The City and the City

The most striking and entertaining academic writing that I came across in 2011 was by Rem Koolhaas. I found an extract from his book 'S,M,L,XL' in the innocuously titled 'Urban Design Reader' and loved it. Much of the planning literature I've read has been about the process and its aims, whereas Koolhaas makes sweeping, judgemental statements about what already exists. It makes a refreshing change. Also, he's very funny.

Rather than make my own inevitably depressing predictions for the year ahead, I give you the abridged Generic City. It seems like a 2012 sort of place to me.

Identity is like a mousetrap... The Generic City is the city liberated from the captivity of centre, from the straitjacket of identity... The Generic City is what is left after large sections of urban life crossed over into cyberspace... The dominant sensation of the Generic City is an eerie calm... The Generic City is fractal... Its main attraction is its anomie... [airports] are on the way to replacing the city... The in-transit condition is becoming universal... The great originality of the Generic City is to abandon what does not work... The street is dead... Housing is not a problem... [sites] are like holes bored through the concept of city... The roads are only for cars... The Generic City presents the final death of planning... Its most dangerous and most exhilarating discovery is that planning makes no difference whatsoever... It is open and accommodating like a mangrove forest... There is always a quarter called Lipservice, where a minimum of the past is preserved... Tourism is now independent of destination... Shrimp is the ultimate appetizer... The only activity is shopping... Close your eyes and imagine an explosion of beige... Voids are the essential building block of the Generic City... Postmodernism is the only movement that has succeeded in connecting the practice of architecture with the practice of panic... Bad weather is about the only anxiety that hovers over the Generic City... The architecture of the 20th century needs unlimited plane tickets, not a shovel... The new infrastructure creates enclave and impasse... In each time zone, there are at least three performances of Cats. The world is surrounded by a Saturn's ring of meowing.

Whether you agree with him or not, Koolhaas paints quite a vivid picture, doesn't he? His writing reminds me a lot of William Gibson, somehow. Happy new year.

The World Has Changed

As part of my masters course I have to write an extended essay about the government's planning reforms. As I have something of an interest in this and been blogging on the topic for over a year, I may have put in a word requesting an essay title of this nature. I'm looking forward to writing a proper academic critique.

Pursuant to this, I've been digging through the Localism Act, which received royal assent on the 15th November. Are you feeling more local yet? Relative to the rumpus about the draft National Planning Policy Framework, the Localism Act hasn't received much attention in the press. This is interesting, as in planning terms it is much more powerful. It has the force of statute, whereas the NPPF will only be policy and therefore possible to overrule depending on the circumstances. Laws are also far more difficult to dislodge than policy, once enacted.

The Localism Act isn't just about planning, and another post will likely be devoted to a tirade about its housing sections. However, it does fundamentally change the way plans will be made and planning applications determined. Every government in the past half century seems to have made similarly seismic changes, so I'm sure the planning profession will do their best to roll with all the new acronyms. When trying to make sense of the structural changes, I found it useful to construct diagrams*. Sorry, they aren't colourful. In an attempt at clarity, I've missed off various bodies that exist (or did) here and there but aren't (or weren't) ubiquitous, like Urban Development Corporations, London Mayors, Local Enterprise Zones, and the like. Unitary authorities are bundled in with district councils.

This is how planning policy-making was:



All very hierarchical, don't you think? This is how it is now:



Note the direction of the arrows, as this indicates who overrules who. During the Labour years, Local Development Frameworks had to be compatible with Regional Spatial Strategies. Now, Neighbourhood Plans will override Local Plans, which are merely re-labelled Local Development Frameworks. The Neighbourhood Plan has to be adopted by a local referendum first, though.

Am I the only who thinks that the new system looks potentially a little chaotic? I speculated on what the hell the draft bill thought it was doing with neighbourhoods a little while ago. Neither I nor, I suspect, anyone else has any idea how many Neighbourhood Forums there might be, or how neighbourhood referendums might work in practise. The legislation gives no limits as to the minimum or maximum geographic size of a 'neighbourhood'. Given the assumption that Parish Councils will serve the same purposes in rural areas, the easiest urban comparison would seem to be electoral wards. London has 624 of these and Cambridge 14. That's a lot of plans, and there is no requirement for them to be consistent.

As for how individual planning applications are determined, the 2004-2010 way was as follows:

Planning applications are determined in accordance with the development plan unless material considerations, such as national policies, characteristics of the site, and local opposition, indicate otherwise. (Paraphrasing the heavily-amended Section 70 of 1990 Town and Country Planning Act and the 2004 Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act)

From now on we will do it like this:

Planning applications are determined with regard to the development plan, presumably the Neighbourhood Plan as that overrides the Local one, material considerations, and any local financial considerations relevant to the application. There's also the presumption in favour of sustainable development, although that's in the (currently draft) National Planning Policy Framework rather than statute and therefore would just be a material consideration. 'Any local financial considerations' could include the meagre New Homes Bonus that Local Authorities get when new homes are built; it could potentially also include the financial impossibility of a Local Authority providing sufficient infrastructure to support a proposed new development as a result of CLG cutting their block grant by 20%. (Paraphrasing Section 143 of the Localism Act)

If I had a more mercenary** twin, they would be a planning lawyer, leafing through yacht catalogues in the expectation of an explosion in lengthy planning appeals. If you are in fact a planning lawyer, then good luck in this neighbourhood morass and please consider donating a portion of your fees to support unemployed former public servants.


* Thank you, OpenOffice.
** Evil seems rather strong; I've met some very pleasant planning lawyers.

Titans Will Clash

Hostilities have erupted between The Telegraph and the Department of Communities and Local Government. The former has launched a campaign against planning reforms in general and the draft National Planning Policy Framework in particular, called Hands Off Our Land. Or as I like to call it Not In Our Back Yard. CLG seem to feel the need to respond in terse, aggressive fashion to their every article here, here, here, here, and here. I pity the poor civil servant required to write those.

