Boat Plans Aluminum | Permitted development excluded in an AONB

Boat Plans Aluminum

There is so much material awaiting posting that it is difficult to know where to begin, but I thought I would start with a recent query I received about the extent to which Permitted Development is excluded in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The question arose because the AONB in question encompasses a great number of towns and villages, most of which contain undistinguished housing far removed from anything that could possibly be described as being of outstanding natural beauty.

My correspondent therefore asked me whether the LPA is correct in asserting that permitted development rights are excluded in respect of development within the curtilage of a dwellinghouse (under Part 1 of the Second Schedule to the General Permitted Development Order) because this is a settlement that is ‘washed over’ by the AONB designation, and is not excluded from it. The site in question is not in a conservation area.

[What follows applies in England only, not in Wales, which has different rules.]

In most AONBs, the designation covers a wide area, and towns and villages within the area are not excluded, although the boundary may be drawn around the outside of a large town if it is on the periphery of the area. The limited contribution (if any) that even the most undistinguished part of any settlement within an AONB makes to the natural beauty of the area does not affect the position in any way.

Permitted development rights are slightly reduced (but are not wholly removed) in relation to Part 1 of the Second Schedule to the General Permitted Development Order (development within the curtilage of a dwellinghouse) in certain areas (“Article 1(5) land”) which include any property anywhere within an AONB. I have confined this note to AONBs, as there is a very subtle distinction in respect of these areas, compared with other “Article 1(5) land (such as conservation areas).

Under Class A, the temporary right (until 30 May 2016) to build larger domestic extensions is excluded in an AONB. Other excluded development within Class A comprises the cladding of any part of the exterior of the dwellinghouse with stone, artificial stone, pebble dash, render, timber, plastic or tiles, any extension beyond a wall forming a side elevation of the original dwellinghouse and any extension of more than one storey beyond the rear wall of the original dwellinghouse. But, with these exceptions, other extensions and alterations within Part A can still be built within an AONB.

The enlargement of a dwellinghouse consisting of an addition or alteration to its roof (under Class B) is also excluded in an AONB, but minor alterations to the roof under Class C are not excluded. The erection or construction of a porch outside any external door of a dwellinghouse (under Class D) is not excluded either.

As regards Class E (the provision within the curtilage of the dwellinghouse of any building or enclosure, swimming or other pool required for a purpose incidental to the enjoyment of the dwellinghouse as such, or the maintenance, improvement or other alteration of such a building or enclosure; or a container used for domestic heating purposes for the storage of oil or liquid petroleum gas), development is not permitted in an AONB by Class E if the total area of ground covered by buildings, enclosures, pools and containers situated more than 20 metres from any wall of the dwelling-house would exceed 10 square metres, but devlopment closer to the house is OK. In an AONB, development under Class E is also excluded if any part of the building, enclosure, pool or container would be situated on land between a wall forming a side elevation of the dwellinghouse and the boundary of the curtilage of the dwellinghouse.

Development under Class F (the provision within the curtilage of a dwellinghouse of a hard surface for any purpose incidental to the enjoyment of the dwellinghouse as such, or the replacement in whole or in part of such a surface) is not affected.

In the case of Class G (the installation, alteration or replacement of a chimney, flue or soil and vent pipe on a dwellinghouse) this development is not permitted within an AONB if the chimney, flue or soil and vent pipe would be installed on a wall or roof slope which fronts a highway, and forms either the principal elevation or a side elevation of the dwellinghouse.

Development under Class H (the installation, alteration or replacement of a microwave antenna on a dwellinghouse or within the curtilage of a dwellinghouse) is permitted in an AONB, but not if it would consist of the installation of an antenna on a chimney, wall or roof slope which faces onto, and is visible from, a highway, or on a building which exceeds 15 metres in height.

If you look at Part 1 of the GPDO, you will see that this still leaves quite a wide variety of permitted development that can be carried out within an AONB, subject to the usual limitations and conditions set out in the Order. It is certainly not the case that permitted development rights are wholly or substantially removed within an AONB. On the other hand, local planning authorities have the power to exclude permitted development rights by means of an Article 4 Direction, and also by means of a condition attached to a planning permission, and this is perhaps more likely within an AONB (and on other “Article 1(5) land”, such as a Conservation Area) than elsewhere.

So the LPA in question was correct up to a point in the case that was put to me, but the effect of the exclusion of certain permitted development rights should not be over-stated.

