Croy Village Developments

Scotia Homes has made a submission to the Main Issues Report for the Highland-wide Local Development Plan. This submission can be found here

Included in the submission is a letter advising that Scotia Homes will be progressing an application for Croy 'South West'. As a resident of Croy APTSec requested more information regarding this planning application from The Planning Authority. I felt it was appropriate to ask for detail, since no details of the application had been included with the submission but the submission was asking for land to be zoned to support this application.

Here is a brief summary of the answers I received:

Mr Watt was advised in a very informal meeting on 18/11/09 that any proposal for development of this scale should follow the Highland Council’s pre-application advice service as set out in the following link
Pre-Application Advice Service

As a recent post on this blog has revealed, this pre-application guidance indicates:

“There is a possibility that, under the Freedom of Information Act, The Council will be asked to provide information regarding inquiries for pre-application advice and copies of any advice provided or correspondence entered into. This information may only be withheld if its disclosure could prejudice commercial interests, inhibit the free and frank provision of advice or exchange of views during the planning process, or could prejudice the effective conduct of public affairs. Those seeking pre-application advice should provide a covering letter that sets out the reasons why, and for how long, any information relating to the case needs to remain confidential..."

I understand from Mr Hartland, Planning THC, that following the meeting on the 26/01/2010 Scotia Homes have requested, via e-mail, that the information they presented and the advice given by the Council remains confidential while legal discussions take place between Scotia Homes and the
landowner and that, "It is our assessment that, at this time, the information presented by Scotia Homes at the meeting and the advice subsequently offered is exempt from release under the Freedom of Information Act, given that its disclosure could prejudice commercial interests. Any developer promoting development of this scale requires to undertake pre-application consultation with the local community, at which time the information should be made available to the wider public."

APTSec is keen to find out from other members of the public whether they have had a similar experience. Please contact using apt e mail

"RIAS Criticise Planning Gain"

Latest from 'Urban Realm"

The Royal Incorporation of Architects have criticised the system of planning gain for “killing off” development. More here

"Latest on Dev Plans" blog update

Further to comments on the Post of 17 March (thank you Nairnbairn for keeping the debate open on this issue).

A helpful member of THC Democratic Services staff assisted me in finding that there was indeed no live link to the committee paper APTSec needed regarding the responses to the last consultation on the Inverness Local Plan, ILP. She then kindly forwarded me a copy of the sought after report.

The report summarises the representations received in respect of the consultative draft of the Inverness Local Plan etc. More than 800 individual and consul tee responses were received raising some 2000 issues for consideration.

It is worth noting at that time that policy was to prevent loss of identity and overheating in the villages and strengthening of rural settlement patterns. The Plan directed that growth in communities under pressure "does not normally exceed 25% in any 10 year period".

The big question is, on this and other issues,

How much of a 'change' in terms of 'Policy' will we expect to find?

More on this very soon.

If anyone wants a copy of this report please e mail APT apt.intouch@live.co.uk

Latest news on Development Plans

Highland-wide Local Development Plan

(Latest from the Council's Development Plan Scheme)

15 WEEK PUBLIC CONSULTATION ON PROPOSED PLAN AND ENVIRONMENTAL REPORT STARTING JUNE 2010

CHANGE AND REVIEW PLAN FOLLOWING CONSULTATION SEPT-NOV 2010

SCOTTISH MINISTERS EXAMINE PLAN JAN-MAR 2011

PUBLISH POST EXAMINATION CHANGES, MAR 2011

ADOPT AND PUBLISH PLAN AND ACTION PLAN MAY 2011

Make sure your views on the future of the Highlands are known by commenting on the Proposed HwLDP during the consultation period!

Delivering Major Developments - A Pre-Application Guide

Extract:

The Highland Council is committed to the creation of sustainable communities to ensure a balanced population growth and economic development across the area and to deliver a fairer and healthier Highlands.

To assist the delivery of these aims, and in line with the requirements of the Planning etc (Scotland) Act 2006, we have put in place new processes for dealing with major applications. The guidance outlines the procedures The Highland Council will adopt to provide effective and early pre-application advice to developers in the Highland area.

Regulations defining what a major development is have been issued by the Scottish
Government and came into force on the 6th April 2009.

