introduce simpler procedures.
• Finally, there will be separate consultations on planning obligations and compulsory purchase powers.

BCC comment: The BCC called for measures to speed up the processing of applications and tougher targets for determination. It supported charging for pre-application advice (within reason) and streamlining access to planning departments, including more use of IT. It called for a review of compulsory purchase orders to make land assembly for major projects far easier and warned that the appeals service needed reform. It did not address the issue of business zones, but these have been warmly welcomed by the BCC.

• A removal of Crown immunity from planning law by introducing legislation when the time arises.
• New management procedures to decrease the amount of time taken to determine applications that are 'called in'. Reasons will be given from today for calling in applications.
• The introduction of mediation to settle some planning disputes.
  A review of the resourcing needs the local planning service through the 2002 Spending Review delivered through the Revenue Support Grant
• A fundamental review of the fee regime. This will consider whether the current ceilings on fees for the biggest applications should be raised; whether, and the extent to which, fees tariffs should be determined locally, subject to the safeguard of nationally prescribed ceilings; and the scope of activities covered by fees.
• As fee levels have fallen well below costs, there will be a 14% increase in fee levels from April 2002.
• A new requirement for all authorities to account separately for their planning service including income (from grant, council tax and fees) and for their expenditure.
• To encourage the speeding up of applications, there would be a new target of delegation of 90% of decisions to officers, which will be monitored through Best Value. Committee frequency should be increased to deal with numbers of applications.
• The paper announces work to change the image of planning to attract more people into the service, plus a review of the current training regime for councillors sitting on planning committees.
  Finally, greater use of the private sector, first of all as a supplementary resource to avoid a backlog and secondly to step in when planning authorities are failing.

BCC comment: The BCC's submission called for reform of the 'call in procedures' to make clear when and why applications are 'called in'. It proposed better training of councillors and a recruitment drive for planning officers, including 'golden hellos' and a fast-track professional route. The submission also called for a review of planning fees if it delivered a much better quality service, wish safeguards to claim back fees if this was not delivered.

Kirsty McHugh
December 2001

The British Chambers of Commerce,
Manning House,
22 Carlisle Place,
London SW1P 1JA
Tel: 020 7565 2027
Fax: 020 7565 2049
Email: k.mchugh@britishchambers.org.uk