TUESDAY 28 MARCH 2000

CLLR NIGEL ROSE, MR BOB BENNETT, MR SAM RICHARDS and MR PHIL JOYCE

  57. Welcome to our second session this morning on the Planning Inspectorate and public inquiries. Perhaps you would introduce yourselves for the record.
  (Cllr Rose) I am Nigel Rose, Deputy Chair of the LGA Planning Executive and I am Chairman of Environmental Services at Wokingham Unitary Authority in Berkshire. On my right is Bob Bennett who is Head of Planning at the London Borough of Waltham Forest. He is Chair of the Planning Officers' Society Development Control Group and a planning adviser to the LGA. On my far right is Phil Joyce who is Assistant Director at Leeds City Council. He is also a planning adviser to the LGA and will deal with specific questions relating to Leeds. On my left is Sam Richards who is the Planning Policy Officer at the LGA.

  58. Do you want to say anything by way of introduction, or are you happy for us to go straight into the questions?
  (Cllr Rose) It may be worth referring you to paragraph 2.1 in our evidence which indicates a generally satisfactory and much improved performance of the Planning Inspectorate over recent times, particularly with the simpler appeals. They are coming back to authorities much more quickly than they used to. I believe that should be put on the record. A number of issues still need to be addressed. We are happy with the new standards set by the Minister last week on inspectorate performance.

  59. Why do you think that inspectors take such a long time to produce their reports on local plan inquiries?
  (Mr Richards) They do take a long time. Delays in terms of local planning inquiries as a whole and the production of local plans is a problem of which the LGA is well aware. The way in which inspectors conduct inquiries and the time that they take to produce their reports adds to the delays. There are a number of factors involved, one of which is the plans themselves, which are the responsibility of local authorities. Since the power in Section 54(a) has applied to local plans, local plans have become much more detailed. We are aware that that is a problem that local authorities need to address. That is up to local authorities. The inspectors need to address the management of the public inquiry which often go on longer than is necessary. Inspectors could be far more interventionist in their approach towards inquiries.

  60. How long do you think it should take to get reports of inquiries?
  (Mr Richards) The guidelines given to inspectors is three days for every day that the inquiry sits. That seems to us to be very generous. We have examples from Liverpool and North-West Leicestershire that we have put in our evidence where it has taken longer than that. That is a problem for those individual authorities.

  61. You have been calling for less detail in local plans.
  (Mr Richards) Yes. The LGA advocates that local authorities should carry out their local plans in a more strategic form and not get into a great deal of detail which means that the public local inquiry into the local plan is like a Section 78 development planning inquiry. We do not want that. We want the local plan inquiry to be concerned with the strategic bits of local planning in a local authority area, and not to go into a great amount of detail. There are a number of ways of doing that. One of the main steps that we want the DETR to take is to give more weight to supplementary planning guidance, those bits of planning that can be done outside the formal planning process, which do not have to go through a public inquiry. At the moment not enough weight is given to supplementing planning guidance, which means that local authorities tend to put too much detail in their local plans.

  62. How do you think that that can be changed? You spoke about what the DETR should do. Should it issue new guidance or enforce the guidance?
  (Cllr Rose) If the DETR issues guidance that will give more support. One area where guidance would help is on the procedures for consultation. If we had some minimum standards of consultation, it is more likely that SPG will be viewed as being correct and having gone through due process, and therefore that would assist the inspectorate to recognise that they exist. There can be differences in standards and therefore I understand the inspectorate not being sure whether to ignore or to take note of a particular document. That would help the process, certainly in circumstances when planning has to be speeded up right across the board, with changes in industries and changes in living styles and everything else. The whole process is taking so long that events have overtaken them by the time that they are published. We really must be much more alive and responsive to community inputs as well.

  63. What are the trends at the moment? Are they taking more or less time?
  (Cllr Rose) The local plan inquiries seem to be taking longer in all the stages because they are getting more complicated. We need to redress that. Individual appeals have actually speeded up.

  64. Mr Richards, you said that planning inspectors should be more interventionist. Can you explain in what way they should be more interventionist?
  (Mr Richards) Local plan inquiries tend to be very legalistic and sometimes when lawyers get involved the timetable is driven by them rather than by the inspectorate and we respond to the lawyers' agenda rather than get down to what the inquiry should be concerned with, which is the root of the planning issues. We think that the new innovations in terms of the way in which the public inquiries are conducted in local plans, round-table discussions are far more constructive and better at getting to the root of planning issues than having two lawyers taking a confrontational approach to matters. We believe that sort of approach can help greatly.