Part of Disclaimer:

There is a possibility that, under the Freedom of Information Act, The Council will be asked to provide information regarding inquiries for pre-application advice and copies of any advice provided or correspondence entered into. This information may only be withheld if its disclosure could prejudice commercial interests, inhibit the free and frank provision of advice or exchange of views during the planning process, or could prejudice the effective conduct of public affairs. Those seeking pre-application advice should provide a covering letter that sets out the reasons why, and for how long, any information relating to the case needs to remain confidential.

For more information click here (HwLDP blog post) and here

Also on the HwLDP blog is an item on the new Development Plan Scheme 2010 click here

[The Development Plan Scheme sets out how Highland Council will be preparing plans for
using new land over the next year. It states:

"This document makes it easier for you to find out how far we have developed our plans and how you can get involved."!]

Welsh Council withdraws plan

Interesting item from 'Planning Daily' electronic newsletter:

Cardiff Council has voted to withdraw its Local Development Plan following criticism from the Welsh Assembly Government.

In a statement the council said: "Legal Counsel has advised that given the magnitude of the concerns raised that it is evident the plan would not be recommended for adoption and that it is highly unlikely that the Inspectors will try to overcome the concerns by recommending modifications to the plan given their significance.

The move will see Cardiff Council revert to the last adopted Local Development Plan from 1996.

More here and here

THC Meeting Rules

Extract

Standing Orders of The Highland Council Relating to the Conduct of Meetings - made by the Highland Council on 29 October 2009

Click here to view the Standing orders on The Highland Council web site (These Standing Orders will apply and have effect on and after 29 October 2009. )

Information provided further to a post on the 'Gurn'

"...public squalor" Time to take stock?

Economist John Kenneth Galbraith famously claimed an inverse relationship between the public good and the growth of private wealth.

"The Affluent Society (1958), John Kenneth Galbraith’s most broadly influential book, stands out among works of economic analysis for its accessible writing style, which makes complex economic concepts and arguments understandable to the popular reader. Galbraith’s phrase ‘‘conventional wisdom,’’ a key concept introduced in The Affluent Society, has entered common parlance so pervasively that it is now used to describe a variety of concepts not necessarily related to economic theory." More here

“If the individual’s wants are to be urgent,” he wrote, “they must be original with himself. They cannot be urgent if they must be contrived for him. And above all, they must not be contrived by the process of production by which they are satisfied. ... One cannot defend production as satisfying wants if that production creates the wants” More information here

Professor Greg Lloyd, who very kindly spoke at our first APT AGM, makes reference to JK Galbraith in his Sir Patrick Geddes Commemorative Lecture 2006, 'Planning and the public interest in the modern world'. Professor Lloyd stated:

"J K Galbraith (who died recently) also offers insights into contemporary land use planning practice. In perhaps his most famous work, The Affluent Society, he demonstrated the importance of investment in infrastructure to support development in the public interest, and the development of the public interest. He argued that private business "creates" consumer wants (through advertising) and artificial affluence through the production of commercial goods and services. As a consequence leading to the “private wealth – public squalor” duality. Systematic attention to the infrastructure resource then becomes important for the public interest at large. Again lessons for today. "

More details here

Some of J K Galbraith quotes can be found here

Councillors + Decisions = ?

The Standards Commission for Scotland - in co-operation with the Chief Investigating Officer - is responsible for the enforcement of, amongst other codes, the Code of Conduct for Councillors. The Code sets out the standards of behaviour expected of Councillors in Scotland. The Code can be found here Section 7 of this code relates to taking decisions on individual planning applications.

The Commission has issued guidance to councillors and local authorities to assist their understanding of the Councillors' Code of Conduct. This Guidance and Dispensations note can be found here Paragraphs 48-62 of the guidance relates to taking decisions on planning applications.

Both the code and the guidance notes are very readable and well worth a look, particularly since the 'Gurn' has reported an item from the P and J concerning two of our local councillors being advised by the local authority not to play a part in planning debate on windfarms because of their public opposition to the technology.