Frankly, this is a war I hope they both lose. Each side is as prone as the other to making sweeping, alarmist statements without such fripperies as evidence, for example:

75,000 HOMES TO BE BUILT ON ENGLAND'S GREEN BELT!

PLANNING DELAYS COST THE ECONOMY £3 BILLION A YEAR!

At the heart of this acrimonious dispute lies the paradox of modern Tory conservatism: free markets versus nostalgic protectionism. At the moment it appears that the government favours the former and local government the latter. This of course reduces a complex and nuanced issue to black and white, but such is the current tone of the debate.

Pickles and co have been insisting that localism will cause all areas to embrace development, against experience on their doorsteps. The Telegraph has spotted the disjunct here and pounced. Notice the obvious subtext here, that people want localism in order to prevent development.

The draft National Planning Policy Framework has caused this storm. Apparently the fact that the Localism Bill isn't actually that localist wasn't widely noted, but the presumption in favour of sustainable development is pretty unequivocal. George Monbiot is outraged about it; he doesn't often agree with the Torygraph.

I continue to think that both sides are partially right but mostly wrong. The planning system is too complicated and does need simplification. However the Localism Bill makes it more complicated, and ignores the fact that most people will only get involved with it if there is a specific proposal nearby that they want to prevent. And that is perfectly rational! In these austere times, few want to spend ages debating community projects unless there is some hope of them happening. People should be encouraged to get involved in planning, but not obliged to.

Without doubt, the draft Planning Policy Framework doesn't give a clear enough definition of sustainable development and puts far too much emphasis on economic growth. The presumption in favour of sustainable development is hugely risky. Outside greenbelt land, it will become extremely difficult for local authorities to refuse planning permission. If they do, appeals are likely to be granted. However, I don't think most people are staunchly pro- or anti-development; it is the job of the planning system to determine which development is right within limited available space. Importantly, the draft framework should make it much easier to get planning permission for wind turbines, something that fills The Telegraph with dread and me with delight. Meanwhile Yougov polling suggests that, if anything, the electorate in general are confused and apathetic about the whole thing (pdf).

I noted in July that the draft planning policy framework had not got very much media coverage. That has definitely changed. Neither Team Pickles (and their allies the British Property Federation et al) nor Team Telegraph (and their allies the National trust et al) seem open to compromise. With engaging hyperbole, the planning reforms have recently been described as political suicide and even a recipe for civil war. The fight can only get dirtier and, hopefully, more entertaining. For once local government isn't directly in the firing line, so excuse us whilst we sit on the sidelines and have a little schadenfreude party.

[insert planning related pun here]

As the Guardian pointed out today, there is just too much news at the moment. Too many tragedies, unfolding economic disasters, and environmental catastrophes, as much of the deluge of news is bad. Something that hasn't had much coverage, however, is the draft National Planning Policy Framework issued yesterday. I can see why it hasn't been afforded a lot of notice, but this document is very important indeed. It will have a vast influence on how the UK's built environment changes, or does not, over the next few years.

One of the government's stated aims for CLG has always been to simplify the planning system. Ministers decry the huge volume of planning guidance, which runs to thousands of pages and represents to them so much red tape. This is to be replaced by a single National Planning Policy Framework, which will set out simply how the government wants planning to work. Everything else will be delegated to local and/or neighbourhood level, regions having been abolished. Rationalising reams of guidance on a large number of specific issues (for example, transport, flood risk, and telecommunications) into a single, simple document was never going to be an easy task. This explains why the national framework has been repeatedly delayed.

Now we finally have it, and it runs to a mere fifty-three pages plus glossary. This is certainly much more convenient than all that it replaces, and students of planning law will be delighted to find their reading lists reduced in such a radical manner. The framework provides a neat summary of the issues that 21st century planning has to grapple with. (With the exception of gypsies and travellers, who aren't mentioned at all. Presumably acknowledging them was considered too contentious, and their needs were assumed to be tacitly included in planning for housing requirements.) For the most part, existing guidance is rationalised, for example the flood risk and retail policies. However, there are also some very significant changes. In short, NIMBYs beware, you're in for a scare.

The primary role of the planning system is now explicitly to deliver sustainable development, defined as meeting economic, social, and environmental needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. The long-promised 'presumption in favour of sustainable development' is set out, and rather heavy-handedly the following is added, 'significant weight should be placed on the need to support economic growth through the planning system'. It could be argued that this turns the role of the planning system from plan-making to getting out of the way.

The government harps on about increasing people's control of planning, but this presumption will do the opposite. Councillors would find it very difficult to refuse planning applications, and even harder to win appeals against refusals. When your local plan is outdated, refusing an application would only be possible if 'the adverse impacts of allowing development would significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits, when assessed against the policies in this Framework taken as a whole'. More significantly, even if an up-to-date plan is in place, the presumption in favour of sustainable development still applies and must be taken into account. Neighbourhood plans will not be able to block development, only to propose more of it. The whole system is being reweighted in favour of planning applicants.

Local plans will also need to be based on objectively assessed needs, requiring 'proportionate' and integrated evidence on housing, economic development, infrastructure, and the environment. It is significant that the last goverment's housing targets were below the assessed housing need. Also, the housing section of the framework flatly states that, 'The Government's key housing objective is to increase significantly the delivery of new homes.' This is reinforced by the further statement that, 'Local Plans should be prepared on the basis that objectively assessed development needs should be met, unless the adverse impacts of doing so would significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits.' Ergo, more housing development, especially in places with poor affordability.