© MARTIN H GOODALL


Do you find information about Boat Plans Aluminum are you looking for? If not, below may help you find more information about the Boat Plans Aluminum. Thank you for visiting, have a great day.

Read More..

Boat Plans Australia | Interpreting the National Planning Policy Framework

Boat Plans Australia

There has been quite a lot of interest in the case of Redhill Aerodrome v. SSCLG since judgment was given in the High Court in July ([2014] EWHC 2476 (Admin)). That judgment has now been overturned by the Court of Appeal in a decision delivered on 9 October, with reasons handed down on 24 October - [2014] EWCA Civ 1386.

Most commentators have concentrated on the court’s interpretation of Green Belt policy, as set out in the NPPF compared with the former PPG2, but the implications of the Court of Appeal’s judgment would appear to go rather wider than this and may be applicable to the interpretation of the NPPF generally, as compared with the way in which ministerial policy on a number of topics was explained in the various policy guidance that was cancelled when the NPPF was published.

The dispute between the parties centred on these two paragraphs :

“87. As with previous Green Belt policy, inappropriate development is, by definition, harmful to the Green Belt and should not be approved except in very special circumstances.

88. When considering any planning application, local planning authorities should ensure that substantial weight is given to any harm to the Green Belt. ‘Very special circumstances’ will not exist unless the potential harm to the Green Belt by reason of inappropriateness, and any other harm, is clearly outweighed by other considerations.” [emphasis added by the Court]

The question which arose for determination by the court was whether this formulation of Green Belt policy, which differs in its wording from the corresponding ministerial advice formerly set out in PPG2, represents a deliberate change of approach on the part of the government, or whether it is no more than a slightly different way of expressing the same policy without thereby intending any change of policy.

The dispute here focused on the meaning and interpretation of the phrase “any other harm”. The meaning of these words in paragraph 3.2 of PPG2 was considered by Frances Patterson QC (sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge – she has more recently been appointed to the bench) in R (River Club) v SSCLG [2009] EWHC 2674 (Admin), [2010] JPL 584. The claimant in that case had submitted that the “other harm” referred to in the third sentence of paragraph 3.2 meant harm to the purposes or objectives of the Green Belt, so that as a matter of law “any other harm” was confined to Green Belt harm. This submission was rejected. There was a requirement to consider the development as a whole to evaluate the harm that flowed from its being inappropriate (by definition) in the Green Belt, together with any other harm that the development may cause, in order to enable a clear identification of harm against which the benefits of the development can be weighed and on that basis to conclude whether very special circumstances exist (as required by ministerial policy) so as to warrant the grant of planning permission.

The Deputy Judge noted that there were no qualifying words within paragraph 3.2 of PPG2 in relation to the phrase “and any other harm”. Inappropriate development, by definition, causes harm to the purposes of the green belt and may cause harm to the objectives of the green belt also. “Any other harm”, she held, must therefore refer to some other harm than that which is caused through the development being inappropriate. It could refer to harm in the Green Belt context, therefore, but need not necessarily do so. Accordingly, she held that “any other harm” in paragraph 3.2 was to be given its plain and ordinary meaning – it referred to harm which is identified and which is additional to harm caused through the development being inappropriate. Consequently, she rejected the argument that the phrase was constrained so as to apply to harm to the Green Belt only.

The Redhill Aerodrome case came before the same judge (now Patterson J). She accepted the claimant’s submission that the policy matrix is now different, in that all of planning policy is contained within the NPPF which is to be read and interpreted as a whole. For each of the individual considerations a threshold is set which, when it is reached or exceeded, warrants refusal. It is for the decision maker to determine whether the individual impact attains the threshold that warrants refusal as set out in the NPPF. That is a matter of planning judgement and will clearly vary on a case by case basis.

Here, she continued, the individual non-Green Belt harms did not reach the individual threshold for refusal as defined by the NPPF. Was it right then to take them into account either individually or as part of the cumulative Green Belt harm assessments? On an individual basis, given the clear guidance given in the NPPF, her ladyship had no difficulty in concluding that, in this case, it was not right to take the identified non-Green Belt harms into account. The revised policy framework, she found, is considerably more directive to decision makers than the previous advice in the PPGs and PPSs. There has, in that regard, she said, been a considerable policy shift. Where an individual material consideration is harmful but the degree of harm has not reached the level prescribed in the NPPF as to warrant refusal, in her judgment it would be wrong to include that consideration as “any other harm”.

