PLANNING DECISIONS
Pandemic demands speed up planning decisions
The response to the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in greater changes to providing healthcare real estate than at any point in the NHS’s history, believes Huw Mellor, a Partner at the Oxford offices of multidisciplinary property partnership, Carter Jonas. Here he argues that not only have the changes assisted in responding to the crisis, but they have also shown how planning and development in healthcare, and potentially other public sectors, ‘can be done better’.
The changes, which I will go on to describe in this article, are a significant – but, we believe, proportionate – response to the enormity of the pandemic, and while they have been significant, they have also been immediate. In some cases - unprecedented in the history of planning – change is taking place ahead of the policy that facilitates it. Across the country, we have seen vaccine development centres, hospitals, and specialist clinical facilities, constructed, fitted out, and propelled into operation, as if being viewed on a time- lapse video.
In Oxford, Carter Jonas has recently secured planning permission for a significant extension to the John Radcliffe Hospital, but this was no ordinary planning consent, as work on the new building commenced prior to obtaining planning approval. We also experienced similar circumstances in the Vale of White Horse, working closely with the Council to bring about the accelerated construction of the Vaccines Manufacturing and Innovation Centre in Abingdon.
Proposals for
‘unprecedented reforms’ Given the success of these two projects, and others, it seems logical that the Government is proposing unprecedented reforms to speed up the delivery of hospitals and other NHS buildings. Currently, small extensions are permitted without the need for a full planning application. However, the Government’s intention is to deliver extensions further and faster. The proposals, consulted upon earlier this year, mean that where a full planning application is required – such as to build an entirely new hospital – the process would be streamlined. Whereas currently some planning applications are left for many months without a decision, councils will have a legal duty to decide major public service development applications within 10 weeks. The existing right for extensions to hospitals is subject to size limits. It restricts extensions or additional buildings to no
Carter Jonas secured planning permission for a significant extension to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford in May 2021, at which point the construction work was already well underway.
more than 25% of the gross floorspace of the original buildings, with a maximum cap of 100 square metres. It also restricts the height of new buildings to five metres. Future legislation would allow such users to expand their facilities by up to 25% of the footprint of the current buildings on the site, or up to 250 square metres, whichever is greater. This would allow more flexibility for those sites that have enlarged or developed additional buildings over time, and flexibility for those premises with a smaller footprint. It is also proposed that the height limit is raised from five metres to six metres, excluding plant on the roof, except where it is within 10 metres of the boundary or curtilage.
Change of use
These policy changes come about as the Government has also significantly increased the potential for change of use between healthcare and a wide range of other uses (shops, office buildings, research and development facilities, clinics, health centres, creches, day nurseries, day centres, gyms, and most indoor recreations). They also coincide with the extension of temporary permitted
development rights to enable emergency development by councils and health service bodies, from 31 December 2020 to 31 December 2021, allowing for services such as Nightingale hospitals to continue. There is no doubt that the urgent requirement for facilities such as those highlighted has emphasised weaknesses in the current planning system, and so it is encouraging not only that exceptions have been possible to enable us to fight COVID-19, but that positive change is being put in place for the long term.
Case study:
John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford Carter Jonas secured planning permission for a significant extension to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford in May 2021, at which point the construction work was well underway.
Due to COVID-19, and the important role that the John Radcliffe Hospital plays at a regional and national level, Oxford City Council fast-tracked the application process, meaning that much of the planning work taking place behind the scenes was carried out simultaneously with construction work.
September 2021 Health Estate Journal 27
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