I don't want to give the idea that the new planning world will be a complete free-for-all. Local plans will still be able to specify restrictions on how land is used or whether it is developed, as long as there is evidence to support this. How much of a free-for-all actually ensues will depend on how these two adjacent clauses are balanced in practise:

'The planning system is plan-led. Therefore Local Plans, incorporating neighbourhood plans where relevant, are the starting point for the determination of any planning application.

'In assessing and determining development proposals, local planning authorities should apply the presumption in favour of sustainable development.'

That is where planning lawyers will be spending many billable hours in years to come.

Meanwhile, allocations of land in Local Plans will need to be viable and deliverable, whereas currently they merely have to be deliverable. I think this terminology change means that local planning authorities will have a harder time getting financial contributions from developers - when those contributions are subject to viability. To get technical for a moment, the Community Infrastructure Levy (when implemented) is like a tax on development and developers cannot negotiate it down if their development seems less profitable. However, the proportion of affordable housing in a housing development is subject to viability, and where the line is drawn depends on case law.

So planners will now have to determine from the outset whether sites 'provide acceptable returns to a willing land owner and willing developer', taking into account contributions to infrastructure and affordable housing. This is incredibly difficult and would I suspect make it easier for developers to argue down levels of affordable housing. Or perhaps not, as plans must also be based on evidenced need, and there is plenty of evidence that affordable housing is needed around the country. (As an aside, case law suggests that 'acceptable returns' for a developer are currently around 20% profit on costs. Supposedly they can only get bank loans if such high returns can be demonstrated.)

The framework would seem to make it much more difficult for local planning authorities to refuse planning permission on the basis of factors like poor design, impact on traffic, or inappropriateness of siting. However, lest the shires start to panic, 'The Government attaches great importance to Green Belts.' The draft framework assumes that new buildings in the green belt are 'inappropriate' and should not be allowed except under 'very special circumstances'. Interestingly, such circumstances include development approved by micro-referendum under a Community Right to Build Order, which would be permitted as long as it preserved the qualities of the green belt.

Personally, I am very interested in the effect that the new planning context will have on the delivery of renewable energy. Broadly I think the framework could improve the situation, although this is by no means certain as there are several policies that would interact. Firstly:

'When located in the Green Belt, elements of many renewable energy projects will comprise inappropriate development. In such cases developers will need to demonstrate very special circumstances if projects are to proceed. Such very special circumstances may include the wider environmental benefits associated with increased production of energy from renewable sources.'

Depending on how 'very special' case law deems the global threat of climate change to be, this could be used to prevent renewables on the green belt. Which, lest we forget, covers 13% of England. However, elsewhere in the framework it is stated that:

'local planning authorities should recognise the responsibility on all communities to contribute to energy generation from renewable or low-carbon sources,' and

'When determining planning applications, local planning authorities should apply the presumption in favour of sustainable development and:

• not require applicants for energy development to demonstrate the overall need for renewable or low-carbon energy and also recognise that even small-scale projects provide a valuable contribution to cutting greenhouse gas emissions; and

• approve the application if its impacts are (or can be made) acceptable. Once opportunity areas for renewable and low-carbon energy have been mapped in plans, local planning authorities should also expect subsequent applications for commercial scale projects outside these areas to demonstrate that the proposed location meets the criteria used in identifying opportunity areas.'

Notably, the government has dampened the pro-renewables language in the earlier independent practitioners draft of the framework (that they comissioned), which stated that:

'When determining planning applications, local planning authorities should [...] not presume against energy development outside mapped areas nor require applicants for energy development to demonstrate the overall need for renewable or low-carbon energy or question the energy justification for why a proposal for renewable and low-carbon energy must be sited in a particular location.'

I think the effective difference is that local planning authorities are being given the chance to plan pro-actively for renewables, but also potentially constrain where they are developed. There is thus the possibility that very limited space could be designated by lots of local planning authorities, adding up to a woefully insufficient national renewable energy supply. That said, until local planning authorities actually set out such pro-active policies, the presumption in favour of sustainable development would apply. Moreover, it would seem to still be a strong consideration once plans are in place, likely resulting in a high rate of success at appeal.

I do feel sorry for planners. They must be under enormous pressure to get their local plans in place and up to date as soon as possible, to forestall all kinds of unexpected planning applications, whilst also being required to involve as much of the community as possible, even if the community are reluctant and the provisions of the Localism Bill still in flux. As plans must be needs-based, a lot of evidence about housing, economic development, and all kinds of infrastructure is urgently needed. Moreover, there's the Community Infrastructure Levy to implement if the local planning authority has any hope of collecting meaningful contributions to infrastructure from development over the next few years. Also forthcoming zero carbon homes requirements, which will force local planning authorities to decide what to do about allowable solutions (a form of carbon offset). Meanwhile, planning budgets are being slashed and posts lost, planners are branded obstructive bureacrats, and local councillors tend to take the government's localism rhetoric at face value. Tough times for the planning profession.

But how can you as a citizen make the National Planning Framework work for you? If I had money to invest, this is what I would do. First, dig through DECC's renewable energy data to find rural local planning authorities with a lot of wind energy potential. Then I'd check which have out-of-date local plans, likely ending up with quite a substantial list. Within those areas, I'd look for agricultural land suitable for wind farms (taking into account buffer zones and other factors set out in the National Policy Statement for Renewable Energy Infrastructure), rent or buy it, then put in planning applications for wind farms. Even if the local planning authority found some pretext on which to refuse the applications, they should be easily won on appeal, thanks to the presumption in favour of sustainable development.

This strategy should yield good financial returns, whilst increasing the UK's renewable energy supply, greatly annoying climate change deniers, and highlighting the vast chasm of understanding between national and local Conservative politicians. The attempts of local councillors to describe wind turbines as economically, socially, and environmentally unsustainable would be entertaining to witness, I suspect. (If you'd like a sneak preview, read this recent appeal decision. Hard as it is for me to say, in this rare instance I agree with Eric Pickles.)