The learned judge went on to consider whether individual considerations can be considered together as part of a cumulative consideration of harm even though individually the evaluation of harm is set at a lower level than prescribed for refusal in the NPPF. In her judgement, she said, it would not be right to do so. That is because the Framework is precisely as it says - a framework for clear decision making. It is a re-writing of planning policy to enable that objective to be delivered. It has no words that permit of a residual cumulative approach in the Green Belt when each of the harms identified against a proposal is at a lesser level than would be required for refusal on an individual basis. Without such wording, to permit a combination of cumulative adverse impacts at a lesser level than prescribed for individual impacts to go into the evaluation of harm of a Green Belt proposal seemed to her to be the antithesis of the current policy. It would re-introduce a possibility of cumulative harm which the NPPF does not provide for. It is clear, she felt, that the NPPF does contemplate findings of residual cumulative harm in certain circumstances, as is evident in paragraph 32, where it deals with the residual cumulative impact of transport considerations. However, such phraseology does not appear in the Green Belt part of the NPPF.

Pausing there, I have to say that I have considerable sympathy for Patterson J’s view on this point. I have pointed out on several occasions in this blog that the language used in the NPPF seems in various places to differ sufficiently from the wording of the former policy advice which it has replaced that it could justifiably be concluded that (whether or not it was actually intended to do so) it has brought about identifiable changes of ministerial policy. Several cases that have come before the courts since the NPPF was published seem to support this view, such as Europa Oil and Gas Limited v. SSCLG [2013] EWHC 2643 (Admin) and Fordent Holdings Ltd v SSCLG [2013] EWHC 2844 (Admin) (reported here on Friday, 1 November 2013 - Inappropriate development in the Green Belt), and also R (Embleton PC) v. Northumberland CC [2013] EWHC 3631 (Admin), to which I drew attention on Tuesday, 21 October 2014. (See Agricultural dwellings - the operational need test ).

Notwithstanding the apparent changes of policy which have (perhaps inadvertently) been effected by the NPPF, Sullivan LJ, in giving the leading judgment in the Court of Appeal, pointed out that excluding non-Green Belt harm from “any other harm” in the second sentence of paragraph 88 of the NPPF would make it less difficult for applicants and appellants to obtain planning permission for inappropriate development in the Green Belt, because the task of establishing “very special circumstances”, while never easy, would be made less difficult. All of the considerations in favour of granting permission would now be weighed against only some, rather than all, of the planning harm that would be caused by an inappropriate development.

Most significantly, he added that if it had been the Government’s intention to make such a significant change to Green Belt policy in the NPPF, one would have expected that there would have been a clear statement to that effect. There has been no such statement. In his lordship’s judgment, all of the indications are to the contrary. He cited three examples:

(1) While there have been some detailed changes to Green Belt policy in the NPPF, protecting the Green Belt remains one of the Core planning principles, the fundamental aim of Green Belt Policy to prevent urban sprawl by keeping land open, the essential characteristics of Green Belts, and the five purposes that they serve, all remain unchanged. By contrast with paragraph 86 of the NPPF, which does change the policy approach to the inclusion of villages within the Green Belt, paragraph 87 emphasises the continuation of previous Green Belt policy (in PPG2) in respect of inappropriate development: “As with previous Green Belt policy.”

(2) The Impact Assessment in respect of the NPPF published by DCLG in July 2012 said that “The government strongly supports the Green Belt and does not intend to change the central policy that inappropriate development in the Green Belt should not be allowed.” Under the sub-heading “Policy Changes”, the Impact Assessment said that “Core Green Belt protection will remain in place.” It then identified four proposed “minor changes to the detail of current policy” which would resolve technical issues, but not harm the key purpose of the Green Belt, “as in all cases the test to preserve the openness and purposes of including land in the Green Belt will be maintained.” On the face of it, paragraphs 87 and 88 of the NPPF would appear to constitute the “central policy” which the Government did not intend to change.

(3) That there was no intention to change this aspect of Green Belt policy is confirmed by the Inspector’s statement in the Redhill Aerodrome appeal decision that the River Club approach to “any other harm” in the balancing exercise is reflected in decisions by the Secretary of State since the publication of the NPPF. The court was not referred to any decision in which a different approach has been taken to “any other harm” since the publication of the NPPF.

