Source: https://simonicity.wordpress.com/2017/04/
Timestamp: 2017-06-24 13:45:36
Document Index: 414139570

Matched Legal Cases: ['art 2', 'art 1', 'art 2', 'art 2', 'art 2', 'art 2', 'art 1']

Month: April 2017	The New EIA Regulations	Well the Government cut it fine but the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2017 were finally laid before Parliament on 19 April 2017 and will come into force on 16 May 2017, along with equivalent regulations in relation to infrastructure planning, water resources, electricity works, marine works, and land drainage improvement works.
The regulations give effect in England to the EU’s Directive 2014/52/EU on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment, which was required to be brought into force by member states by that magic 16 May 2017 date. My 8.10.16 blog post summarises the main implications of the Directive and expresses some doubt as to whether the Government would meet the deadline. I’m glad that the deadline has been achieved, as inconsistency between EU and domestic requirements as to environmental impact assessment would have made a difficult area, already full of legal trip hazards, even more precarious to navigate. The new regulations apply to all EIA development projects unless before 16 May 2016:
– a request for a scoping opinion or direction has been submitted. The changes introduced by the new Regulations are not unduly onerous (and have been flagged by way of the 2014 amending directive for some time now) but there is still a small window for those scheme promoters who would prefer to work to the previous 2011 Regulations. I can see that even small changes in required methodologies may give rise to complications on multi-stage projects where it would be easier, for consistency and to avoid re-doing work, for further environmental statements to continue to address the 2011 rather than 2017 requirements. So what are the changes? Colleagues have prepared a black-lined version for internal Town purposes that shows all of the changes as between the 2011 and 2017 versions, which has been invaluable in working through the detail. There has been a lot of tweaking and necessary updating but the main substantive changes are as follows:
Reg 4(2) – there are now express references to assessment needing to include effects on human health, biodiversity, land and climate. Reg 4(4) – significant effects to be assessed include “the expected significant effects arising from the vulnerability of the proposed development to major accidents or disasters that are relevant to that development”. Reg 4(5) – “The relevant local planning authority or the Secretary of State must ensure that they have, or have access as necessary to, sufficient expertise to examine the environmental statement”. Reg 6 – additional information is now required in requests for screening opinions.
Reg 6(6) – LPA can agree to extend response to screening opinion request beyond the current three weeks period to up to 90 days and can extend the period further in exceptional circumstances if it gives reasons and the date when the delayed determination is now expected. Reg 7(5) – equivalent extended deadlines for the Secretary of State in relation to requests for screening directions. Reg 18(4)(a) – an environmental statement “must be based on the most recent scoping opinion or direction issued (so far as the proposed development remains materially the same as the proposed development that was subject to that opinion or direction.” (Currently there is no requirement for an environmental statement to take on board all of conclusions of the scoping opinion or direction). Reg 18(4)(c) – an environmental statement must “be prepared, taking into account the results of any relevant UK environmental assessment, which are reasonably available to the person preparing the environmental statement, with a view to avoiding duplication of assessment”. Reg 18(5) – “In order to ensure the completeness and quality of the environmental statement— * (a) the developer must ensure that the environmental statement is prepared by competent experts; and
Reg 20(2)(f) – the LPA must make the environmental statement available online for at least that 30 day period. Reg 26 – the decision maker must reach a “reasoned conclusion on the significant effects of the proposed development on the environment”, taking into account their examination of the environmental information submitted and, where appropriate the decision maker’s “own supplementary examination”, “integrate that conclusion into the decision” and “if planning permission or supplementary consent is to be granted, consider whether it is appropriate to impose monitoring measures”. Reg 26(4) – “In cases where no statutory timescale is in place the decision of the relevant authority or the Secretary of State, as the case may be, must be taken within a reasonable period of time, taking into account the nature and complexity of the proposed development, from the date on which the relevant authority or the Secretary of State has been provided with the environmental information”.
Reg 27 – where there has to be both an EIA and a Habitats Regulations assessment, the two must be co-ordinated. Reg 29 – where planning permission is granted for EIA development, the decision must set out the reasoned conclusion of the decision maker on the significant effects of the development on the environment, any conditions which relate to the likely significant effects of the development on the environment, any measures envisaged to avoid, prevent, reduce and, if possible, offset likely significant adverse effects on the environment and any monitoring measures considered appropriate. Reg 30(1)(b) – the consultation bodies are to be informed of the decision in respect of any EIA application. Reg 30(1)(d)(iii) – information must be available for public inspection as to the results of consultations undertaken and information gathered.
