It can be hard to keep up with the government’s proposed changes to the planning system. To help you keep an overview, here’s AM-P’s planning news round up for the last week.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government has published an open consultation on the Reform of planning committees, as well as a working paper on Reforming Site Thresholds.
1️⃣ Planning Committee Reform
The former seeks opinions on proposals including:
🔍 Changes to the delegation of planning decisions;
👥 Limiting the size of Planning Committees to a maximum of 11 members; and
📚 Introducing mandatory training for committee members.
2️⃣ Special Measures
Alongside these changes, the government hopes to ensure effective and consistent decision making, by lowering the threshold for the quality of decision making from 10% to 5% for both major and non-major decisions.
The proportion of non-major decisions overturned at appeal lies below 5% for all councils in Essex. However, the same can not be said for major decisions, with 5 Essex local authorities at risk of being placed in special measures:
Basildon (15.2%)
Castle Point (6.7%)
Chelmsford (5.8%)
Epping Forest (13.3%)
Rochford (5.6%).
Uttlesford District Council was put in special measures in February 2022. However, the council will take back full planning control following de-designation as confirmed by the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government in a letter received by the authority on 6 June.
3️⃣ Site Threshold Reform
In the working paper Reforming Site Thresholds, the government is further proposing a broader range of options to restore SMEs as the backbone of the housebuilding system and unlock development.
Practically, these options could include:
🍃 Streamlining requirements on BNG including the option of a full exemption;
✅ Reducing validation requirements and the number of statutory consultees for minor development; and
✏️ Introducing template design codes for very small sites, to be individualised by each council.
4️⃣ Medium Residential Development
Perhaps most interestingly, the consultation seeks opinions on the introduction of a new medium development threshold for sites between 10 and 49 homes. These developments could benefit from:
🍃 simplified BNG requirements;
🚧 exemption from a number of financial and bureaucratic hurdles (including the delegation of some of these developments to officers as part of the National Scheme of Delegation); and
✔️ minimised validation and statutory information requirements.
It is also proposed to introduce a standardised S106 template for medium sites.