Overall, my opinion of the draft Planning Policy Framework is inconclusive. It could allow rampant poor-quality development and general mayhem, but won't necessarily. A lot depends on the interpretation of the word 'sustainable'. Planning guidance did badly need simplification, and although I don't agree with every facet, this framework is a better start than I was expecting. As ever, the devil will be in the detail. A word of advice, though. If you are genuinely averse to new development and would like avoid exposure to it, move deep into the greenbelt because this new vision of the planning system looks not unlike the Thatcher model of the 1980s. Except, hopefully, with more wind farms.

Return of the Localism Bill: What the Experts Say

The Localism Bill is currently stomping through parliamentary processes, Labour's attempt to derail it having failed. I recently found myself on theyworkforyou.com, an astoundingly useful website, reading transcripts of public bill committee discussions. This committee of MPs debates the Bill and calls representatives from relevant groups to talk about it. I came across some very revealing comments.

Chief Executive of the National Housing Federation on how the Localism Bill will change the supply of affordable housing:

Our assessment of what is likely to happen with this system, as we understand it, is that it will probably deliver new homes, but at intermediate rents. The overall stock of property available for letting at what we currently call social rent will significantly diminish—probably by between 125,000 and 130,000. There will, in fact, be a transfer away from social rent to higher intermediate rents.

Chief Executive of Shelter, on the effect the Localism Bill will have on the vulnerable:

Regarding the first part of the question about the impact on vulnerable groups—not just 16 and 17-year-olds—we think that the provisions to allow the discharge of homeless duty into the private rented sector will significantly threaten the stability that they might have. We will see a revolving door, with people constantly being in short-term lets in the private rented sector re-presenting as homeless. It does not give them a secure settled home and does not understand the nature of the problems they are facing. We would strongly contend that this is the wrong solution and that it will create significant difficulties in those areas.

On the private rented sector:
[...]
What this proposal lacks, if the Government wish to go down this route, is any licensing or regulation of the private rented sector. It will see a greater dispersal of very vulnerable people into the already least regulated sector. One of the Government’s first moves was to remove any agenda in the Rugg review or any desire to put more regulation into the private rented sector. That is a mistake.

And on private sector rents:
[...]
Let us be clear for a start: only 30% of the private rented sector in any one area will be available under the proposals because the Government have made it clear that that is the rate at which [Housing Benefit] will be paid. All those people who are being discharged will go into that—the bottom 30% in any one area. The Government are acting on the heroic assumption that landlords will put their rents down. We have seen no evidence from landlords or anyone else that rents will go down. Everything would suggest a marketplace with an increased demand and no increase in supply, where the prices will go up and up. We have pushed and pushed the Government on this, for their evidence as to what it suggests, and we have pushed the Department for Work and Pensions and the Ministers for the evidence, and they have shown us none. We are fearful that a lot of these assumptions are based on the misconception that rents will go down. It is a significant problem both for this Bill and the welfare Bill.

MD of Harrow Estates, a major national housebuilder, on planning:

The Bill provides for the abolition of regional spatial strategies, which is a high profile issue, and that removes one layer of the planning system. However, the Bill then introduces neighbourhood planning frameworks, so we are effectively removing one tier and replacing it with another. The number of hurdles that must be considered in order to navigate the planning process and deliver housing remains effectively the same. [...] The neighbourhood development plans can potentially introduce a plethora of issues, but at an extremely local and detailed level. The burden on the house building industry—the cost and investment of resources in order to deliver houses—potentially remains the same.

Chief Executive of Taylor Wimpey, another one of the UK's largest house-builders, on rent levels:

Having heard the tail end of the previous discussion about [private] rents falling, I would very much concur: I can’t see that happening at a point when the availability of capital is low and house prices are still relatively high. The only meaningful long-term solution involves a greater degree of housing supply, because that brings down the overall cost of housing, whether for private owners or the rented sector.

On when the housing industry will be able to build houses at 2007-8 levels, which it should be noted was still below the level of demand:

Without the Bill, with the status quo, it would probably be somewhere around six years before you saw the industry producing at the same level. With the Bill, I would estimate longer, because I think the transition will slow things down. Plucking a year out of thin air, that would be more like seven or eight years. It will make a difference to the speed of planning permissions, but it will be slow. It will not be slow because of the industry’s ability to build. It will be slow because of mortgage and planning permission availability.

[the other developers state that they agree with this view]

[...] can I tell you my great fear? In three years’ time, it all stops. We are operating currently on existing consent and on land banks. We need a flow of consents coming through the process to maintain and grow business. I fear that we will reach a point, in about three years’ time, when what we have currently on the stocks runs out, where in fact we have not got that supply coming through. That is the big challenge. That is the sort of transition [...] which so badly needs to be addressed.

President of the Planning Officers Society on the cost of Neighbourhood Plans:

[...] resources are a significant issue. What we have proposed in our response is that there should be some mechanism for councils, working with their communities, to resolve priorities. In my borough in London, for example, we have many very deprived wards, and we are already doing a lot of master-planning work with communities. It is not quite in this form [...]
Those are very expensive processes. They can take around 12 to 18 months. As well as using staff in the council—perhaps the equivalent of two full-time workers throughout the period—we have to employer master planners, urban designers, traffic consultants and the like. You are talking about £130,000 to £150,000 for a community of about 10,000. Even then, that is not a very detailed set of proposals for the whole place—one focuses on key issues. We have spent up to £250,000, or something of that order. These are places that need that master-planning work, not only because they are very deprived communities, which need to see change and investment, but because they are part of our growth area, so there is a wider benefit to creating more homes and more jobs for more people.

