We’ve been a bit quiet on enforcement matters to date, but you may not know we love a good enforcement case! Over the last year or so we’ve been working ‘both sides of the fence’ for various clients including local planning authorities, landowners and developers who have had challenging enforcement problems, all over the country.
On Saturday morning (30/01/2021), MHCLG released an open consultation on some proposed revisions to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) as well as a new draft National Model Design Code.
On 21st July 2020, Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick announced new and expanded Permitted Development (PD) rights which he argued would deliver much-needed new homes and revitalise town centres. The new measures were originally mooted in the Prime Minister’s ‘Build, Build, Build’ announcement back at the end of June, in which Boris Johnson promised “the most radical reforms to our planning system since the Second World War”.
So now we await a return to normality that may never really arrive. Cummings’ trip up north may have heralded a relaxation of the government’s lockdown and a move towards us being more ‘alert’ – whatever that means.
We now find ourselves experiencing a mix of weird dreams, unsettled nights, gorgeous weather, home working, home schooling, social distancing, fear for our loved ones and friends and total uncertainty over the future.
The importance of good design in recent years, is in my opinion, a subject that has gained a lot of traction in attempts to reintroduce the principles of ‘good design’ into residential developments across the country.
This month I have been motivated to muse about public feedback on affordable housing proposals: before we’ve submitted the application and after it's gone in.
As a profession, we are encouraged to engage with the public before submitting planning applications, particularly major schemes that will have (presumably) a much larger scale impact.
Well we’re now into a new year and new decade and the RCA team have been reflecting on the most recent consultation season at the end of 2019. At the end of the year, the team were busy preparing representations for a wide breadth of clients to represent their sites to various Local Plan Reviews at various stages.
So, you have concerns about whether your site is viable to develop because the cost of planning obligations are too high, or the affordable housing requirement is too onerous, or the values are too low, or because of a combination of some or all of these factors.
