Michael Bates-Tracey, associate and architect, FWP
FWP is a multidisciplinary practice. We do a lot of sport and leisure projects and healthcare on the public sector side.
We have a sports project that has been in planning for around 12 months and we’re still 12 months from actually submitting the application.
There’s now such a massive upfront cost for developers to put a planning application in. The validation requirements, the list is just so long.
Paul Darwin, land director, Anwyl Homes
We’re a family house builder with a number of sites in Lancashire. For us to be able to build we need planning permission.
If you look at the statutory timescales, they have gone out of the window. You’re supposed to have 13 weeks for a planning application decision but most of the time you’re lucky if you’ve got it in six months. Sometimes it could take 12 months to get planning.
We have a site outside Lancashire that’s been in planning for two years so it’s a long process and that’s from the moment you submit your application. You’ve got pre-application discussions as well which, again, can take anywhere up to six months.
Keeping up with the government’s ambition on housebuilding is hard. The public sector has been cut to bits in terms of staff resources. Planning budgets aren’t ringfenced any more. There is a lot of investment needed to get the right people in.
We want to build well-designed, good family houses and it is really refreshing to see the impetus Labour is putting into it. Having a positive approach is definitely needed because there are councils in some areas that have just sat on their hands and said, ‘We don’t need any new development’.
It’s how the government can push people to deliver things, whether that’s reallocating officers, deemed permissions in certain areas or speeding up the appeals processes.
We have torn up a lot of things that
worked and we have a lot of stuff that act as barriers
Take a speculative co-living space development. The outline planning and the validation requirements, you just think, ‘wow’. You can’t believe the amount you
have to actually put in for an application.
When it comes to the amount of time things take, yes, we know there have to be consultations with different people and bodies, but it is about taking ownership of schemes when they come into the local authority. Someone needs to take that ownership and grab hold of it.
Communication is key, just picking up the phone and speaking to people, having a conversation and saying, ‘Look this is what we’re trying to do’ and that’s been lost. It’s emails back and forth that aren’t actually resolving anything.
The problems have been going on for some time and in terms of giving local authorities some extra money, I don’t think it really touches the surface.
Deborah Smith, co-founder, S&L Planning Consultants
Unless you are an experienced developer you are not going to ‘ have a go’ because things are just too uncertain.
More certainty is needed, more resources. We need a chief planner installed in every authority. Historically they held a wealth of information about an area and experience, because planning is really complicated sometimes.
In restructure after restructure
chief planners disappeared and they are the people you should got to if you’re having a problem.
Money has been put aside for 300 new planning officers to go into local authorities. I’ve read there are 90 graduates on the trainee scheme at the moment but that’s not the level that’s needed.
It’s more experienced planners that are needed but I guess you’ve got to start somewhere. Then there’s the challenge of keeping them because historically people will work in the local authority sector and then move into the private sector.
Morale tends to be very low in quite a lot of local authorities and it’s bound to be if all the planning officers get is, ‘Where’s my planning up to? Have you done mine, where is it up to?’ You constantly get berated.
We need some collaboration across local authority areas with strategic planning, which was scrapped years ago. To add a strategic layer back in makes a lot of sense to me.
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