Over the years that the scheme has been paraded before planning officers and council officials, it has been honed, reduced in height, thinned out and cascaded down to the river 鈥� and every time it has been tossed out by a different set of officials because something did not meet their approval.
The first time it was the massing. Then they thought it was too close to the trees. Then they thought the blocks were too close to the river. By the fourth appeal, its design was deemed to be incompatible with the planning guidance that came out in March 2000. Each bout in the ring has cost Berkeley Group 拢70 000-80 000.
Housebuilders鈥� growing frustration with the planning system has prompted them to warn the government that, rather than getting 60% of new homes built on brownfield land, the urban revival will grind to a halt. At the results meeting last week, Berkeley Group chairman Tony Pidgley voiced the concern of many: 鈥淭he most dangerous thing I can see on the horizon at the moment is that local authorities may stifle development.鈥� Ask any housebuilder about building on brownfield and what follows is a battery of complaints 鈥� not so much about government policy, but the inadequacies of the machinery that is supposed to implement it.
Government under pressure
It is not only developers that are unhappy. The government is itself under siege. Last week, Lord Richard Rogers of Riverside, chairman of the urban taskforce, vented his exasperation with Tony Blair for failing to act on the recommendations put forward in his taskforce鈥檚 report a year ago.
He has called on the prime minister to take the idea of an urban renaissance to the heart of government 鈥� and stand up to chancellor Gordon Brown, whom Lord Rogers believes is blocking his proposals by refusing to introduce tax measures that promote brownfield over green. His views are expected to receive powerful backing today when the DETR parliamentary select committee publishes its inquiry into the urban renaissance. Andrew Bennett, chairman of the committee, says: 鈥淭he government has moved very slowly; it needs a bold and imaginative programme and sufficient money in the spending round to kick-start the urban revival.鈥�
The planning system is on the edge of a major change. Everything is happening at once
Professor Stephen Crow
Taskforce members and MPs alike believe that the government鈥檚 urban policy will fail if no fiscal measures are taken to support it, such as harmonising VAT between refurbishment and new build, providing more subsidies for cleaning contaminated land and reducing stamp duty for brownfield development. This last is the only fiscal measure expected to be reviewed in the chancellor鈥檚 autumn pre-budget announcement.
Lord Rogers鈥� other point is that fiscal measures alone are not enough. Regeneration requires co-ordinated action across Whitehall. Brownfield is plentiful in exactly those deprived areas where it is least likely to be developed, and even if greater subsidies were made available to pay for cleaning them up, people would not want to move to the finished product if it did not have good schools and low crime. This is what the urban renaissance is supposed to deliver.
Members of the taskforce are pinning their hopes for this co-ordinated policy-making on the government鈥檚 long-awaited response to their report. This will take the form of the urban white paper, to be published in the autumn. As one remarked: 鈥淲e鈥檝e not had a blow-by-blow account of what鈥檚 been accepted. But there is still a lot to play for. We鈥檝e not given up hope.鈥�
Fiscal and political will may be conspicuously absent from the central political arena, but the DETR has certainly been doing its bit to steer planning policy in Lord Rogers鈥� direction.
The view from the DETR
Construction and planning minister Nick Raynsford counters his criticisms of government torpor with claims that 17 of the taskforce鈥檚 recommendations have been tackled through changes to the planning system.
The government is trying to change the rules, but it has the whole of local government to change, too
Brian Salmon, Berkeley Homes
Among the slew of policy initiatives coming out of Eland House are proposals to speed up the appeals process (released last week) new guidance on transport (expected any day now, in the form of a revised PPG13), and a shake-up in compulsory purchase orders to enable sites to be more readily put together.
By far the biggest change, however, has already been introduced. This was the appearance of a revised PPG3 in March. It says that councils must release land for development in a sequential way, so that greenfield land cannot be released until it is established that brownfield land could not be used. It also stipulates higher housing densities, fewer car parking places and better design. This latest requirement was reiterated a few weeks after the revision to PPG3 in the accompanying design guidance. At the launch, Raynsford called for an end to 鈥渢awdry little boxes鈥�.
Former chief planning inspector Professor Stephen Crow says PPG3 鈥渕arks a turning point in development policy. 鈥淭he planning system is on the edge of a major change,鈥� he says. 鈥淓verything is happening at once 鈥� and there aren鈥檛 any ready-made answers; we have to be prepared to experiment and learn as we go along.鈥�
Housebuilders are only too aware of the trend of policy changes: some have been steering business away from greenfield for some time. However, they are worried that local government will fail to implement the new rules coming out of Whitehall.
Brian Salmon, group planning executive for Berkeley, says: 鈥淭he government is trying to go in the right direction, but the machinery is not in place. Some procedures, such as the processing of applications, are just too slow, and are made even slower by the imposition of new policies. We are in for a difficult period. The government is trying to change the rules, but it has the whole of local government to change, too鈥�.
