New Planning Proposals

[biffvernon]

Anyone looked into this yet: http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/planningandbuilding/draftframeworksummary

(Not that new building has very much to do with period property.)

 

[88v8]

The Heritage organisations seem concerned that it will permit redneck architecture and urban sprawl.
When you consider how many period properties are already marooned in a sea of ugly tat, perhaps where greedy owners have sold their gardens or where they've simply been built around, and how many of us put up with the inconvenience and cost of country living to be away from urbanity, this can't be a good thing.
Ever driven through the outskirts of San Francisco? arrrrgh....

Ivor

 

[Schoolmarm]

This too;


"The new policy was drawn up with the help of a "practitioners advisory group", members of which included a Conservative councillor, a director of the housebuilding firm Taylor Wimpey, a planning consultant who represents major developers at government level and an official from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds."

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Anyone looked into this yet: http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/planningandbuilding/draftframeworksummary

(Not that new building has very much to do with period property.)

So little, in fact, that the historic environment gets a total of three pages, right at the end.

http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/planningandbuilding/pdf/1951811.pdf

These three pages will replace all the current guidance on listed buildings, scheduled monuments, historic parks and gardens, conservation areas, everything contained in the (already far too short) PPS5.

This is not just one new policy document about new development, but the new policy document for the whole of the planning system - it's Uncle Eric Pickles' "Janet and John Go Planning", mistakenly equating a populist headline-grabbing bonfire of red tape with sensible reform, just because the fat oaf can't concentrate long enough to read more than three pages of anything.

And the underlying presumption behind the new document is that permission will be granted for development (the word "sustainable appears but is misused)

 

[JoceAndChris]

:shock:

 

[Keithj]

Strange non-technical weasel-words in there. What's the difference between exceptional and wholly exceptional, for example? I can see lawyers making a lot of money out of that!

 

[JohnB]

the word "sustainable appears but is misused

Lots of us responded to the consultation on sustainable development earlier in the year, but certainly not using the meaning of "sustainable economic growth", which is an oxymoron anyway :evil:. Nothing that we proposed is included in the document, as it would benefit people, but not profits.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Strange non-technical weasel-words in there. What's the difference between exceptional and wholly exceptional, for example? I can see lawyers making a lot of money out of that!

Oh,that's not all that diferent from the way the planning acts have always been worded - "pay special regard to the desirability of..." being typical.

 

[biffvernon]

It's Uncle Eric Pickles' "Janet and John Go Planning", mistakenly equating a populist headline-grabbing bonfire of red tape with sensible reform, just because the fat oaf can't concentrate long enough to read more than three pages of anything.

Thankyou, Gareth. That neatly sums up the position.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Here is the lovely Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government doing his best to apologise for his sorry existence, and two houses within 40 miles of Westminster (and losing):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MrFV4c_sVY

 

[FamilyWiggs]

It must go with that ministerial brief, given that two of the recent incumbents were Hazel Chipmunk Blears and John 2-Jags Prescott.

2 finer Ministers it is hard to find.

 

[Nigel Watts]

If I read these proposal correctly the gist is not there there will be no rules but that local authorities will be have a duty to set them rather than central government.

There are several risks that flow from this. Local bodies may be too corrupt, too greedy or too ignorant, for example, or the people who vote for them may not know what's best for them - unlike us of course, the liberal intelligensia, who are far better placed to tell the mass of the people what they should and shouldn't do.

Politics, as ever, is the art of the possible. Composing Jeremiads for like-minded people to read is less likely to be effective than ensuring that one's voice is heard by the local authorities. If these proposals become law then it seems to me that those of us who care about our built environment need to mobilise to ensure our Councils behave themselves and act sensibly.

 

[Penners]

This is not just one new policy document about new development, but the new policy document for the whole of the planning system - it's Uncle Eric Pickles' "Janet and John Go Planning", mistakenly equating a populist headline-grabbing bonfire of red tape with sensible reform, just because the fat oaf can't concentrate long enough to read more than three pages of anything.