How does that sit as a priority alongside the neighbourhood planning proposals, which could come from other parts of the borough that we would not necessarily regard as having the same need?

Chief Planner for the Town and Country Planning Association on climate change:

The challenge [...] is what we are going to do with the major issues like climate change and renewable energy, and all sorts of forms of development that play out at a regional or national scale. My point is a tough one, and I do not really like to represent it because it is unpopular: will the sum total of 350 individual local authority decisions on carbon deliver the effective action we need on climate change—or on housing or on retail development?

On Neighbourhood Fora of the 'My House of Me & Two Housemates' type:

Planning suffers from a lack of legitimacy. The nightmare scenario is three people standing together as a neighbourhood forum in an urban area and taking on considerable powers. Looking at the detail of the schedules, I am conscious of two things: that local government, having once approved them, cannot dissolve them; and that as non-public bodies, none of the equalities duties would apply to them, the climate duty would not apply to them, and the sustainable development duty would not apply to them.

To conclude, an exchange between MPs.

Barbara Keeley, Labour MP:

I have a strong impression that this Bill was not ready. Parts of it have had very little consultation. In fact, I think that the community empowerment section has not had any scrutiny whatever; that was admitted in the note from the Department. To start with, as we have to spend our time on this for the next five weeks, I want to ask whether the Bill was not ready, and whether perhaps there has been a rush to get it out there. Is that why there are 126 order-making powers for the Secretary of State?

[...] in many of the sessions we have had this week, very negative concerns have been expressed about bringing chaos to the planning system, and getting to situation where we are not building the homes that we want and causing levels of homelessness. The difficult environment in communities and local government means that there are not the resources to do the necessary things. There are themes that have come across again and again in all the sessions. I had the impression sometimes that they were surprisingly negative and very strongly expressed by witnesses.

[...] there has not been enough scrutiny or consultation. Before I came here I was told that consultation was promised that never happened. Any Bill is poorer for that. There is no reason I can see to rush this Bill. If you are trying to make a profound cultural change, you need it to be accepted and not bridled at.

And the response from Robert Neil, Conservative MP and CLG Parliamentary Under Secretary of State:

[...] My judgment is that this Bill is in a good state of readiness.

Even though experts are saying very clearly that the Localism Bill would have massive unintended negative effects, I do not think the government is listening. The Housing Minister definitely isn't, as despite this bill determining the future of affordable housing, he is not even on the public bill committee.

Brave New World of Localism - Part Two, Planning in the Hood

In the mayhem of the last few days before my Christmas holiday, I got through the remainder of the Localism Bill. Despite being at home and under no obligation to do anything much but eat, I've been giving some thought to its implications. Whilst eating.

Neighbourhood planning, in particular, could have a huge impact on development and land use, if the bill is enacted as currently written. I suspect that any local councillors who read it will immediately get onto their local MPs to ensure that doesn't happen. Neighbourhood planning has no role for local councillors; the onus is on parish councillors and leaders of neighbourhood fora (forums? Spellcheck is unhelpful on this point).

Three new terms are being introduced: neighbourhood development plans (NDPs?), neighbourhood development orders (NDOs?), and community right to build orders (CRBOs?). None of these are obligatory, and there are two prerequisites: a spatially defined neighbourhood and an organisation to represent it. In rural areas, it is assumed that the former will be a parish and the latter a parish council. These are established structures, probably known and supported by most people nearby. For the purposes of the localism bill, the ideal neighbourhood would probably be a large village comprising a single parish, with a well-supported parish council and a good level of community cohesion. A community centre would need to be conveniently available for holding local referenda and discussing the development plan.

There are plenty of such places, but they're the exception rather than the rule. In urban areas, the first hurdle will be agreeing where neighbourhoods are. The minimum requirement is a 'neighbourhood forum' with at least three members. To my mind, this implies that my two housemates and I could set ourselves up as a pocket neighbourhood, stretching from the front yard to the end of the back garden. The responsibility for ensuring that everyone doesn't do this lies with local councils, who have the unenviable task of mediating when competing claims of neighbourhoodity are made. If there are no such claims, presumably some areas will end up in non-neighbourhood limbo. I also assume that local councillors will seek to exert their influence at this point.

But let's say that the chaotic civil war bit is over, and we have neighbourhoods, including a small one that I will call My House. Now a local referendum can be held to decide whether to prepare a neighbourhood development plan. If less than half of the turnout says yes, no plan can be prepared and the neighbourhood forum might as well go home. But in the My House example, say I vote yes and the two other don't vote at all because they're out somewhere. That's a mandate for the preparation of a neighbourhood development plan, which the local planning authority would have to help me write.

Let us ignore for the moment the fact that I live in a rented house and would be contravening my lease if I so much as put in a picture hook without the landlord's permission. The neighbourhood development plan for My House could set out an intention to add four further stories to the place, styled in the manner of a treehouse. Assuming the neighbourhood forum (my housemates and I) are happy with this, and it doesn't directly contradict the Cambridge Local Plan (which I don't believe it does), the plan could be adopted.

The next stage would be to go for a neighbourhood development order. These are potentially powerful tools, as they specify an area of the neighbourhood and what development can take place in it. Once adopted, that development (which could be anything that doesn't need environment impact assessment) can bypass the planning system entirely, leaving the local planning authority with little or no control over it. In the My House case, the local authority would have to help my housemates and I prepare our order, setting out the development we intend (a very large vertical extension). In order to get this order adopted, we'd have to get an independent person to examine it (a planner ex-colleague, perhaps) and hold a further referendum. I could probably convince my housemates to vote yes by this point, if only because they'd want me to stop going on about it. I could then start building a four storey treehouse on the roof of my home, safe in the knowledge that planning officers couldn't stop me. Although building control might have something to say.

