The Government then looked to be pre-empting the task force's final conclusions when it swiftly published a consultative draft PPG 12 on development plans, where delays have been among the worst affecting the residential recycling of our industrial heritage. But the proposed PPG really does little more than endorse current uncertainties.
Yet it was only in January that DETR expressed disappointment with the continuing poor performance of some local authorities in taking forward development plans. Published figures show only 67% of local plans and UDPs had been adopted by end of 1998. North Tyneside, for example - an important regeneration area - is unlikely to have an adopted plan till June 2001.
The implications of this for urban regeneration and particularly for the clumsy procedure of compulsory purchase is that without an adopted local plan, LPAs would find it very difficult at a public inquiry to prove that an economically viable scheme was in place and could proceed without legislative delays. Under section 226 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 which covers CPOs, the Secretary of State and his inspectors are required to have regard to the development plan. The planning basis for a CPO is important because land cannot be required for development unless it is clear that there is no planning barrier to it proceeding. As a result where an adopted local plan is in place, local authorities can have more confidence in approaching compulsory purchase.
Such an example is South Oxfordshire District Council, which recently voted £10m to finance land purchase in the redevelopment of Didcot's town centre and will use CPO powers if necessary. Deputy chief executive Mike Butt made it clear that this approach was only possible because it was predicated on the authority having a recently adopted local plan which had clear planning guidance for the town centre redevelopment.
Two ideas have widest support for overcoming this impasse:
- run-down areas in need of development should become "designated urban areas" where more flexible land assembly rules would apply; and
- preparation of supplementary planning guidance amplifies adopted local plan policy and can be prepared more quickly. In Birmingham the City Council has published this type of advice for a number of "various quarters" of Birmingham central area. The planning and urban design framework is published for public consultation and approved by the planning committee. The question is whether this type of supplementary guidance can withstand high powered legal challenge by landowners ahead of being formally adopted.
A more radical solution has been put forward by a barrister Martin Wood who has promoted many local plans through inquiry on behalf of LPAs. In an article in the Journal of Planning Law, he has suggested that the legal development plan should simply be the structure plan and would be the only document formally adopted. At the present time structure plan reviews may take two years whereas local plans can take five years or more. In this scenario, the local plan would in effect provide the supplementary planning guidance and could be produced more quickly.
There is real conflict between giving objecting landowners the opportunity to have a say at inquiry and the pressing need for speed. If the draft PPG 12 is anything to go by, ministers have missed the chance for radical change. Planning minister Richard Caborn may continue to exhort local authorities to prepare and update plans faster but the draft won't help them get there. So now it is down to Lord Rogers and his team to grasp this nettle.
Source
Building Homes