On the other hand, Sullivan LJ accepted that the NPPF means what it says, and not what the Secretary of State would like it to mean. Nonetheless, he said, if the NPPF has effected this change in Green Belt policy it is clear that it has done so unintentionally. The claimant (the respondent in the Court of Appeal) did not submit that there was any material difference between paragraphs 3.1 and 3.2 of PPG2 and paragraphs 87 and 88 of the NPPF. The text of the policy has been reorganised, but all of its essential characteristics remain the same. It had been submitted that the change in policy was to be inferred, not from the wording of paragraphs 87 and 88, but from the other policies in the NPPF which “wrapped around” Green Belt policy, and which were, it was submitted, very different in some respects from previous policies in the earlier policy documents which were replaced by the NPPF. At the heart of the claimant’s case was “Context, context, context.”

It is true, his lordship accepted, that the “policy matrix” has changed in that the NPPF has, in the words of the Ministerial foreword, replaced “over a thousand pages with around fifty, written simply and clearly.” Views may differ as to whether simplicity and clarity have always been achieved, but the policies are certainly shorter. There have been changes to some of the non-Green Belt policies, and there have also been changes to detailed aspects of Green Belt policy, not all of which were identified in the Impact Assessment (Europa Oil and Gas being one example).

However, Sullivan LJ did not accept the premise which underlay the claimant’s case, as Patterson J had done, that the other policies “wrapping around” the Green Belt policy in paragraphs 87 and 88 of the Framework are “very different” from previous national policy, or that, as Patterson J put it, there has been “a considerable policy shift”.

Although this case was primarily focused the interpretation of “any other harm” in the Green Belt context, the Court of Appeal did accept that there are certain respects in which some other details of ministerial policy have been changed by the NPPF. Nevertheless, Sullivan LJ suggested that if it had been the Government’s intention to make any significant changes to policy in the NPPF, one would have expected that there would have been a clear statement to that effect. He accepted, on the other hand, that the NPPF means what it says, and not what the Secretary of State would like it to mean. This judgment therefore seems to accept the possibility that some minor changes to ministerial policy may have been effected by the NPPF unintentionally.

This judgment therefore still leaves an element of uncertainty over the correct interpretation of certain paragraphs of the NPPF, but it would seem that if a particular paragraph of the NPPF appears on the face of it to effect a significant change of policy, this in itself should indicate that no such change of policy was in fact intended, without a clear statement on the part of ministers of their intention to make such a policy change. In cases of this sort, the wording of the NPPF should be taken to be no more than a restatement of previous policy, albeit in slightly different language. The only problem with this approach to the interpretation of the NPPF is that it requires a knowledge of, and reference to, the relevant PPGs or PPSs which the NPPF was intended to replace in order to construe the changed language of the NPPF correctly, which would seem to undermine the intention of publishing the NPPF in the first place.

One other implication of the Court of Appeal decision in Redhill Aerodrome is that one or two decisions that have proceeded on the basis of changes of policy that have apparently been brought about by the NPPF may be open to question. In particular, it seems to me that R (Embleton PC) v. Northumberland CC (which I discussed recently – see above) may have been wrongly decided. The judge was persuaded in that case that the test of operational need for a proposed agricultural dwelling under paragraph 55 of NPPF is different from, and much less prescriptive than, the test under Annex A of PPS7. Applying Sullivan LJ’s approach to this issue, there would appear to be no indication that what would amount to a fairly significant shift in ministerial policy on a matter of substance was intended here, and so (contrary to the court’s decision in Embleton PC), the conclusion must be that an objective test substantially similar to the test laid down by Annex A of PPS7 must still be applied, notwithstanding the apparently less demanding requirement expressed by paragraph 55 of the NPPF.

I always said that it was folly for ministers to jettison the well established and clearly understood policy advice set out in PPGs and PPSs, and that the attempt to boil down statements of ministerial planning policy to a single document that was intended to comprise no more than 50 pages would lead to difficulty and uncertainty, and resulting litigation. So it has proved, and cases of which Embleton PC and Redhill Aerodromeare only a sample will continue to trouble the courts for some time to come, until or unless a future Secretary of State recognises that a more complete statement of ministerial planning policy, substantially in the form of the cancelled PPGs and PPSs, is the only way of resolving the problem.

