38 BUILT ENVIRONMENT
GETTING CAUGHT UP IN PLANNING
Speeding up the planning process is vital if Lancashire is to attract investment and create more jobs and opportunities, the built environment conference audience heard.
Under pressure local authority planning departments need more resources and taking a more creative approach to problem solving would also help the situation, delegates were told.
Warren Bennett, commercial director at James’ Places, which has eight hospitality sites in the county and employs more than 500 people, said it had taken his business ten months to get permission to secure a change of use on a premises.
He also recounted similar examples from other businesses caught up in planning delays, and he said: “It is really frustrating and I hope there will be changes. I don’t class ten months as quick enough for a change of use application.”
Warren, who was a local councillor for 20 years, said that the delays in the planning process meant that James’ Places’ latest venture had not yet been able to open and as a result was not employing anyone or contributing tax.
He added: “We are constantly told by people in planning that they haven’t got the time or capacity. We are losing weeks and weeks and that is the frustrating thing.
“We need to put more resource into planning if we are talking about growth.”
Deborah Smith is a chartered planning consultant and co-founder of Smith & Love Planning Consultants in Preston, which has been involved
in major projects in the county including Burnley’s £23m Pioneer Place town centre regeneration. She told the conference there were major opportunities to repurpose town centre high streets through creative thinking and investment in leisure and hospitality. However, she added: “The planning system is not helping at the moment.”
Deborah went on: “The government has lost all sense of focus on restructuring the planning system. It is under-resourced, morale is low.”
We need to put more resources
into planning if we are talking about growth
When it comes to navigating the system she said: “My own mantra right now is ‘curiosity first’ and I can’t share it enough. Don’t fall into the pit of a problem because ‘policy says this’.
“Certainty and clarity are what developers need. Policies do create that to a degree but it has created a really rigid system.
“For me curiosity is trying to solve the problem, asking what are we trying to achieve, what’s the vision? It takes grown up conversations which are sometimes lacking.”
She added: “There is some great vision and aspiration in the Lancashire 2050 document.”
Continued on page 40
John Sullivan
Debbie Smith
Warren Bennett
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