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Local Plans system fails soundness test

Simon Ricketts examines recent developments in relation to the soundness of Local Plans.

A vision softly creeping, left its seeds while I was sleeping:

Why don’t we test the whole local plans system against the soundness requirement in paragraph 35 of the National Planning Policy Framework?

Of course it’s not an exact fit but what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander (an expression which also occurs to me whenever we have criticism from Government directed at local authorities for not moving faster). Is the current local plans system, for instance:

  • positively prepared
  • justified
  • effective
  • consistent with national policy?

Plainly not.

Is it a strategy which, as a minimum, seeks to meet the country’s objectively assessed needs? First of all, the 300,000 homes target, whilst undoubtedly being too low, has not been objectively assessed (so as, if nothing else, to reassure the sceptical) and secondly there is an increasing disconnect between that aspiration and local plan making reality.

Is it an appropriate strategy, taking into account the reasonable alternatives, and based on proportionate evidence? Reasonable alternatives? Evidence? Not how national policy-making seems to work.

Deliverable? Of course not.

Consistent with (other) national policy? Given the vital policy objectives to be delivered by proper forward planning – housing, economic growth, climate change mitigation, levelling up – again it’s a no.

I also query whether the proposed changes in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill and more detailed implementation proposals, currently being consulted upon, would get to the root of the problems.

This thought occurred when reading the Tandridge local plan inspector’s 10 August 2023 letter to the council’s chief executive, in which the inspector (Philip Lewis) concludes that his concerns as to the soundness of the plan are such that he invites the council to withdraw it, failing which he will write a report setting out his reasoning.

His letter follows a procedural meeting on 27 July 2023 which you can watch on line here. A detailed paper was provided for the inspector by the council ahead of that meeting as a final, unsuccessful, attempt to avoid this outcome. The council issued a statement on 22 August 2023 indicating that it will look to resolve its response to the inspector’s letter at a meeting of the council’s planning policy committee on 21 September 2023.

I was taken back to the opening day of that examination, 8 October 2019, on legal compliance. I’m not sure that I have ever been at a local plan examination session with quite so many lawyers in attendance (not a good thing).

Mr Lewis’ concerns include:

  • unresolved highway capacity issues following the subsequent refusal of HIF funding for transport infrastructure, including works to junction 6 of the M25 on which the deliverability of the south of Godstone new settlement option was predicated– together with the consequent need for further lengthy transport assessment and modelling work
  • the need for the sustainability appraisal to reconsider reasonable alternatives in the light of the change in circumstances
  • the need for the council’s 2017 Gypsy and Traveller Accommodation Assessment to be updated.
  • The fact that we are already half way through the plan period of the submitted plan which is 2013 to 2033 (incidentally is there anything more absurd than these plans which literally are planning for the past?)
  • The fact that much of the evidence base for the plan is now out of date, given for instance changes in the Use Classes Order.

Of course, it took time for the scale of the problems facing the council to become clear, particularly on the question of the deliverability of the south of Godstone new settlement proposal once the Government had refused HIF funding for the necessary infrastructure improvements. I know that it is in the public interest that plans generally should not be found unsound and that time should be given to enable plan-making authorities to do what may be needed to arrive at a sound plan, but was it necessary for the process to take almost four years before we finally get to a conclusion that has seemed on the cards for a long time now, sending the authority right back to the beginning?

I don’t want to make this a piece about the Tandridge plan and its site-specific issues. Because, if you have been out of the country for a few years I can reassure you that the York examination is also still underway – the first hearing session having been on 10 December 2019 – and indeed the Welwyn Hatfield examination is still underway – the first hearing session having been on 21 September 2017!

There is a common factor with all three examinations: these are authorities with large areas of green belt within their boundaries and where their local housing needs cannot be met without releasing land from the green belt, leading to politically-charged debates as to

  • the extent to which any planned shortfall is acceptable;
  • whether sufficiently exceptional circumstances can be demonstrated so as to justify release;
  • the selection of appropriate sites (including the extent to which there is reliance on new settlements rather than more dispersed patterns of growth); and as to
  • whether the selected sites are in fact deliverable.

In areas where housing supply is so constrained, and without any definitive Government guidance as to how these matters are to be resolved, or required timescale for so doing, or consistent, credible, penalties for not having an up to date plan in place, is it any wonder that we are where we are?

To the extent that the Government’s planning reforms would:

  • weaken the role of the standard method as a starting point for determining how many homes need to be planned for;
  • remove any requirement for authorities to review green belt boundaries to meet housing needs;
  • replace the duty to cooperate with an undefined “alignment” test, and
  • propose removing the “justified” limb of the soundness test

how precisely would these changes assist in say Tandridge, York or Welwyn Hatfield?  Would the idea be to allow the authority the freedom to plan to undershoot its local needs by a huge margin and simply accept the consequences of the lack of supply of homes for those needing to live in those areas – for family connections or work or for the sake of achieving balanced communities rather than the lucky few behind a raised drawbridge, perish the thought – to allow the situation to reach boiling point? The process improvements set out in the LURB will help at the margins but will not ease (1) the difficult local politics of arriving at a sensible plan for submission or (2) the difficult task of the inspector at examination (it’s not the local development management policies, or the lack of digital planning, or even the extent of supporting evidence required, which has held up these plans!).

Not only have we had these marathon local plan examinations, akin to the infamous (at the time, maybe now forgotten) Leeds local plan inquiry, the length of which I recall as one of the catalysts for the 2004 Act system in the first place, but we are also seeing authorities trying to read between the lines as to the latitude they perceive that they may now have.

For instance, take Three Rivers Council which has now torn up its draft plan and published a statement announcing that is starting work on an alternative plan that will “protect 98% of [its] precious green belt”, proposing that “the new housing figure for the district over the next 18 years should be 4,852 as opposed to the Government’s high target of 11,466.”

Or take Lichfield District Council which on 25 August 2023 announced that it was proposing to withdraw its submitted plan from examination:

“Councillor Alex Farrell, Portfolio Holder for Housing and the Local Plan, says “It is clear to me that our proposed new Local Plan is not suitable, and I’d like to see a new approach to housing that suits our local communities. We want to explore the idea of a new settlement in the district, as opposed to the current approach that is suffocating local communities with a disproportionate amount of housebuilding without sufficient infrastructure.”

He continues “It’s clear that the proposed new Local Plan 2040, which was submitted for examination last year, was not appropriate given both the changes that we have seen (and continue to see take place) in government national policy in the four years since it was initiated, plus the level of dissatisfaction we heard from residents about it in its current form.  It became evident that the proposed Local Plan no longer resonates with the evolving needs of our district, and we needed to change.  

“We only have two options. One; progress with the currently submitted plan or two, regroup and build a strong, strategic vision for the district that people can support and adopt. We recommend that we take the second option to deliver a strategy that is appropriate for the district today, and in the future, and therefore our recommendation is to withdraw the current plan and work in consultation with our residents and stakeholders to develop a new approach.” 

When is the Government going to stabilise what, in local plan making terms, seems to me to be equivalent to a run on the markets? (Although in the world of planning that’s obviously a very slow walk rather than anything approaching a run).  I’ve previously described Michael Gove’s statements on planning reform as akin to Trussenomics in terms of the (presumably wholly unintended) effect that they have been having on plan making. How else to describe it? Doesn’t something need to be said…?

The sounds of silence.

Simon Ricketts is a partner at Town Legal. This article first appeared on his Simonicity blog.