Plans for over 400 new homes in Rye – and the proposed Aldi supermarket – are either with local planners or about to be. The government has announced potential big changes to the planning system which Cllr Andrew Mier has concerns about.
The government’s Planning and Infrastructure Bill is at its Commons committee stage where it will be examined in detail, line by line, clause by clause. There is one clause in particular which should concern anyone with an interest in sound planning decisions and sound governance. That is clause 46 which gives powers to the Secretary of State to make regulations providing that specified categories of planning application be decided by local government officers, not by a planning committee.
At first sight that might seem innocuous, even reasonable. After all, on the government’s own figures, some 97% of planning decisions are already decided by officers under delegated authority. So where’s the harm?
The Planning Committee Reform Working Paper: Planning Committees (published December 9 2024) was critical of the role and conduct of planning committees. The assumption of the Working Paper was that planning committees are at the heart of the
failure to build enough houses. However, as already noted, 97% of applications are decided by officers and there are many reasons why houses are not built – even where permission is already granted. It’s estimated that there are enough outstanding planning permissions to meet the whole of the government’s ambitious housebuilding targets for this parliament. The government is tilting at windmills, but I have more serious concerns.
Providing consistency across the country about what routinely goes to committee may be justified, but the power given by clause 46 is capable of being used to prevent certain categories of application from ever going to committee. Although it is hard to find an attributable public source I am advised the clause is capable of being used in that way and probably will be used in that way. The government has said that the national scheme of delegation will apply where land is allocated for housing in a Local Plan and the application complies with that Plan and other policies. (Rye’s Neighbourhood Plan is part of the Local Plan). In those circumstances the government could determine that applications are to be decided by officers and only by officers.
The proposal shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the planning system. A Local Plan may allocate a site for a certain number of dwellings and may indicate the approximate type of dwelling, but whether an actual application complies with policy is a matter of judgement and balance based on the characteristics of the individual site and its surroundings. That is not a purely mechanical process. Site allocations are made following a public inquiry before an inspector, but they are necessarily a high-level decision. It is unlikely the inspector would be able to say beyond doubt that the site is for all time suitable exactly as put forward in the Plan or that the Plan would be so specific as to determine any application. Layout, precise numbers and design of the housing is unlikely to be in the Plan. New facts come to light and policy changes. An allocated site can cease to be compliant when policy changes or new facts emerge.
At present councillors to have the right to “call in” an application to committee where that application would otherwise be decided by officers under delegated powers. To give the Secretary of State power to remove that right is dangerous. If there is no possibility of allocated site applications coming to committee then officers will be taking decisions on the interpretation of policy without external scrutiny and without any right of appeal (save the blunt instrument of judicial review – not an appeal). I have the greatest respect for the professionalism of planning officers, but if they are to be the sole arbiters of what complies with the Development Plan then all control and all accountability is lost. This will undermine public faith in the planning system. Good governance and good decision-making must be founded on robust systems of democratic oversight, not trust in any individual, however worthy.
Parliament has issued a Call for Evidence on the Bill. If you wish to make a comment go to https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10216/
Councillor Andrew Mier
(Rother District Council, but writing in his personal capacity)
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Image Credits: Andrew Mier .
You raise some valid points, Andrew. I agree there should be democratic oversight and external scrutiny of planning applications because planning officers have consistently shown they are at times unable to fairly evaluate development plans and fight for the best interests of local residents. Anecdotal evidence suggests that planning officers develop close personal relationships with developers — and what developers want is not always good for the local community. For example, a developer is seeking to build raised homes on the below-tidal-level ‘strategic gap’ between Rye and industrial Rye Harbour. Should planning officers alone decide this and other highly sensitive applications, which could adversely affect the historic vistas of Rye from distance? While the Rye Neighbourhood Plan largely protects the town from inappropriate development, there is currently strong evidence from the HELAA document that RDC planners are encouraging housing estate development in semi-rural Playden and other nearby villages. We all know development in Rye is constrained by flood risk. Do we really want Council planners arbitrarily identifying open fields for housing estates (as they are now doing) and blithely ignoring that these would add to destructive ribbon development around Rye? So much for Rye remaining ‘compact’, an avowed aim of the Neighbourhood Plan. There is already too much housing in the SE, and a lot of new development is proposed for entirely inappropriate places, like land in Rye below tidal level. In my view, a better idea would be to build a new village on safe higher ground, well inland and at least 5-6 miles from Rye. It’s not nimbyism, it’s pure common sense in a world of rising sea levels.
Rye has to start moving with the times as we head into the first quarter of the 21st century like other towns and villages around us, everytime developments are mentioned out of the woodwork they come – road infrastructure, flooding even though the banks of our rivers have been strengthend, we owe progress for the sake of our children and grandchildren who wish to live in the town they were born in, sadly the attitude of some is I’m all right Jack, with no vision ,for the town to remain a place for all, and not the priviledged few.
In fairness to the government their stated intention is that the proposal applies to land already allocated for development in the Local Plan. (The Local Plan will have gone through public inspection before an Inspector who is independent of Local Government officers.)
Two problems –
1. It is undesirable for officers alone to decide if an application accords with the Local Plan (see article); and
2. the clause as drafted would give ministers power beyond the scope of their stated intention.
My evidence to the Commons committee has been published on the Parliament website-
https://bills.parliament.uk/publications/60456/documents/6402
The committee’s deliberations are live, so all is subject to their process.