He cites the appointment of the London mayor, who takes office this week, as another unknown in the system, and yet another administrative layer to be negotiated. Ken Livingstone has yet to draw up his strategic guidance, but with the appointment of Lord Rogers as 鈥渁rchitect for London鈥�, he has given a strong signal that it will follow the guiding star of the taskforce.
The idea that an application is processed in eight weeks is rubbish
David Bryant, Regional Chairman, Persimmon Homes
Another important drag on planning will be the human rights legislation that will come into force in October. Housebuilders say this could have a dramatic impact on the planning appeals procedure because it will give objectors the right to make their case to an independent judge.
What鈥檚 wrong with councils
In principle, housebuilders seem convinced that the target of building 60% of new homes on brownfield can be met, but it requires different solutions depending on which part of the country you are in. In the north, land is plentiful but property prices are often too low to cover the high cost of soil remediation. In the south of England, the difficulty is getting land to market in the first place, as councils tussle with themselves over whether to keep it available for employment or release it for housing.
This is one area where housebuilders want to see local authorities ditch outdated notions about land use. As one housebuilder points out, councils ring-fence land for employment even though the jobs in question are increasingly office-based and require far less land than manufacturing did.
However, it is not so much the policies of councils that housebuilders complain about, but rather their attitude to developers鈥� proposals and their simple ability to do their jobs. Keith Hadrell, managing director of Bellway Homes鈥� Essex division, says: 鈥淥ften, local authorities are understaffed. In some inner-city boroughs, turnover is horrendous. You put in an application and it gets handed from one person to another.鈥�
David Bryant, regional chairman of Persimmon Homes, concurs. 鈥淭he idea that a planning application is processed in eight weeks is rubbish. You鈥檙e lucky if it鈥檚 been registered by then.鈥� He also complains about planners鈥� adversarial approach. He says: 鈥淲e get the impression that planning officers don鈥檛 look at helping you get through an application, they are looking at how they can refuse it. They can be frustrating, unprofessional and uncommercial. They don鈥檛 seem to live in the real world. We have to buy land and sell houses; planning officers are just not interested in what that costs.鈥�
A lot of design and economic skills have been eroded; we鈥檝e got to get them back
Kevin Murray, RTPI President
Bryant would also like to see the system changed so that, once planning officers do recommend a scheme, lay councillors could ask for clarification or deferment but not flatly turn it down.
The pay-off
However exasperated housebuilders feel about the way councils process their applications, a still bigger nightmare is obtaining their Section 106 agreement. Also known as 鈥減lanning gain鈥�, this is the requirement that they pay for elements of social infrastructure such as schools, libraries, roads and park-and-ride schemes, as well as including social housing in their developments.
It is not unheard of for areas such as Cambridge to demand 拢4000 a plot towards education, says one housebuilder; another tells of a requirement that three-quarters of its scheme be social housing. Housebuilders say that as councils鈥� shopping lists grow ever longer, so does the risk of not going ahead. As St George鈥檚 managing director, Tony Carey, puts it: 鈥淚 think local authorities should be more realistic in their aspirations for planning gain.鈥�
As onerous as these aspirations are, they are matched by the length of time it takes to draw up Section 106 agreements. After getting planning consent, all developments have to be issued with agreements before work can start, and even if the agreement is straightforward, housebuilders complain that it can take more than a year to sign the paperwork.
Clive Wilding, managing director of Gleeson Homes, says too much time is wasted at the outset. 鈥淔or development on recycled land to succeed, we need a lot of co-operation between the parties. Councils ought to do their homework and consult with environmental agencies before land is released.鈥�
Whether the target is achievable depends on how good you are as a local authority
Chris Swanwick, High Wycombe District Council
And the planners?
Planners themselves agree that the system needs an overhaul: Kevin Murray, president of the Royal Town Planning Institute, says: 鈥淏rownfield does bring challenges for the planning authorities. Over the years, a lot of design and economic skills have been eroded; we鈥檝e got to get them back.鈥�
鈥淭he government is driving changes through the system,鈥� says Chris Swanwick, director of planning at High Wycombe District Council. 鈥淏ut generally, we will need a higher calibre of planners to deliver. We plan to build 90% of new homes on brownfield land in High Wycombe in the next five years. That needs innovative thinking in the release and assembly of land. Whether the target is achievable depends on how good you are as a local authority.鈥�
Swanwick says it is an amazing time for planners. But just as planner must raise their game, so too must housebuilders, whom he says often submit mediocre designs. Swanwick hopes that new planning guidance will give the appeal system more power to root out the type of schemes that often get the green light.
Says Swanwick: "We want urban renaissance not urban cramming; new housing should be adding to the quality of the neighbourhood, not detracting from it.鈥� Another planner points out: 鈥淗ousebuilders ought to be more like car manufacturers 鈥� creating a brand image that people identify with, even if they are not buying a new home. All they are concerned about is: will this house sell?鈥�
Of course, whatever the changes to the planning process, unless crime, education and transport are tackled (without relying totally on planning gain), the brownfield target cannot be delivered. On an even higher level, there is the question of whether the government should be tackling the use of land at the national level, and finding incentives for companies to move into areas of higher deprivation and lower land costs.