“(1) Where an authority or the Secretary of State has a duty under these Regulations, they must perform that duty in an objective manner and so as not to find themselves in a situation giving rise to a conflict of interest. (2) Where an authority, or the Secretary of State, is bringing forward a proposal for development and that authority or the Secretary of State, as appropriate, will also be responsible for determining its own proposal, the relevant authority or the Secretary of State must make appropriate administrative arrangements to ensure that there is a functional separation, when performing any duty under these Regulations, between the persons bringing forward a proposal for development and the persons responsible for determining that proposal.”
Schedule 2 – the threshold for industrial estate development projects is reduced from 5 hectares to 0.5 hectares. Schedule 3, para 3 – more detail as to the types and characteristics of potential impacts to be taken into account in screening Schedule 2 development. Schedule 4, para 1 – more detail as to the necessary description of the development in an environmental statement. Schedule 4, para 2 – the environmental statement must include a “description of the reasonable alternatives (for example in terms of development design, technology, location, size and scale) studied by the developer, which are relevant to the proposed project and its specific characteristics, and an indication of the main reasons for selecting the chosen option, including a comparison of the environmental effects” (in place of the more lax “outline of the main alternatives studied by the applicant or appellant and an indication of the main reasons for the choice made, taking into account the environmental effects”). Schedule 4, para 3 – it must also include a “description of the relevant aspects of the current state of the environment (baseline scenario) and an outline of the likely evolution thereof without implementation of the development as far as natural changes from the baseline scenario can be assessed with reasonable effort on the basis of the availability of environmental information and scientific knowledge.”
Schedule 4, para 10 – it must also include a “reference list detailing the sources used for the descriptions and assessments included in the environmental statement”. The explanatory memorandum published with the regulations states that there “are around 500 – 600 environmental statements submitted each year in England through the planning system, representing about 0.1% of all planning applications. There are between 10 – 20 applications for a development consent order under the nationally significant infrastructure planning regime subject to EIA each year”. Much of the work of a planning lawyer these days to seek to ensure that environmental impact assessment processes are carried out in a legally correct manner so as not to lead to the unnecessary risk of legal challenge. The new regulations will do nothing to reduce that risk – indeed, particular care will need to be taken in relation to these new requirements. Red pens at the ready…
(with special thanks to Town colleagues, Spencer Tewis-Allen and Rebecca Craig). Author simonicityPosted on April 29, 2017May 2, 2017Categories Environmental impact assessmentLeave a comment on The New EIA Regulations	Make No Little Plans: The London Plan “Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency” (Daniel Burnham)
We are expecting initial non-statutory public consultation this autumn into a review of the current plan, so as to reflect the policy priorities of our third London Mayor, Sadiq Khan. Following this initial process, there would then need to be two formal consultation stages (the first with the London Assembly and GLA bodies, the second with the public) before an examination in public into the submitted document, which the Mayor projects for summer 2018, and perhaps adoption (his fingers still crossed) in autumn 2019. So even on a best case the Mayor will not have an adopted plan until over three quarters of his way through his four year term of office. His predecessors had the same problem. It took Ken Livingstone four years from election in 2000 to have in place the first London Plan (which ran to an even more thudding 420 pages) and it took Boris Johnson three years from election in 2008 to have in place his 2011 Replacement London Plan, which, subject to three sets of alterations, remains the current plan, supplemented by no fewer than adopted 21 SPGs with two further SPGs currently in draft (Culture and Night Time Economy (April 2017); Affordable Housing & Viability (November 2016)). The extent of reliance on SPGs is no doubt partly down to the exclusion of non-strategic matters from the plan itself (although the SPGs cover a whole range of strategic matters) but as much as anything is probably down to pragmatism, given the slowness of the statutory process. Strange and dysfunctional system isn’t it? Particularly when one recalls that the inspector, Anthony Thickett, concluded his report dated 18 November 2014 into the Further Alterations to the London Plan as follows:
The legal structure for the plan arrived at in the 1999 Act was at the time largely novel. The plan superseded the then Government’s non-statutory regional planning guidance (specifically, RPG3, the then regional planning guidance for London) and the procedure set out for the adoption of this new strategic regional plan echoed in part the examination-in-public process for structure plans of the time. (My recollection from then was that the emphasis on “strategic” was to mark a contrast from the over-prescriptive and slow plan-making of the previous Greater London Council – nice try!). When the development plans system (over-engineered in the extreme) was created by virtue of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 (which also introduced statutory regional spatial strategies for the rest of England), although the London Plan was not a “development plan document”, it was part of the statutory development plan alongside the boroughs’ development plan documents (ie core strategies etc). Under section 38(6) of the 2004 Act, planning applications therefore must be determined “in accordance with the plan unless material considerations indicate otherwise”. Increased powers were devolved to the Mayor, including, by way of the Mayor of London Order 2008, the ability to direct that he should be the local planning authority on a planning application of potential strategic importance and determine it himself. The plan’s policies are central to the call-in criteria in Article 7(1) of the Order, all of three of which must be met in order for the Mayor to be able to intervene:
(b) the development or any of the issues raised by the development to which the application relates has significant effects that are likely to affect more than one London Borough; and (c) there are sound planning reasons for issuing a direction”
By way of the Localism Act 2011 the regional spatial strategies were abolished but the London Plan remained. The extent to which the London Plan was a development plan for the purposes of the new “duty to cooperate” that the 2011 Act introduced (by way of inserting a new section 33A into the 2004 Act) was left unclear. The plan also now sat not just above the boroughs’ individual local plans but also above potentially a tier of neighbourhood plans below those plans. When the Government’s National Planning Policy Framework (haiku-like little plan, in contrast to the swathes of guidance it replaced) was published in March 2012, it cancelled the guidance there had been in Circular 1/2008 as to the contents of the London Plan. There is now very little direct guidance for the Mayor in the NPPF or indeed in subsequent Planning Practice Guidance.
As well as the Mayor’s “general policies in respect of the development and use of land in Greater London” (section 334(3)), it must deal with any “general spatial development aspects” of the other strategies, policies and proposals that he is responsible for, whether or not they relate to the development or use of land (section 334(4)). These other strategies include transport, bio-diversity, waste, air quality, noise and culture. The plan “must deal only with matters which are of strategic importance to Greater London” (section 334(5)). The meaning of “strategic” was tested in R (Mayor of London) v First Secretary of State (Forbes J, 7 April 2008). The then Mayor had directed that Brent Council should refuse planning permission for a student housing scheme on design grounds. The developer appealed against the refusal and in allowing the appeal the Secretary of State awarded costs against the Mayor on the basis that he should not have intervened on grounds that were not of strategic importance. The Mayor challenged the award of costs but the court held that the Secretary of State had been entitled to reach that conclusion. Co-operation
There has been legal argument as to the extent to which the formal “duty to co-operate” (for what it’s worth) is engaged in relation to the London Plan. This occupied time at the examination of the 2012 examination of “revised early minor alterations” to the plan and the 2014 examination of further alterations. Inspector Geoff Salter in his report dated 19 June 2012 concluded that the duty did not formally apply:
“Section 110 of the Localism Act introduced a new section (33A) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 which imposes a duty on local planning authorities and other prescribed bodies to co-operate in a range of planning activities. The Mayor is a prescribed person for the purposes of the duty but the London Plan is in effect a regional strategy (RS), the preparation of which does not fall within the list of activities covered by the duty, such as preparation of Development Plan Documents (DPDs). Activities that can reasonably be described as preparing the way for activities such as DPD preparation fall within the duty. However, I do not agree with the South East Waste Planning Advisory Group and the East of England Waste Technical Advisory Body that the LP can be considered to meet this definition, since its production is an activity in its own right“. Whereas Inspector Anthony Thickett in his report dated 18 November 2014 appears to reach the opposite conclusion: “Section 33A(3) lists the activities to which the duty applies. The first activity is the preparation of development plan documents. The London Plan is part of the development plan for London but the Mayor points to Section 38(2) of the 2004 Act which defines the FALP as a spatial development strategy and not a development plan document. Section 33A(3)(d & e) apply the duty to any activities that can reasonably be considered to prepare the way for or support the preparation of development plan documents. The preparation of the FALP is an activity in its own right but it must, in my view, also prepare the way for and support the preparation of development plan documents.”