This example may sound totally ridiculous, but there's nothing in the bill to stop it happening. Doubtless, local planning authorities would have to deal with these kind of vexatious micro-neighbourhoods, as well as the sensible, cohesive villages making constructive decisions. I haven't mentioned community right to build orders, as these seem to some extent to replicate neighbourhood development orders. However, they can be requested by 'community organisations' (not defined – could this include businesses?) to grant permission for specific development on a specific site. An independent examination and referendum is required, but once again the local planning authority is being taken out of the loop.

Three final points to make about neighbourhood development orders. Firstly, they might never catch on. A lot of legislation is piggybacking on local development orders, which were introduced in the 2004 Planning Act. Since then, ten pilots have been set up and one local development order has been adopted. Neighbourhood development orders are intended to serve exactly the same purpose – extend permitted development rights within a specified area. The difference is the procedure; rather than being introduced through the local planning process, the new orders will supposedly be led by neighbourhoods. So will they be any more popular than their predecessors?

Secondly, neighbourhood development orders are alarmingly powerful. They override duties to consider conservation areas and the historic environment. I am not a lawyer, but my reading of the bill is that they also override green belt designations. There's no detail as to how they'd be enforced, but once in place they effectively convey planning permission in perpetuity and can only be challenged through judicial review.

Thirdly, I'm glad I don't live in London, because if these orders look worrying, the powers being given to the Greater London Authority in the final clauses of the localism bill are a hundred times more so. The mayor of London is being given power to designate 'mayoral development areas' when he/she considers it 'expedient'. These amount to mini-urban development corporations with regeneration objectives. The Secretary of State can pass property, rights and powers to them from councils, the Homes and Communities Agency, the Olympic Delivery Authority, or even a government department. No public consultation, let alone a referendum, is required to set up a mayoral development corporation. Boroughs and the London Assembly must be consulted, but the mayor doesn't even have to accept their comments. A mayoral development corporation may do 'anything it considers appropriate for the purposes of its object or for purposes incidental to those purposes'. This looks to me like an extraordinarily unconstrained power, presumably intended to speed up projects like the Olympics and Crossrail. Entirely mayor-appointed and with no safeguards at all, there's a lot of potential for abuse in these development corporations.

The localism bill is a strange document. The name totally belies the content. It takes a considerable amount of planning power away from the local level, and hands it to neighbourhoods if they want to take it. It also introduces a number of duties on local authorities that smack of centralism. Even the much-touted power of competence on local authorities is constrained, restricting precisely what they need to use it for right now – raising money. This bill is trying to do a lot of things at once, and relying in many places on regulations to be introduced later. I hope that parliament will notice during the second reading that it has the potential to cause total mayhem and paralyse development. Recent news has suggested that chaos is what the government wants, but I can't help doubting that most businesses, local councillors, and people-on-the-street would share that sentiment.

The Brave New World of Localism - Part One

Today I have attempted to read the whole 405 pages of the Localism Bill. A meeting, quite a few phone calls, and the need to respond to emails prevented this, but I got half way through. Nerd that I am, I believe in reading the legislation rather than the government summaries. They always leave out critical points. So, from the first half of the Localism Bill...

Three Centralist Things

• Local authorities have a new duty to ‘determine whether council tax is excessive’. A referendum must be held if a proposed increase is ‘excessive’. The decision as to whether it is excessive must be based on a set of principles determined by the Secretary of State annually. The net result here is central control of council tax levels, because few would answer ‘yes’ to the question, ‘Do you want an excessive increase in council tax next year?’ justified or not. (Vol 2, section 52ZB)
  
  
• A 'community right to challenge' is being introduced. This will allow voluntary bodies, charitable trusts, parish councils, two or more local authority employees, or other bodies to be specified in regulations, to express interest in providing public services. Local authorities can accept or reject expressions of interest, but only based on grounds to be specified by the Secretary of State.
  
  If an expression of interest is accepted, a procurement exercise must take place. The regulations require the social, economic, and environmental well-being of the area to be considered as part of the procurement process. However this can only apply (as the Act notes) insofar as is consistent with procurement law. This obscures the fact that the contract may very likely then be awarded to a private company rather than the community body that originally challenged. There are no provisions in the bill to deal with the possible failure of the ‘challenger’ to adequately provide the service, nor any recognition of the contracting and enforcement challenges this would pose for local authorities.
  
  It is also worthy of note that this power results in local councillors having effectively no say in whether local services are outsourced. If an expression of interest must be accepted according to Secretary of State guidance, procurement has to go ahead. (Vol 1, section 66)
  
  
• Local authorities will no longer have the ability of local authorities to encourage domestic waste reduction by payments and charges. It would be interesting to see if similar schemes could be managed under the ‘power of competence’... (Vol 1, section 29)

Three Random Things

• Fire and rescue authorities will be allowed to charge for extinguishing fires - as long as they are at sea or under the sea (Vol 1, section 18B).
  
  
• Failing councils will have their elected mayors taken away as a punishment, until the Secretary of State decides they deserve to get them back. Given that the vast majority don't want them in the first place, how is this a punishment? (Vol 2, section 9HI)
  
  
• Which comes first, the neighbourhood or the neighbourhood forum?
  
  Local authorities must designate a ‘neighbourhood forum’ for each neighbourhood. This must be an open organisation, established to further social, economic, and environmental well-being of people living, or wanting to live, in an area. Membership must be open to people living, or wanting to live, there. Only one forum can be designated per neighbourhood and they must apply for the privilege.
  