And the underlying presumption behind the new document is that permission will be granted for development

I don't want to presume too much, but I think I detect a hint of disapproval in Gareth's reaction to this document.

(the word "sustainable" appears but is misused

But isn't that word invariably misused? Strictly, anything is sustainable - if you go to the trouble of sustaining it. My quarrel with the use of the word is that it carries no hint whatsoever of firm intention or compulsion.

 

[Moo]

Another nail hit on the head by Penners!

Just because a 'home' is described as mobile, there's no guarantee that it will move an inch in its lifetime.

And our now-defunct breakfast-room telly was a 'portable', but it weighed a ton so nobody ported it anywhere.

 

[Flyfisher]

But isn't that word invariably misused? Strictly, anything is sustainable - if you go to the trouble of sustaining it.

Er, surely the law of entropy suggests that nothing is sustainable.

I suppose there is the little matter of timescale though. :wink:

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Well I don't know about the rest of you, but Mrs FW has sustained the current cold front for a considerable timescale. Apparently, rampant chickens, dying sheep and escaping pigs are not her idea of fun. :roll:

 

[Gareth Hughes]

This is not just one new policy document about new development, but the new policy document for the whole of the planning system - it's Uncle Eric Pickles' "Janet and John Go Planning", mistakenly equating a populist headline-grabbing bonfire of red tape with sensible reform, just because the fat oaf can't concentrate long enough to read more than three pages of anything.

And the underlying presumption behind the new document is that permission will be granted for development

I don't want to presume too much, but I think I detect a hint of disapproval in Gareth's reaction to this document.

I can't imagine what might lead you to make such an assumption. It is, of course, the most far-sighted, revolutionary, and welcome (among property developers) proposal in the entire history of Post-War politics.

Until next decade, when the public see what it means.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

It must go with that ministerial brief, given that two of the recent incumbents were Hazel Chipmunk Blears and John 2-Jags Prescott.

2 finer Ministers it is hard to find.

It's a bit of a poisoned chalice, to be sure, but Pickles has managed to be worse than both combined, after only a year in office. Even 2 Jags didn't seek to impose his brand of Yorkshire "common sense" (rarely common, and never sense) to quite the same extent.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

If I read these proposal correctly the gist is not there there will be no rules but that local authorities will be have a duty to set them rather than central government.

There are several risks that flow from this. Local bodies may be too corrupt, too greedy or too ignorant, for example, or the people who vote for them may not know what's best for them - unlike us of course, the liberal intelligensia, who are far better placed to tell the mass of the people what they should and shouldn't do.

Politics, as ever, is the art of the possible. Composing Jeremiads for like-minded people to read is less likely to be effective than ensuring that one's voice is heard by the local authorities. If these proposals become law then it seems to me that those of us who care about our built environment need to mobilise to ensure our Councils behave themselves and act sensibly.

I think you do down the Liberal Intelligentsia too much, except that, beyond Islington, Democracy = electing ill-equipped idiots (any sack of potatoes with a blue ribbon on will get in where I am, any sack of potatoes with a red ribbon on will get in somewhere else) to interfere with matters which they do not understand.
One of our elected members walked up to a colleague at last weeks' planning committee, at which members had refused two proposals that were recommended for approval, and approved two that were recommended for refusal, and said "that's four-nil to us". They treat it as a game, nothing to do with right or wrong.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Gareth, that's just awful.

As for the MPs, sorry but I feel really really sorry for them. It's a horrid job with a crappy salary and the public continuously loathing you - who'd pick it?

Well I don't know about the rest of you, but Mrs FW has sustained the current cold front for a considerable timescale. Apparently, rampant chickens, dying sheep and escaping pigs are not her idea of fun. :roll:

This is even more upsetting to read. I hope the animals start behaving themselves and you get forgiven very soon. Make her a lovely eggy brek!