  65. Do government offices cause delays?
  (Mr Richards) Yes, we think that they do in two areas: the individual applications that they call in and the amount of objections that they put in on local authority plans. An example is that we had a representation from Penryn council in Cornwall that had received 450 objections from the government office in the South West. That seems to me to be completely excessive. Another problem with such objections is that government offices do not tend to withdraw them so the inspector has to consider them at a public local inquiry and that delays the process a lot.

  66. How would you address that without impeding the democratic process?
  (Mr Richards) It is fine for government offices to object. They should be given guidelines within which to object, so that if, for example, they consider a local plan policy is a long way out of line with government guidance, it is fine. They are tending to get down to those great details in the plans which arguably should not be in the plans in the first place. That clogs up the whole system.

  67. Should government offices be subject to a timetable?
  (Mr Richards) Yes, we believe that they should be, particularly in terms of the call-in of applications. At the moment they seem to go into a black hole. Local authorities see these applications taken away from them for decision. They are not given a reason for why they are taken away. The government office does not have to give a reason, although I think they should have to give some justification. They should also publish a timetable. They should agree a timetable with a local authority, and, where possible, stick to it. We have had a representation from Gateshead council which we put in our evidence in some detail. That council lost an application, it had been called in and the timetable kept being extended and it had great difficulty in getting to grips with where that was. I like the suggestion of the DETR having to put on its web-site those applications that have been called in which would mean that there was information more widely available to local authorities, but also to the public as well who are often quite baffled by call-ins and what the Government are doing with them.

  68. In your experience of involvement with government offices, what proportion of times when they get involved are they raising an issue of national concern as against simply an issue about control from the centre?
  (Mr Richards) In terms of local plans they tend to become far too involved in the detail.

  69. Can you give us an example of what you mean by the detail? Do you mean land use?
  (Mr Richards) We have just had a new PPG3 on housing. A government office would be totally within its rights to object, for example, if a local authority gave a greenfield site priority over a brownfield site, but getting into the detail about how that greenfield site is developed in terms of the mix of development on it, for example, the detailed land use, is over excessive. They also tend to get involved in the nitty-gritty of how a policy is worded. They should look at the policy and if it is generally in line that is fine and there should be local discretion given to the local authority about how it shapes the policy itself.

  70. Is the Local Government Association giving advice to its members on the implications on planning of the Human Rights Act 1998?
  (Cllr Rose) Yes, it is.
  (Mr Richards) Earlier this year, in January, we held a conference and we are producing a guidance note for local authority members on how they should deal with this.

  71. Has that gone to every local planning authority?
  (Mr Richards) We have not produced it yet, but when we do it will, yes.

  72. When will that be?
  (Mr Richards) We aim to do that this year, in the summer.

  73. In brief, what will the guidance say?
  (Mr Richards) We are looking at two articles, Articles 6 and 8, and highlighting the parts of those articles which are most important to planning. At the moment our assessment is that Article 6, which is the right to a fair hearing, is the most significant for local authorities. When writing their reports they will have to take that into account.

  74. Are you calling for third-party rights of appeal or not?
  (Mr Richards) In an ideal world third-party rights of appeal would be there. Our biggest concern is that it will clog up and slow down the system even more. We would like to get some reassurance from the DETR that it is looking at third-party rights of appeal within the implications of the Human Rights Act.

  75. Have you asked the department?
  (Mr Richards) We have.

  76. Was the department represented at your conference?
  (Mr Richards) They spoke at the conference.

  77. What did they say?
  (Mr Richards) They said that they were looking at it. They said that they would not issue any guidance.

  78. How were you supposed to know?
  (Mr Richards) We would like some guidance from them. We are advising the authorities and we accept that it is the national association's responsibility to look at it, but it would greatly help us if the DETR told us that they were looking at it as well.

  79. Do you think that you are being constructive in the sort of advice that you offer? Would you be able to send to the Committee whatever you have on that so far?
  (Mr Richards) Yes. We have not done a great deal on it, but what we have done we can send to you, yes.