However, it is a point that needs urgently tidying up to avoid legal uncertainty in the context of the forthcoming plan. The previous Mayor established the Outer London Commission to consider how parts of outer London might better realise their economic potential. Given as well Anthony Thickett’s urging in his report of the need for a new approach given the pressures for housing, inter-relationships with surrounding areas outside London’s formal boundaries cannot be ignored. The Outer London Commission’s March 2016 report, Coordinating Strategic Policy And Infrastructure Investment Across The Wider South East, touches on the taboo subject of green belt review:
Section 24(1)(b) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 requires borough plans to be in general conformity with the London Plan. The content of the plan is clearly of critical importance to the boroughs and the sensitivity is heightened given that the Mayor does not have to accept an inspector’s recommendations. Differing political priorities between the Mayor and boroughs can lead to tensions, as we saw in relation to the affordable rented housing policies in “revised early minor modifications” introduced by Boris Johnson. Nine boroughs challenged the policy which had been adopted in the face of recommendations from inspector Geoff Salter in his report dated 19 June 2012. They argued that the policy would unlawfully preclude them from imposing borough-wide caps on rent for affordable rented housing at lower than a London-wide default level of 80% of market value.
So, a plan is to be adopted in 2019 with a two year preparation process, within which period the environmental and other implications of emerging policies will need to be thoroughly tested. How will it point London forward in a certain and confident way given the various current uncertainties over such issues as Brexit (given the particularly internationally-facing role that Greater London plays, a clear priority for Khan will be to avoid a hard Glexit, regardless of the consistency of any Brexit); Heathrow; Crossrail 2; the Bakerloo Line extension and other infrastructure proposals, and whatever emerges as the (new) Government’s air quality plan? But perhaps above all of these uncertainties remains the continued desperate need for increased housing, with affordability a key component. What a challenging prospect the Mayor and his team have ahead of them in appropriately directing boroughs and developers with clarity and precision, retaining the good, snipping out the unnecessary or counter-productive. Let’s hope that, in every respect save its length, this turns out to be no little plan. Simon Ricketts 23.4.17
Author simonicityPosted on April 23, 2017April 23, 2017Categories Housing, London, UncategorizedLeave a comment on Make No Little Plans: The London Plan Parliament, Purdah, Planning	The pre- general election “purdah” period starts at midnight tonight (21 April). What this means is set in Cabinet Office guidance published yesterday, 20 April.
So don’t hold your breath for any decision letters to be issued. In relation to current consultation processes, the guidance says:
“If a consultation is on-going at the time this guidance comes into effect, it should continue as normal. However, departments should not take any steps during an election period that will compete with parliamentary candidates for the public’s attention. This effectively means a ban on publicity for those consultations that are still in process. As these restrictions may be detrimental to a consultation, departments are advised to decide on steps to make up for that deficiency while strictly observing the guidance. That can be done, for example, by: – prolonging the consultation period; and – putting out extra publicity for the consultation after the election in order to revive interest (following consultation with any new Minister).
Some consultations, for instance those aimed solely at professional groups, and that carry no publicity will not have the impact of those where a very public and wide-ranging consultation is required. Departments need, therefore, to take into account the circumstances of each consultation.” There are currently six DCLG consultation processes which are still open:
the last two of course being particularly important for us in the housing and planning sector. The Department for Transport is currently consulting on its draft Airports National Policy Statement in relation to the expansion of Heathrow and on reforming policy on the design and use of UK airspace.
• Children and Social Work Bill • Digital Economy Bill • Health Services Supplies Bill
• Higher Education and Research Bill • National Citizen Service Bill
and of course the Neighbourhood Planning Bill, which is at its final stages, with final consideration by the House of Lords on 25 April 2017 of amendments made by the Commons. Whilst technically there is therefore the time available before Parliament dissolves, the BBC website has an interesting analysis of the practical constraints that there will be on Parliamentary time during this final period. My understanding is that public Bills cannot be held over and so the Bill would fall. Finally, as we wait for the parties’ manifestos and various pressure groups compose their letters to Santa, this is a collection of some of the commitments which some Town Legal colleagues would personally like to see (tongue in cheek – what votes in many of these one wonders?). We will be jotting up the scores once the manifestos are published but a more than a 10% convergence would be doing pretty well I suspect…
2. Real sanctions for local planning authorities which continue to delay in preparing plans or which do not plan adequately to meet housing requirements. Statutory duty to make local plans every 10 years. 3. Review of green belt boundaries in the south east should be obligatory at least every 20 years. Where there are no green belt boundaries fixed because there are no local plans in place , the Secretary of State should appoint PINS to lead a plan making exercise at the expense of the defaulting council with step in rights if the Council wants to come back into the fold.