© MARTIN H GOODALL

Do you find information about Boat Plans Australia are you looking for? If not, below may help you find more information about the Boat Plans Australia. Thank you for visiting, have a great day.

Read More..

Boat Plans Uk | Further planning changes to go ahead

Boat Plans Uk

When does Autumn end, and Winter begin? I would have thought that it must be rather more than three weeks before the Winter Solstice, but the Treasury seems to think that Autumn continues at least until the 3rd December. That is the date (round about the same time as last year) on which the Chancellor will deliver his Autumn Statement.

I have pointed out in previous years that ‘Gorgeous George’ loves to upstage DeCLoG’s Uncle Eric, and it appears that this year will be no exception. De-CLoG Chief Planner, Steve Quartermain, told a conference yesterday that we can expect further planning changes to be announced in this Autumn Statement, just as they have been in almost every Budget and every Autumn Statement in recent years.

The likely content of the announcements is no mystery, as the government published a consultation paper on their further proposals for planning ‘reform’ (“Technical Consultation on Planning”) at the end of July. The consultation period ended several weeks ago, and no doubt the government (having duly ignored any responses that it received to this consultation exercise) is now preparing the necessary statutory instruments by which effect will be given to these proposals. Whether these can be laid before parliament before the Christmas recess depends on how efficient De-CLoG lawyers have been in getting on with the drafting. In any event, it would appear that they will not come into effect until some time in the New Year. It seems to have become the practice to bring new subordinate legislation into force on 6th April or 1st October, but with the General Election due on the 7th May, the government may wish to put the amendment orders to the Use Classes Order and to the General Permitted Development Order into effect rather sooner than early April.

George Osborne will no doubt announce these further planning changes with a flourish, like a conjurer producing a rabbit out of a top hat, in the hope (probably justified, so far as most journalists are concerned) that everyone will have forgotten that all these proposals had already been announced four months ago. As I have said before, politicians love announcing things twice, even three times in some cases, simply in order to grab a passing headline.

The changes to the GPDO will enable further changes of use in addition to those previously introduced within the past two years. These are expected to include the change of use of light industrial units (B1(c)), warehouses and storage units (B8) and some sui generis uses (launderettes, amusement arcades/centres, casinos and nightclubs) to residential use (C3), and changes of some sui generis uses to restaurants (C3) and leisure uses (D2).

It is probable that the government will also go ahead with its intention to make permanent those permitted development rights which currently expire in May 2016. In the case of office-to-residential conversions, the existing time limit for completing those conversions will be extended from 30 May 2016 to 30 May 2019. But a revised PD right for change of use from office to residential use is intended to be introduced with effect from May 2016, although whether this will actually survive the General Election may be dependent on who is actually in power after next May. If the government does go ahead with this, it will replace the existing PD right, and the government has said that the exemptions which apply to the current PD right will not be extended to apply to the new PD right. So expect some very unhappy local planning authorities if the government does persist with this proposal.

However, as a sop to the critics, the amended Class J will be subject in future (i.e. after May 2016) to a consideration of the potential impact of the significant loss of the most strategically important office accommodation (although this criterion will be tightly defined), in addition to the impact on highways and transport, flooding and contamination risk.

The right to build larger domestic extensions (under Part 1), currently expiring in May 2016, is also likely to be made permanent. A single storey rear extension or conservatory that extends beyond the rear wall by between four metres and eight metres for a detached house, and by between three metres and six metres for any other type of house, will be PD, subject to neighbour consultation for these larger householder extensions, which will continue to require prior approval by the LPA.

The right to make alterations to commercial premises has not so far been extended to shops, and so the GPDO will be extended to allow retailers to alter their premises. PD rights are also expected to facilitate commercial filming, the installation of larger solar panels on commercial buildings, minor alterations within waste management facilities and for sewerage undertakers, and further extensions (in addition to those already allowed) to houses and business premises.

Whether the government has got enough time to go ahead with a complete consolidation of the GPDO remains to be seen, but we have certainly not been led to expect any more thorough re-drafting, so as to remove the numerous anomalies and ambiguities that it contains.

Turning to the Use Classes Order, contrary to the general trend, but unsurprisingly, it is expected that the scope of Class A2 will be restricted, so that betting offices and pay-day loan shops (both currently falling within this Use Class) will become sui generis uses.