  ‘Neighbourhood areas’ must also be designated by local authorities, but only when a neighbourhood forum has applied for their area to be designated. If no such body existed, presumably the area would remain in non-neighbourhood limbo. Moreover, how do local authorities arbitrate between overlapping applications? There is a real chicken and egg situation here! (Vol 2, section 61G)

One Thing That We Will All Need To Get Used To In The Localist Future

The plural of referendum. There are going to be a lot of them. Local authorities will have to hold referenda if:

• 5% of electors in a district or 'neighbourhood' sign a petition;
  
  
• A local councillor requests it;
  
  
• The council passes a resolution to hold one. (Vol 1, section 40)
  

That's a pretty low bar. Referenda can only be denied if they're unlawful, non-local, vexatious, abusive, or cover something the Secretary of State doesn't like (to be specified later). Results of local referendums must be published and local authorities must decide what to do about them & why. But they are free to do absolutely nothing if they see fit. I've yet to decide whether this is sensible or just renders the whole procedure an entirely pointless waste of time.

Stay tuned for Part Two, featuring What the hell are Neighbourhood Development Orders and Why Should I Fear Them?

Edited To Add Like an idiot, I forgot to link to the bill itself, which can be found here. Also, it's 431 pages, not 405. Bugger.

Youthful high spirits

As a distraction from the scary labour market, I've been considering the housing market prospects for me and the rest of today's youth. This is akin to distracting yourself from an earthquake by setting off a small nuclear bomb.

I recently came across an article in the Independent's money section about a young woman called Eloise wanting to buy her own home. Eloise earns £22,350 and has savings of £1,000. She would like to buy a two bedroom flat in London, or maybe Bristol, and wants her financial decisions to be ethical, although I'm not quite sure what that means in this context.

I'm sorry Eloise, but I read this article and burst out laughing. SERIOUSLY? You really think that on those wages and with such paltry savings that you can afford to buy so much as a shed? Wake up and smell the coffee. In Cambridge, which is cheaper than London, I would need to earn £40,000 and have a £50,000 deposit in order to buy a two bedroom flat.

My generation, the twentisomethings renting at the moment and thinking it might be nice to buy one day - we are screwed.

We rent poor quality homes at at high cost, and are treated badly by rental agents and landlords because they can. They will continue to do so, and rents will rise with demand.

We struggle to save for the 25% deposits needed to buy a home. Low interest rates erode the value of our ISAs and our jobs look insecure, if we're lucky enough to find and keep one. Rates are expected to stay low for the next two years.

We attempt to repay our student loans, whilst glowering at our parents who got their degrees with no fees and generous grants. The interest rates of these loans are going up to 4.4% in September from the current 0%, and that's before the student loan company is privatised (as announced in the June budget).

We can't get social housing, because there isn't enough to go around and established families get precedence, reasonably enough. Funding for building more has been slashed and burned, and targets torn up.

We can't get mortgages, as we're seen as too much of a credit risk and don't have vast deposits. Introducing caps on mortgages has been suggested and returning to the era of easy mortgages would be highly unwise, given that unwise lending caused the downturn in the first place.

We can't find housing that fits our needs, because developers are building tiny rabbit hutch flats to store us in, and we're priced out of the few decent-sized houses that exist. UK new builds are the smallest Europe, reports the Commission for Achitecture and the Built Environment. Even the Daily Fail says so!

We simply can't afford to buy, as the gap between wages and property prices continues to gape wider and wider and youth unemployment rises inexorably.

I am not particularly happy about this, and doubt that anyone else in my demographic group is thrilled either. I certainly don't consider myself entitled to own a palace at the age of 25, but do think it reasonable to have a well-maintained home that I can feel secure in for more than six months.

The likely result of the coalition's so-called housing policy is this: the house price bubble will return in South, pushing up rents further. This is at a time when housing benefit has been capped and other benefits decoupled from housing cost inflation. Homelessness will increase. Mortgage availability, especially for first time buyers, is not about to get better. Employment prospects are poor and taxes rising. Last year, 75% of new housing starts had some form of government subsidy. Despite this, very low number of houses were actually delivered. With this support severely cut, the number of new houses built is already falling and will fall further. So prices will continue to rise, supply will continue to lag, ad nauseam, until the whole East of England falls into the sea in 2054.

Things aren't completely hopeless, though. Here are my suggestions for improving the state of the housing market.

1. If the coalition aren't going to have a housing policy, they should get rid of the post of Housing Minister. This accords with their drive to get rid of bureaucratic non-jobs.
   
   
2. Tenancy law needs to be reformed to make private rental more humane. Look how Germany and much of the rest of continental Europe manage it: longer tenancies, more rights for tenants to match their responsibilities, less of an assumption that home ownership must always take precedence. Implementing the recommendations of the Rugg Review would be a start.
   
   
3. Second homes & buy-to-let should be penalised through the tax system, rather than supported. This may seem unfair to those just trying to invest for their retirement and so forth, but I believe it is necessary. It surely isn't justifiable to have millions of homes standing empty, when so many people are homeless, overcrowded, or housed unsafely.
   
   
4. The planning system is in need of reform, as it cannot achieve what it needs to in the 21st century. However, reform needs to happen in a measured way with full consultation with actual planners, rather than abolishing bits at random and expecting Local Authorities to keep calm and bugger on somehow. (There will doubtless be a future post on planning and its current state of chaos.)
   
   
5. The government needs to investigate and regulate oligopolistic behaviour in big developers and house-builders, including land-banking, with the aim of introducing a bit more competition into this sector. Other countries manage to build more and quicker, in part thanks to a much more dynamic and competitive building sector.
   
   
6. It would be helpful to streamline compulsory purchase powers, which assist Local Authorities in building their own social housing by letting them grab unused land. The major cost of social development is the land, as the public sector is priced out by developers who can realistically expect 25%+ profit margins.
   