It seems to me after reading para 51-53 of the guidance - see below - that the guidance does not preclude any councillors holding rational, well evidenced views and bringing these to the attention of the debate. In terms of the consideration of an application:

If an applicant feels that they have provided all the relevant information to support their case; the planning officer is satisfied that sufficient detail has been provided by the applicant for the application to be fully considered and the councillors then have regard to the development plan and all the other material considerations, then there should be no issue. There clearly seems to be and this requires further clarification.

Extracts

51. The provisions in section 7 are intended to deal with the handling of individual applications and should not be seen as limiting councillors from discussing or debating matters of policy or strategy, notwithstanding that these may provide the framework within which individual applications will in due course be decided.

52. As already indicated, section 7 of the Code deals in particular with planning matters. Councillors have a key role in establishing planning policies for their area and they are fully entitled to express their views or advocate proposals on the making, approval or amendment of the development plan.

53. When it comes to dealing with planning applications, different considerations apply. The Code emphasises the key importance of ensuring that all applications are dealt with fairly and - equally importantly - are seen to be dealt with fairly. In dealing with a particular application councillors must have regard to the provisions of the development plan, so far as material to the application, and to any other material considerations. They must disregard considerations that are immaterial for planning purposes and be careful to avoid giving any impression of bias.

You nimby you!

The acronym NIMBY is often used but what exactly can it mean? Here are a few quotes*

In plain language...the motivation of residents who want to protect their turf. More formally, NIMBY refers to the protectionist attitudes of and oppositional tactics adopted by community groups facing an unwelcome development in their neighbourhood... residents usually concede that these 'noxious' facilities are necessary, but not near their homes, hence the term 'not in my back yard'. (Dear 1992:288)

‘The problem with the use of NIMBY is that rarely is it defined the same way by different researchers. In fact, it is sometime used as a catchall term to label the opposition – or worse, to imply that citizens have illegitimate or irrational selfish (or narrow) reasons for opposing facilities’(Hunter and Leyden 1995:602)

‘any citizen, who tries to defend their home and their neighbourhood from plans which would destroy the view, pollute the environment, overload the transport network, upset the ecosystem and knock £50,000 off the value of their house. When it comes to our own back yard, we are all nimbys, every nimby deserves respect for standing up to corporate and government giants’ (2005:1) Frontispiece to Anthony Jay’s ‘Not in Our Backyard: How to run a protest campaign and save the neighbourhood’ (2005)

‘developers and other industry proponents need to place more emphasis on addressing the concerns that citizens actually express, and less emphasis on the assumption that those who oppose their projects are part of a overarching NIMBY syndrome’(Hunter & Leyden 1995: 601)

APTSec recommends that you read the full paper (as noted below) from which these quotes are taken click here. A section of the paper describes other 'related' acronyms and states:

"We conclude that all of these acronyms are over-simplifications of complex responses to land use decisions. Their use obfuscates understanding of the contexts, processes and motivations at stake and threatens to exacerbate conflict and misunderstanding between the parties involved. Our position is that researchers should avoid using the use of such acronyms in favour of exploring how they are used by actors involved in such disputes, and with what consequences."

[Extracts* from: A working paper of the research project “Beyond Nimbyism: a multidisciplinary investigation of public engagement with renewable energy technologies” funded by the ESRC under the ‘Towards a Sustainable Energy Economy’ Programme Kate Burningham, Julie Barnett & Diana Thrush University of Surrey August 2006]

Further research can be found at

http://geography.exeter.ac.uk/beyond_nimbyism/deliverables/outputs.shtml

Public money + provate investment

APTSec's electronically delivered 'Economic Development Weekly' has an interesting item on renewal strategies:

In a report published today, the Audit Commission warned that the Government’s regeneration and growth area strategies both assume that public spending can bring in private investment at an individual and company level, with some of the private sector investment expected to subsidise the infrastructure needed to make new developments work for communities.

The Audit Commission report finds that some councils, particularly district councils, have been hit hard by falls in income due to a decline in the number of planning applications – down 22 per cent on pre-credit crunch levels – and investment income, which fell by 43 per cent in 2008/09.

