00Why planning committees should not be able to block development on sites allocated in local plans

• The Government risks missing a major opportunity to reach the 1.5 million home target if planning committees are allowed to block new homes allocated in local plans.
• The new powers in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill should define development on sites allocated in local plans as “Tier A”, to be dealt with solely by professional planners, rather than “Tier B” with committee call-in powers.
• Councillor vetoes of developments agreed in local plans at full council are undemocratic. Allowing allocated sites to be blocked by councillors puts them under unnecessary political pressure, weakens local plans and the plan-led system, and the ability of councils to secure developer contributions.
• Developers should be able to request committee call-in for all significant schemes, including if refused by planners. Mid-rise developments in metro mayor areas should also be delegated solely to planners.

The Government announced major reforms to planning committees in a Working Paper before Christmas.¹ In the judgement of Centre for Cities, this is the single most important component of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill and the Government’s efforts to reach 1.5 million new homes in this Parliament.

After being assessed by planning officers, most significant planning applications face a second stage where a planning committee of local councillors ultimately decides whether or not to grant planning permission. The criteria for whether applications go to this second stage is determined by local planning authorities, which means the process of applying for planning permission varies across England.

The national scheme of delegation (NSoD) in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill will introduce a nationally consistent criteria for determining whether planning applications go before planning committees. The NSoD is critical for making the planning system more rules-based, as it will allow national government to depoliticise applications that comply with the local plan.

The Government has recently released a consultation containing their developed proposals from the Working Paper.² It carries through most of the logic of the promising Option 3 proposal set out in the working paper before Christmas.

Applications will be considered either Tier A or B. Tier A applications will be delegated to officers in all cases, including household applications, amendments to existing planning permissions, and “minor” sites below ten new dwellings. All other applications not in this defined list will be Tier B and delegated to officers, but subject to a ‘call-in’ to planning committees if the chair of the planning committee and the local authority chief planner both agree.

There is however an important omission. Option 3 initially proposed that sites allocated in local plans would be delegated to planning officers (Tier A). This is missing from the consultation – which means sites allocated in local plans will be Tier B and subject to committee call-in.

Classifying allocated sites as Tier B would be a major missed opportunity. The call-in power would create an escape clause from the Planning and Infrastructure Bill for the lion’s share of new housebuilding.

It is not uncommon for planning committees to block schemes approved by officers on allocated sites. As an example, the Planning Committee Working Paper highlights three sites allocated in local plans totalling almost 900 homes that were blocked at committee. The proposals the Government is currently consulting on would still have allowed a determined local authority to block these applications by using its Tier B call-in power.

Polling of planning committee members suggests that they would continue to block developments on allocated sites if they were classed as Tier B. Only 31 per cent of committee members agree with the principle that applications that comply with the local plan should be delegated to officers. This is not because they believe the committee stage increases supply – 74 per cent believe the 1.5 million target is “unachievable”, and only 6 per cent agree with the Government that the planning system is a key barrier to reaching it.³

There are two key arguments for retaining committee oversight of planning applications. The first is the claim that reducing committee oversight would “harm local democracy”, as councillors would no longer be able to block applications that comply with the local plan. The second is a more subtle point about political leverage – the ability of a council to refuse an application is argued to make it easier to extract greater contributions or design features from the developer.

Local plans provide the answer to both of these points, at least for allocated sites.

First, local plans that are approved at full council are more democratic than committee vetoes. Local plans are how places collectively decide how and where growth should proceed in an orderly way, by allocating sites for development, grappling with trade-offs, and considering the needs of the whole community and its future members. Allowing applications on the sites allocated by the local plan to be called in and blocked by a small minority of councillors violates that democratic process.

Second, using the local plan to achieve public goals would be more effective than any leverage from the committee process. The latter forces local authorities to take a passive approach towards planning – developers make applications, and the local authority then tries to secure concessions in response. Although this does secure contributions from developers, it does so in a slow and uncertain way. It is not uncommon for development to be delayed for years as negotiations get bogged down in trench warfare.