Author simonicityPosted on April 21, 2017April 21, 2017Categories Airports, DCLG, Neighbourhood Planning Bill, NPPF, Parliamentary, PoliticsLeave a comment on Parliament, Purdah, Planning	Planners & Pubs	“…That is the best of Britain and it is part of our distinctive and unique contribution to Europe. Distinctive and unique as Britain will remain in Europe. Fifty years from now Britain will still be the country of long shadows on county grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers and pools fillers and – as George Orwell said – “old maids bicycling to Holy Communion through the morning mist” and if we get our way – Shakespeare still read even in school. Britain will survive unamendable in all essentials.” (John Major, speech to Conservative Group for Europe, 2003)
Author simonicityPosted on April 13, 2017Categories Development management, Leisure, Licensing, Neighbourhood Planning Bill, Permitted development, PubsLeave a comment on Planners & Pubs	Heffalump Traps: The Ashdown Forest Cases	The Ashdown Forest in East Sussex is unique. Lindblom LJ recently described it as follows:
In basic summary, if it cannot be proven, beyond reasonable scientific doubt, that there will be no significant effect on the site either alone or in combination with other plans or projects, “appropriate assessment” is required, namely consideration of the impacts on the integrity of the European site, either alone on in combination with other plans and projects, with regard to the site’s structure and function and its conservation objectives. If the assessment determines that there will be adverse impacts which cannot be mitigated or avoided by alternative solutions, the plan or project can only proceed in extremely limited circumstances. Appropriate assessment can be a significant undertaking. Relevant for what follows, policy makers have come up with a pragmatic mechanism of requiring contributions by developers to Suitable Alternative Natural Greenspace (“SANGs”) to provide for areas to come forward that will take recreational pressure away from protected sites as a standardised form of mitigation, often thereby avoiding the need for individual, development by development, appropriate assessment. Additional levels of protection, not just relevant to European designated sites, are provided by the Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive (in relation to the formulation of plans or programmes whose policies may give rise to significant environmental effects) and by the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive (in relation to certain categories of development projects which may give rise to significant environmental effects). Each has a screening stage, by which the need for detailed assessment work can be avoided if it can be shown that significant environmental effects are unlikely to arise. The Great Repeal Bill will operate post Brexit so as to continue to give legal effect in the UK to all of these regimes until such time as Parliament reviews each of them. The Government published on 30 March its White Paper, Legislating for the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the United Kingdom. It contains this details-free passage on environmental protection:
“The Government is committed to ensuring that we become the first generation to leave the environment in a better state than we found it. The UK’s current legislative framework at national, EU and international level has delivered tangible environmental benefits, such as cleaner rivers and reductions in emissions of sulphur dioxide and ozone depleting substances emissions. Many existing environmental laws also enshrine standards that affect the trade in products and substances across different markets, within the EU as well as internationally. The Great Repeal Bill will ensure that the whole body of existing EU environmental law continues to have effect in UK law. This will provide businesses and stakeholders with maximum certainty as we leave the EU. We will then have the opportunity, over time, to ensure our legislative framework is outcome driven and delivers on our overall commitment to improve the environment within a generation. The Government recognises the need to consult on future changes to the regulatory frameworks, including through parliamentary scrutiny. ”
This was a challenge by local landowners, including in fact the 11th Earl De La Warr, to policies in the Wealden Local Plan, including a requirement for SANGs provision in relation to housing developments within 7 kilometres of the forest. The Court of Appeal quashed the requirement, holding “with a degree of reluctance” that the council and the national park authority had failed to consider reasonable alternatives to the 7 kilometres cordon, in breach of the requirements of the Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive, overturning Sales J’s first instance ruling. Sales J had also rejected the landowners’ challenge to a cap on housing numbers in the plan, which had been justified on the basis of seeking to ensure that traffic movements did not increase beyond 1,000 AADT (annual average daily traffic flows on any road in the forest, equivalent to a 1% increase), treated by the authorities and Natural England as a threshold beyond which appropriate assessment would be required under the Habitats Regulations. The landowners were not given permission to appeal that ground and so that housing numbers policy stands. Secretary of State v Wealdon District Council (Court of Appeal, 31 January 2017)
– did the inspector adopt too strict an approach in concluding that there was no need for an appropriate assessment? – was he wrong to assume that heathland management to mitigate the effects of nitrogen deposition would be carried out under a strategic access management and monitoring strategy (“SAMMS”)? – did he fail to take into account evidence given for the council on the efficacy of heathland management?