   
7. The UK needs a culture change from the tired old adversarial planning system. I'm sure that more competition in the building sector would help with this. We might then be able to follow the Netherlands' good example and try public & private sector joint ventures to build new homes.
   
   
8. Everyone needs to think differently about housing. A roof over your head is a right first and foremost, and an investment second. Likewise, we should stop thinking of a home as synonymous with ownership. If private rental was reformed and social housing more widely available, views should evolve accordingly.
   
   
9. The planning system should make room for different kinds of homes as well as different tenures - canal boats, caravans, yurts, treehouses, old train carriages, hobbit holes, etc. Not everyone wants to live in a brick box, and it certainly isn't positive for the environment to force everyone to do so.
   

My current preference is for a yurt, after staying in one for a weekend's holiday. It would certainly cost quite a bit less than that elusive two bedroom flat.

Localism: the new L word

The government mantra is not just 'localism', but 'local control by local people of local issues, locally'. Constant repetition of the word is erasing any discernable meaning. So far the record for most uses of the word 'local' in a sentence goes to this CLG pronouncement, 'End statutory guidance on local economic assessments which will free up local authorities to decide locally how they monitor their local economy'. Even the League of Gentlemen never took it quite that far.

However I do feel rather unfairly pedantic about this. In principle, localism is a great thing and a breath of fresh air. Government in the UK is highly centralised and local government carries a huge burden of reporting and target-meeting that doesn't seem to achieve much. For instance, I wonder how many people have heard of Local Area Agreements (LAAs)?

These were introduced under Labour, and are three year contracts between local councils and government to meet targets in return for money. Central government provides a list of about two hundred (yes, 200) targets to choose from, and counties pick some. By my count, Cambridgeshire chose fifty-four. The county-wide target for each of these was negotiated, then regularly monitored and reported to local councillors and the Government Office of the East of England. This is an extremely time-consuming, complicated and tedious process involving multifarious meetings, reports, and spreadsheets.

The advantage of Local Area Agreements is that they bring public sector organisations together and encourage joint working, hopefully avoiding duplication. Their disadvantage is that they are a very inefficient way of measuring whether local authorities are successful. Most of the targets are meaningless due to excessive specificity (obesity among primary school children in year 6 - why just that year?) or excessive generality (adaptation to climate change - can this really be reduced to a single number?).

Despite having 'local' in the title, LAAs are a method of central government micromanagement, and when the coalition gets rid of them I doubt that there will much weeping. Councils will keep any useful bits and ditch the onerous reporting. However, this is just one example of our new overlords sweeping away that which they consider unlocal.

Regional development agencies and their associated flotilla of regional plans have also bitten the dust. (In fact, the word 'regional' has become taboo.) Again, I must say that I agree with this decision. I've worked with people at the East of England Regional Development Agency and they certainly mean well and work hard, but Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) were originally set up to try and close the North-South economic divide. By any measure, they have spectacularly failed to do this; the divide has widened considerably. Regional interventions weren't enough to fill a deep historical and economic gulf. The idea when John Prescott came up with RDAs was that they'd come with democratically elected regional assemblies. These did not catch on, leaving the agencies with considerable planning and funding responsibilities but no local accountability. No wonder they faced constant accusations of being unelected quangos. And now they've gone, or rather will be gone next year.

So, the government's approach to localism has thus far been based on abolishing structures - as well as the LAAs & RDAs, say farewell to Leader's Boards, CAAs, the RSS, RES, RIP, IPC, etc etc. This has been combined with much talk of transparency and accountability to the public. I think these deserve a cautious yay, but the other thread of the localism rhetoric is a bit worrying. I've noticed a trend for local authorities to be simultaniously blamed for everything and told to accept more responsibilities. Witness talk of town hall non-jobs, propaganda on the rates, and supermarket sized budgets with a cornershop mentality.

Localism is mere fauxcalism when national government can say 'No, you're being the wrong kind of local' or when it doesn't come with meaningful financial freedom. If the government are genuinely committed to devolving power, they must be willing to let local councils decide to privatise schools, libraries, and community centres then spend their entire resources on flowers for parks & play areas. Assuming that's what the local population want, naturally.

At the moment, the Department of Communites and Local Government seems to be offering localism-with-strings. There should be no building on green belts, no building on gardens, weekly bin collections, and no local government newsletters. That sounds more like micro meddling to me. It's stupid to assume that if given the chance local councils and their populations will all agree completely with Eric Pickles. I also find touting of the cap on council tax being removed a bit hard to swallow, given the Treasury just unilaterally froze council tax for a year in the budget.

What I suspect is partly behind the enthusiasm for localism is blame-shifting. Local authorities are just starting to make huge cuts, which will mean closing community facilities and charging more for services. People will notice and resent this, especially as it coincides with tax rises. The government are giving local councils the freedom to struggle with service provision in the face of cuts and take the blame locally. The cuts are resolutely top-down, but by talking of localism the bad feeling they'll inevitably provoke might be contained at least partially at the bottom.

Perhaps I'm being unduly cynical. I also wonder where this leaves MPs - presumably, with even less impact on their constituency but a queue of enraged voters asking why the library has closed, what about the shortage of teachers, do you realise the roads are full of holes, and so forth.

In a way, it's a pity that local government is being given this great opportunity to show what it can do now, at a time of funding crisis. Unless localism is made to work despite constrained resources, job cuts and policy confusion, public confidence in local government could collapse and take a long time to recover. I think Cambridge has an appetite for localism; it might even go for being an independent city-state given the choice. I'll be keeping an eye out for evidence of the L word on the ground.

As an aside, you may have noticed that local government involves a certain amount of acronyms. Mindblowing amounts of the damn things. If we are moving towards truly transparent government, there should be a searchable masterlist of them online. Maybe I should suggest it? More on housing tomorrow.