In fact it is quite likely that Use Classes A1 and A2 will be merged in a single new ‘town centre’ use class, so as to create a much more flexible range of uses in our High Streets. This is expected to be accompanied by a further amendment of the GPDO to allow change of use to the widened retail (A1) class from betting shops and pay day loan shops (A2), restaurants and cafés (A3), drinking establishments (A4), and hot food takeaways (A5). The existing PD right to allow the change of use from A1 and A2 to a flexible use for a period of two years will remain, as will the right to allow for up to two flats above, and the change of use to residential (C3). On the other hand, the Government is expected to remove the existing PD rights applying to the existing A2 use class, so as to allow LPAs to control these developments.

With effect from 10 May 2006, any internal increase in floorspace of 200 square metres or more (including the introduction of mezzanine floors) in a building in retail use has been included within the definition of development under section 55, and requires planning permission. This floorspace limit will be increased, so as to allow retailers to build a mezzanine floor (although I don’t recall that a maximum threshold figure for this has been mentioned yet).

Some changes are also expected to the Development Management Procedure Order, including a requirement for a written justification from the LPA as to why it is necessary for a particular matter to be dealt with by a pre-commencement condition. This requirement will be in addition to the general justification that local planning authorities are already required to provide for using conditions. I have already expressed my scepticism as to the effectiveness of such a requirement in dissuading LPAs from imposing unnecessary pre-commencement conditions, but time will tell. (As regards the government’s proposals with regard to the discharge of conditions, this is dependent on the passage of the Deregulation Bill – currently at committee stage in the House of Lords.)

Some further tinkering with the DMPO can be expected, including the involvement of statutory consultees in the planning process (e.g. a requirement to notify railway infrastructure managers of planning applications for development near railways).

It is possible that there might also be a consolidation of the DMPO, as well as devising some means by which the time taken in the various stages of the planning process could be separately measured, rather than the present measurement of the total time from making an application to its determination.

Finally, we have been promised an adjustment of EIA thresholds, whereby the requirement for an EIA will affect fewer development schemes in future.

Not all of these proposals are guaranteed to come forward, but the Autumn Statement can be expected to cover most of the items listed above, to be followed with the necessary subordinate legislation, as outlined above.

NOTE: Many of the changes to the law canvassed here have been implemented since this blog post was published. For completely up-to-date and fully comprehensive coverage of this subject, we would strongly recommend readers to obtain a copy of the author’s new book - “A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO PERMITTED CHANGES OF USE” published by Bath Publishing in October 2015. You can order your copy by clicking on the link on the left-hand sidebar of this page.

© MARTIN H GOODALL

Do you find information about Boat Plans Uk are you looking for? If not, below may help you find more information about the Boat Plans Uk. Thank you for visiting, have a great day.

Read More..

Boat Plans Nz | Green Belt policy – the need for reform

Boat Plans Nz

Last week I came across a useful contribution to the Green Belt debate by Peter Village QC and Jonathan Darby, which you can access at http://www.39essex.com/docs/general/pv_and_jda_green_belt_article_final_.pdf

They call (as I and other commentators have done recently) for a sensible rethink of Green Belt policy, rather than the die-hard defence of existing Green Belt boundaries that ministers have lately adopted (undoubtedly for what they perceive as their short-term electoral advantage in the run-up to the General Election), irrespective of its proper role and value in policy terms, and irrespective of the consequences of such an unyielding approach in terms of unbuilt homes to meet the urgent needs of our population.

There are two important points that must be understood about the Green Belt. First, our Green Belts have been massively expanded within the past 30 to 40 years. The Green Belt was never intended to cover such vast swathes of land as it does now, and it really does need to be objectively reviewed and rolled back in some areas. Secondly, until the late 1980s, there was some flexibility in the application of Green Belt policy.

This was well illustrated by the judgment in Cranford Hall Parking Ltd v. SSE [1989] J.P.L. 169. Relevant policy at that time was set out in Circular 14/85, which was couched in language not dissimilar to later policy statements in PPG2, yet not in such absolute terms. The Circular pointed out quite clearly that the fact that a site was Green Belt land did not in itself constitute a clear-cut and sound reason for refusing permission. The court, in quashing an appeal decision which had refused planning permission for development in the Green Belt, held that the Inspector should have considered whether or not this development would bring about demonstrable harm to the Green Belt. Thus (at that time) development was not automatically unacceptable in the Green Belt; it was a question for the judgment of the decision-maker.

A similar decision was reached in Barnet Meeting Room Trust v SSE (1990) 60 P. & C.R. 137. In that case an Inspector had recommended that the Secretary of State should allow an appeal against the refusal of development in the Green Belt in these terms:

“I conclude that the development would not significantly detract from the character and appearance of the area, nor significantly threaten the integrity of the Metropolitan Green Belt, and that positive benefits would flow from the proposed landscape treatment of a former derelict site.”

The Inspector did recognise that, in a strict sense, the proposal would be unlikely to “preserve or improve the open nature of the area” in terms of the requirements set by para. 9.16 of the Greater London Development Plan. Nonetheless he recommended that on balance, and bearing in mind the established need for the development, the appeal should be allowed.

By this time, PPG2 in its original form had been published, and the Secretary of State’s decision letter, rejecting the Inspector’s recommendation, ended with the words: “The Secretary of State is of the opinion that, on balance, there are not the special circumstances to justify development in a Green Belt. Accordingly he disagrees with the recommendation.”

The Deputy Judge (Sir Frank Layfield QC) found that the Secretary of State had paid no great attention here to the need for consistency of decisions in comparable instances or to the need, when related decisions are cited to him, to provide reasons why those decisions should be regarded as either of no or limited value to the case under consideration. The learned Deputy Judge held that, very importantly in the Green Belt, the general presumption in favour of development applied (at that time) in favour of allowing applications for development as it did in other areas (relying on Cranford Hall Parking).

In that previous case there was a presumption derived from earlier circulars that were still current at that time that inappropriate development would not be permitted within the Green Belt and there were, no doubt, cases where the fact that the proposals were inappropriate and damaging to the interests of Green Belt policy would be self-evident. But the circular pointed out, quite clearly, that the fact it was in Green Belt land did not in itself constitute a clear cut and sound reason for refusing permission. The right approach was a presumption that planning permission would always be allowed which would be overridden where it was shown that the development would cause demonstrable harm to the Green Belt policy. In this regard, no reason or explanation had been given as to why the provisions of Circular 14/85 (which included the general presumption in favour of development) were not considered. Since development in the green belt was a question of fundamental importance, it was for that reason alone that this decision was quashed in the absence of adequate reasoning in that regard.

Those two cases were, of course, decided within a rather different policy context compared with that which obtains at present, and they have no practical application within the current policy regime; but they both serve to show that an alternative policy approach is perfectly workable, and would not involve a ‘free-for-all’ approach to development in the Green Belt. If the principles illustrated by those two cases were to be re-applied now (by means of revised ministerial policy on this issue), there would in future be an objective examination, as there used to be until the late 1980s, of the site’s ‘Green Belt value’, and consideration as to whether its development would cause demonstrable harm to the openness of the Green Belt (which is the primary objective of its designation as such). As I can clearly recall from the early days of my career as a planning lawyer, going back as far as 1979, appeals could be and in practice were allowed in appropriate cases where the site made no material contribution to the Green Belt and/or where its development would not cause any demonstrable harm to the openness of the Green Belt. The present rigid resistance to any development in the Green Belt, save only in the most exceptional circumstances, is unnecessary and undesirable.

© MARTIN H GOODALL

Do you find information about Boat Plans Nz are you looking for? If not, below may help you find more information about the Boat Plans Nz. Thank you for visiting, have a great day.

Read More..

Boat Plans Pdf | Labour’s planning policy

Boat Plans Pdf

Two speeches at this week’s Labour Party conference gave an indication (albeit somewhat vague and lacking in any detail) as to the possible thrust of Labour’s planning policy if they regain power at the 2015 General Election.

Hilary Benn promised that “Labour will get Britain building again.” He frankly acknowledged that we are just not building enough homes, but pointed out that in the last few years, the profits of the big housebuilders have nevertheless soared. Land, he said, is too expensive. Too often developers hang on to it hoping for the price to rise.

Benn rather piously expressed the view that we can’t carry on saying on the one hand “Where are the homes for the next generation?” and on the other “Please don’t build them near me”. But he failed to give any clue as to how NIMBYism might be overcome. In fact he seemed to be going in the opposite direction when he opined that we will not get more homes by top-down targets. Councils and communities, he said, must take that responsibility “but they need more power to be able to do so.” I am bound to say that this does sound to me like typically meaningless political claptrap.

Benn’s approach seems to be based on the assumption that communities actually want house-builders to build homes on the land they own, or over which they hold options. But in all too many places the NIMBYs want no such thing, and they are only too happy that land-banked sites should remain undeveloped. So proposing that developers must register their land banks (including optioned sites) so that “communities should be able to do something about it” is just pie-in-the-sky.

It is difficult to see what would be achieved by requiring developers to implement their existing planning permissions or face (as yet unspecified) financial penalties in respect of unimplemented planning permissions. Benn went on to suggest that if developers, despite being charged some sort of ‘non-development’ tax or penalty, still don’t build on their land, a Labour government “will sell the land on to someone else who will”. Frankly, any politician who thinks that such a mechanism could be made to work or that it would actually have any practical effect in getting homes built is away with the fairies.

Another proposal canvassed by Benn is that where there is insufficient land available for housebuilding within a particular LPA area, that LPA should be given a new ‘Right to Grow’, allowing them, if they wish, to appropriate land for house-building within neighbouring councils’ areas. There would be a requirement for those neighbouring LPAs to work together to achieve this. It sounds like the current ‘duty to co-operate’ but with much sharper teeth. How it would work in practice is anyone’s guess.

Finally, Benn proposed that we should build new communities – new towns and new garden cities. He held up the example of the Attlee Government in this regard, but studiously ignored an abortive initiative by the most recent Labour government to do something similar. A Labour government, he said, will make sure that local authorities get the powers and the incentives they need to acquire land, put in the infrastructure and build new towns. It seems, however, that Benn is expecting the initiative to come from the local authorities, rather than from central government. Funding wasn’t mentioned.

In his leader’s speech, Ed Miliband took up the same themes. In 2010 when the last Labour government left office there was a shortage of one million homes in Britain. If we carry on as we are, by 2020 there will be a shortage throughout the country of two million homes (equivalent in size to two cities the size of Birmingham). So he too said “we’ve got to do something about it”, and repeated what Hilary Benn had said earlier, adding that a Labour government will have a clear aim that by the end of the next parliament (in 2020) Britain will be building 200,000 homes a year, more than at any time in a generation (but still not by any means as many as in the days when Harold Macmillan was the Housing Minister).

The housing crisis to which Mr Millibean referred is of long standing, and was increasingly apparent throughout the 13 years of the last Labour government. This is not intended to be a party political point (and I am certainly no Tory), but the plain fact is that the last Labour government did nothing effective to tackle what was already recognised at the time as a real crisis. This does engender some scepticism as to the ability or willingness of the next Labour government to tackle this issue effectively in view of their failure to address the problem between 1997 and 2010.

What Miliband and Benn were proposing in their party conference is unlikely to make any practical difference to the housing situation in this country. The major problem is a lack of affordable housing, and in particular social housing. 25 years of council house sales have depleted local authority housing stock, and HM Treasury has resolutely resisted the re-investment of the proceeds in new council house building.

The attempt by successive governments, both Tory and Labour, to use or, in reality, to abuse the planning system (entirely without any legislative authority) to produce an element of affordable housing has been an abject failure, and has not produced more than a tiny proportion of the affordable housing that is actually needed. In all too many cases it has simply made proposed housing developments unviable, so that no houses get built at all on some sites unless the affordable housing obligation can be renegotiated. The only reason for this policy being pursued is an almost paranoid fear in government, even within the last Labour government, of funding social housing from general taxation, involving extra government borrowing and an increase in the PSBR. But if we are not prepared to do this, then no other mechanism is going to produce the social housing that is so badly needed.

Tinkering with the private housing market (which is all that was being proposed at the Labour Party conference) will do nothing to resolve the crisis. At worst, the present government’s ‘help-to-buy’ scheme will simply produce another house price bubble in the private sector without in any way tackling the underlying problem. Labour will clearly eschew that approach, but their suggested nostrums are unlikely to be any more effective in solving the housing crisis.

In the post-war period, continuing into the 1950s and 1960s, governments of both political colours recognised the need for substantial public house-building programmes, and funded them from general taxation. Until a future government is prepared to do likewise, the housing crisis will only get worse.

© MARTIN H GOODALL


Do you find information about Boat Plans Pdf are you looking for? If not, below may help you find more information about the Boat Plans Pdf. Thank you for visiting, have a great day.

Read More..