The planning permission was quashed. R (DLA Delivery Ltd) v Lewes District Council (Court of Appeal, 10 February 2017) This case raises a number of issues in relation to neighbourhood planning (see my 19.2.17 blog post, Five Problems With Neighbourhood Plans ) but for the purposes of this blog post the relevant question before the Court of Appeal was whether the neighbourhood plan for Newick, approximately 7 km from the forest, contravened the Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive in that the need for strategic environmental assessment had been screened out, relying on on the emerging sustainability appraisal work carried out by Lewes District Council and the national park authority. The claim had been brought by a promoter of a scheme which had not been allocated for development in the plan. If SEA had been found to be required, this would have given it the opportunity to promote its site as a reasonable alternative for those allocated, given that it was outside the magic 7 km radius of the forest. Whilst the court found errors in the council’s reasoning for arriving at a negative screening opinion, they were not such as to vitiate the decision and the plan was not quashed. Wealden District Council v Secretary of State, Lewes District Council and South Downs National Park Authority (Jay J, 20 March 2017)
The forest lies within Wealden’s and the national park authority’s respective administrative areas. Lewes District Council’s boundary is around 5-6km from the forest. This was a challenge by Wealden District Council of a joint core strategy prepared by Lewes and the national park authority. Wealden claimed that Lewes and the national park authority had acted unlawfully in concluding, on advice from Natural England, that the joint core strategy would not be likely to have a significant effect on the SAC in combination with the Wealden core strategy. Natural England had advised that if the expected increase in AADT flows on any route within 200m of a protected site was less than 1,000 cars per day or 200 HGVs per day, equivalent to less than a 1% increase in traffic, then appropriate assessment was not necessary. The expected increase turned out to be 190 AADT, but the expected increase of 950 generated by proposals in the Wealden core strategy was ignored. The defendants tried to argue before the court that the 1,000 AADT threshold was “sufficiently robust and precautionary to cover any likely scenario of in-combination effects. The amounts of nitrogen dioxide in play are so small that they are effectively de minimis and of neutral effect”. The judge held that Natural England’s approach was “plainly erroneous”. There was “no sensible or logical basis” for excluding the Wealden core strategy from account” and a “clear breach” of the Habitats Directive. A couple of additional points to note:
– The challenge was to policies in the joint core strategy, but (unlike the national park authority) Lewes had adopted it more than six weeks before the challenge had been brought. Accordingly only the policies relating to the provision of new housing in the national park authority’s area were quashed. – In an extreme case of nominative determinism, Natural England’s expert advisor, as in a number of these cases, was one Marion Ashdown. Controversy relating to Ashdown Forest is likely to continue if a recent Daily Mirror piece on the Mid-Sussex local plan inspector’s 20 February 2017 preliminary conclusions on housing requirements is anything to go by…
Even once we agree that complex eco-systems such as Ashdown Forest need protection, the dividing line between an appropriate precautionary approach to house-building in the vicinity and inappropriate over-protection is really hard to draw, and it is equally difficult to apply triage so as to reduce the amount of detailed assessment work required. The necessary predictions draw upon scientific disciplines such as chemistry, statistics, ecology and psychology as much as they are about planning or law. Perhaps there is room for greater clarity. After all, it is concerning when even the Government’s statutory advisory body can be “plainly erroneous” in its approach. And it is concerning that so many complex cases are reaching the courts – and leading to the quashing of decisions and policies. This hardly gives a certain basis for house building. But don’t think that this is ever going to be easy or that the problems mainly lie with the nature of the EU directives from which the legal principles flow. We will reinvent the wheel at our peril. After all that, perhaps there is one thing on which we can all agree?