For full item click here

Comparing the response

As promised here is a quick stats check with respect to the level of response to previous consultations for the area:

• Inverness Local Plan (ILP); consultative draft, THC June 2001 – representations received over a 12 week period with 800 individual responses on 2000 issues, then in
  

• April 2002 Inverness Area Committee had 3^rd of three advisory meetings with respect to the responses to the ILP - as noted above. Cannot now locate the minutes of these specific meetings on THC web pages. (I made notes of these meetings a few years back)
  

• Just over 50 written representations to the PDET committee for their consideration on 17/08/05, but the focus was on the conclusions reached by the consultants regarding the centre of the A96 Corridor rather than East Inverness or Nairn.
  

• Appendix 2 (click here) of the report to committee on 14/03/07 shows the degree of response to the A96 Corridor consultation with 158 representations listed.

The public need info too!

Extracts from the 'Improvement Service' web site:

The Improvement Service was set up in 2005 help improve the efficiency, quality and accountability of local public services in Scotland by providing advice, consultancy and programme support to councils and their partners. Our purpose is to help councils and their partners to improve the health, quality of life and opportunities of all people in Scotland through community leadership, strong local governance and the delivery of high quality, efficient local services.

The Planning Development Programme is a government-funded initiative delivered by the Improvement Service that supports training and development for staff and elected members with planning responsibilities in the 34 Scottish planning authorities. The Programme has been running since April 2006 and will continue until March 2011, providing a range of in-house and multi-authority training events and grant support for authorities to help tackle training and development needs.

Spring workshop - Development Viability:

"The workshop is aimed at planners who wish to understand how developers view potential projects and the significance of risk and return in deciding whether to implement or not. It will also assist in understanding how planning gain fits into a developer's way of approaching schemes.

This event will explain how developers decide whether to proceed with schemes including assessing viability, methods of valuing land and variables of cost and value. What does risk mean and how significant is profit level in deciding whether to proceed? What is the impact of planning gain on viability and what other variables affect profitability? There will be a number of exercises based on real life sites and participants will become familiar with undertaking simple residual valuations as used by the development industry."

As mentioned in the previous post; shouldn't the public know more about this?

The 'Cash Cow' is dead

•How do we stimulate Sustainable Economic Growth?
•How do we finance development?
•How do we finance essential infrastructure and community facilities?
•Who is going to procure and deliver essential infrastructure?
•Who is going to procure and deliver community facilities?

These are some questions posed in a presentation by GVA Grimley after they stated that:

"Development historically contributed to the funding of new infrastructure projects, schools, affordable housing and other projects through planning gain.

The buoyant market conditions that allowed these contributions to be made have gone and are unlikely to return.

Weak market conditions coupled with the inability to obtain debt finance will severely curtail the level of new development. This will have a profound effect on the future level of planning gain contributions.

In short, the current system is broken and unless changes are made, many major development schemes within Scotland will not come forward."

(Click here to read more from this presentation which is located on the Scottish Government web site.)

The Scottish Property Federation has stated that (click here):

"A key ingredient to better decision-making in the planning service must be an enhanced understanding of development viability."

It has become extremely clear to APTSec that if the right balance of development is to be successfully delivered then Government, Local and National Politicians, landowners, developers etc need to start genuinely involving the community in the planning process. It is within the highlighted groups that a change of culture needs to occur. It is important t hat the new realities of development viability are clearly understood by the public. Having a 'generous supply of land' available is not going to solve the problem.

[GVA Grimley describe themselves as:

...a leading property consultant providing a comprehensive range of property solutions to UK and international owners, occupiers, investors, lenders and developers

click here for their web site

Development Viability

Whilst the English, Welsh and Scottish planning systems have their differences, this article from the on line planning newsletter makes fascinating reading:

"Development viability has increasingly become a planning issue in recent years. This is in no small measure due to paragraph 29 of PPS3, which urges local authorities to ensure that affordable housing policies do not make development unviable."

"...developer profit is a key consideration. In normal market conditions, this figure settled at around 15 per cent of gross development value (GDV). In the credit crunch, lenders have been more demanding, with developers needing to show profits of between 20 and 25 per cent."

"In practice, greenfield sites will deliver substantially higher uplifts even with very significant levels of affordable housing and other forms of section 106 benefits. But the precise figure at which landowners will choose to release land will be down to the individual."

For full insight I recommend reading the full item which can be found here

There is also a short item from Huw Morris

"With just 1.1 per cent of the country taken up by homes, it is little wonder that land prices have gone through the roof and affordability is a distant memory."

Click here