The alternative is an active approach to planning in which the local authority’s goals are set out as it allocates sites in its local plan. Developers would as a result know what is expected on site before they make their application or buy the land. This would be a shift towards real spatial planning, but it would require councils to let go of the politicised micro-management of each individual site to strengthen the local plan as a whole.

The Government’s planning reform agenda is based on the idea that a more rules-based and certain planning system would increase housebuilding and economic growth. The logical conclusion of that position is that when the local plan as agreed by councillors determines development is acceptable, the technical question as to whether an application complies is a matter for planning officers.

There are two further points that justify classifying allocated sites as Tier A.

First, defining allocated sites as Tier B weakens the plan-led system. Strengthening local plans has been a key principle of planning reform efforts since the Barker Report of 2006, yet only 28 per cent of local authorities currently have a local plan less than five years old in place.⁴ If allocated sites can still be blocked by councillors, then efforts by the Government to achieve complete local plan coverages will underdeliver housing numbers relative to expectations.

Second, the Tier B power to call-in allocated sites to committee would be a poisoned chalice for councillors. The paradox of refusals of such applications is that they are typically overturned when appealed to the Planning Inspectorate.⁵ This implies that such refusals are typically political in motivation, and that the costs and delays imposed on the local authority, on developers, and for the national housebuilding target are incidental. Putting such behaviour out of reach would help protect councillors from being pressured by local residents to block schemes that they know will win on appeal.

Alongside defining applications on allocated sites as Tier A, the Government should make three more changes to the NSoD.

First, minor, medium, and major Tier A and B applications, including those on allocated sites, should offer a committee call-in power to the applicant.

For some complex urban regeneration projects that are politically sensitive, industry figures have reported that securing political consent is essential to allow such projects to proceed smoothly. Allowing developers to secure this consent when they see it as necessary will help manage the political challenges of controversial development without unnecessarily blocking new homes.

Second, minor, medium, and major Tier A and B applications that are refused by officers should offer applicants right-of-appeal to the planning committee.

Interviews with professionals and councillors report that there are occasionally local planning authorities that have planning officers who more anti-development than committee members. Allowing refused applicants of significant projects to appeal to committee would align with the ‘permission-and-appeal’ logic of the rest of the planning system, ensure delegated decision-making remains pro-development, and stop the committee being gummed up by trivial householder applications.

Third, medium (10-50 dwelling schemes) should be defined as Tier A in metro mayor areas (London; Greater Manchester; West Midlands; Liverpool City Region; West Yorkshire; Tees Valley; North East; and West of England), as the Government suggests in its consultation. The 1.5 million home target will be most challenging to reach in urban areas, as these areas are where the planning system is most restrictive.⁶

The local plan system struggles to allocate sites for “medium” or mid-rise developments in cities as the local plan system concentrates new urban housing in very small pockets of high-density development. While 45 per cent of all suburban housebuilding in the 2010s was concentrated in 4 per cent of neighbourhoods, half of all suburban neighbourhoods added less than one house a year.⁷ This is a major reason why British cities underperform economically, as the size of their effective labour markets and their agglomeration effects by their low density outside of key transportation hubs.⁸

In urban areas, policy should be trying to depoliticise mid-rise housing, which cannot be done if schemes of between 10-50 homes can be called in and blocked by politicians. As proposals for mid-rise housing are disproportionately likely to come forward as “windfall” schemes rather than be allocated in local plans, schemes of such size in urban areas need to be recognised as Tier A applications. This would provide substantial assistance for the Government’s “Brownfield Passports” agenda.

The Government’s planning reform programme is more ambitious than is widely understood. But to have a serious shot at reaching its 1.5 million home target, the Government has to make the most of its own reforms. A plan-led system needs to trust local plans and planners if it is to preside over a generational increase in housebuilding.