Author simonicityPosted on April 8, 2017April 9, 2017Categories Environmental impact assessment, Great Repeal Bill, Strategic environmental assessmentLeave a comment on Heffalump Traps: The Ashdown Forest Cases	Great Expectations: Pip & The Brownfield Land Registers	“We changed again, and yet again, and it was now too late and too far to go back, and I went on“. (Charles Dickens, Great Expectations)
Permissions in principle will change our planning system significantly, mark my words. In my 11.6.16 blog post I posed a series of questions arising from the legislative skeleton that is sections 150 and 151 of the Housing and Planning Act 2016. Victorian part-work style, we now have had the Housing and Planning Act 2016 (Permission in Principle etc) (Miscellaneous Amendments) (England) Regulations 2017 (made 6 March 2017, in force 27 March 2017), the Town and Country Planning (Brownfield Land Register) Regulations 2017 (made 20 March 2017, in force 16 April 2017) and the Town and Country Planning (Permission in Principle) Order 2017 (made 20 March 2017, 15 April 2017). The statutory instruments don’t yet give effect to all of what sections 150 and 151 enable, but we now have some answers. This blog post is not a full summary of how the regime will operate. There are various good summaries but I particularly recommend the Lichfields 27 March 2017 ‘essential guide‘.
1. Local planning authorities will be under a statutory duty to publish their brownfield land registers by 31 December 2017 and then maintain them, reviewing the entries at least annually. 2. The registers will be in two parts:
– Part 2: land in Part 1 where the local planning authority has exercised its discretion to enter the land in Part 2 and has decided to allocate the land for residential development having followed defined publicity, notification and consultation procedures. 3. The information that must be recorded for each entry is specified and includes
– “where the development includes non-housing development, the scale of any such development and the use to which it is to be put“. 4. Part 2 will not include sites where the development would require environmental impact assessment. So, if the proposed development falls within Schedule 2 column 1 of the 2011 EIA regulations (for most purposes, more than 150 dwellings or on more than 5 hectares), a negative screening opinion or direction must first be obtained (but remember, indicative screening thresholds as to when significant environmental effects are likely to arise allow for the possibility of projects much larger than 150 dwellings). 5. There are no statutory rights of appeal if the local planning authority refuses to include land on the register (ECHR article 6 compliant?). Judicial review would, as always with any decision of a public body, be available but the decision to include land on Part 2 is at the local planning authority’s discretion so that would not be easy. 6. Once land is on Part 2 it has automatic “permission in principle” for five years. In order to be able to carry out the development, application for technical details consent is required, particularising “all matters necessary to enable planning permission to be granted”. The statutory determination period for technical details consent is ten weeks for major development and otherwise five weeks, so deliberately shorter than the equivalent periods in relation to “traditional” non-EIA planning applications (thirteen and eight weeks respectively). A section 106 agreement may be required if the usual tests are met. 7. There is no defined limit on the extent of non-housing development that can benefit from the procedure, alongside residential development. 8. The procedure applies to conversion and extension of existing buildings as well as development. For a wider overview of where this mechanism is heading, there are also useful references in DCLG Planning Update Newsletter March 2017, from which it is clear that further regulations will follow to (1) allow applications for permission in principle to be made for minor development (ie basically less than ten homes) for sites on part 1 of a brownfield land register and to (2) allow automatic permission in principle to stem from allocation in defined categories of statutory development plans rather than just from designation on a brownfield land register. Guidance is also in the offing (dovetailed with the revised NPPF? We can but hope). We also await the Government’s response to its February 2016 technical consultation on implementation of planning changes chapter 2 (permission in principle) and chapter 3 (brownfield register). It was originally promised to be published alongside the regulations. In the meantime, a number of passages in the consultation document are useful in putting flesh on the bones:
“We are proposing that local planning authorities should use existing evidence within an up to date Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment as the starting point for identifying suitable sites for local brownfield registers. To support this, we will encourage authorities to consider whether their Assessments are up to date and, if not, to undertake prompt reviews. While sites contained within the Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment are a useful starting point, we will encourage local authorities to ensure they have considered any other relevant sources if these are not included in their Assessments. This could include sites with extant planning permission and sites known to the authority that have not previously been considered (for example public sector land). We will also expect authorities to use the existing call for sites process to ask members of the public and other interested parties to volunteer potentially suitable sites for inclusion in their registers. We propose that this would be a short targeted exercise aimed at as wide an audience as is practicable. That will enable windfall sites to be put forward by developers and others for consideration by the authority. Authorities that have recently undertaken a full Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment may not consider this to be necessary when initially compiling a register. However, in areas without up to date evidence and for all authorities completing subsequent annual reviews of their register, the process of volunteering potentially suitable sites will play an important role in refreshing the evidence base and help ensure all suitable sites, including windfall sites, are included.”
Author simonicityPosted on April 1, 2017April 1, 2017Categories Brownfield land, Development management, Housing, Housing and Planning Act 2016Leave a comment on Great Expectations: Pip & The Brownfield Land Registers	Search for: