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2011-11-03T18:03:00.004Z

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'Better to have a large local plan than a large national plan'

2011-10-18T09:28:00.004+01:00

Yesterday the department for communities and local government held a select committee hearing on the NPPF. Our consultant David Scane was in attendance, and found proceedings to pose more questions than were answered:

‘Why should the planning system be easy for developers?’ So asked Councillor Gary Porter at the DCLG select committee hearing into the NPPF yesterday afternoon. Councillor Porter is the leader of South Holland District Council, the vice chair of the Local Government Leadership Board and, most importantly, co-author of the draft NPPF. What has been branded in some quarters as a ‘developers’ charter’ was being given a rather different face by one of the document’s key authors.

Responding to a question from Conservative MP George Hollingbery, who asked whether it was not the case that developers would find it hard to cope with lots of different local authorities producing different forms of local plans, Councillor Porter said that, yes they would, and this was something to be welcomed.

Councillor Porter is a strong advocate of localism, and an ardent critic of top-down regulations. The message that he gave to the committee yesterday was that if local authorities have sufficiently comprehensive local plans, then the NPPF is all that’s required for planning guidance. While under further questioning later he did concede that a robust local plan could end up having to be much longer than the 52 page NPPF, the message was loud and clear: it’s ‘better to have a large local plan than a large national plan’.

So where does this leave the house building industry? John Slaughter of the Home Builders Federation greatly welcomes the draft NPPF, saying that it would produce positive local plans, with more development based upon local wishes. He bemoaned the brownfield-first policies of the previous Government, saying that there was simply not enough to build the houses required. While he lent his wholehearted support to the document, he did acknowledge that there had been some serious issues with how the document has been presented. He also added that there will be a need for members of the HBF to engage further with local communities to make the system work properly.

Such positive opinions were not being held by all those invited to speak. Simon Jenkins, eminent political commentator and chairman of the National Trust, was under no illusion about the plans, describing them as being ‘a gift to lawyers’; arguing that most applications would be decided on appeal. His line of reasoning was that the document does indeed reflect a ‘developers’ charter’, and that there is plenty of derelict brownfield land available to provide the required housing numbers.

Once again it seems that the NPPF means different things depending on who you talk to. Ultimately, however, the message that came out of yesterday’s session was simple; regardless of what’s in the NPPF, it is vital that local authorities have thorough, evidence based plans, on which to base their housing numbers. It remains to be seen whether this message is heard by local authorities.

David Scane -- Labour Consultant, Curtin&Co

The draft NPPF will have its third Parliamentary reading on October 24^th and fourth and final reading on October 31^st. Curtin&Co will be in attendance at all readings.

Hold On! - A Conservative Conference Review

2011-10-07T17:58:00.002+01:00

This year’s Conservative conference could be described as serious in tone but energetic in nature. Whether the numerous fringe events, speeches and policy announcements will maintain the limelight for a few weeks is doubtful. Indeed the “cat fight” between Justice Minister Kenneth Clarke MP and Home Secretary Theresa May MP seems to have grabbed the main headlines. Who would have thought a cat could maintain ones right to residency in the UK?

The highlight of any conference is the leader’s speech, which is why most were surprised to see so many empty seats in the auditorium, especially for the serving Prime Minister. Much has been made over why this was the case, but it’s clear the nature of conferences are changing; there are many more lobbyists and commercial passes than Conservative activists, and hard times mean the cost of attending in the host cities of Manchester and Birmingham is too high a price to pay for many.

The leader’s speech itself was designed to be a “pick me up” with Cameron playing to traditional Tories stressing that the UK will never join the Euro under his leadership. And what for the liberal Conservatives? Cameron put forward proposals to consult on gay marriage; but the mainstream will be most pleased with the announcement of further council tax freezes.

So what for planning? Greg Clark MP and Eric Pickles MP were watched with close eyes, most notably by the Shire Tories. Indeed the former sent tongues wagging when he didn’t speak at his arranged conference spot on the NPPF, only to appear the following day to set the need for further housing. The Cities Minister played off the notion that 37 is the average age most people will enter the property market, a statistic which will surprise many.

In a fringe event, attended by Greg Clark and Amber Rudd MP, and with a room full of lobbyists and councillors, tough questions were asked of the transitional arrangements between the existing and upcoming planning legislation. Mr Clark confirmed that the NPPF consultation was not finished and seemed to elude that changes were continuing to be made. Quite whether council leaders who don’t have a current local plan feel more secure against pre-emptive applications by developers remains to be seen but there seemed to be a confidence that the Cities Minister was on the right track.

One to watch - Amber Rudd MP has published a document with The Forty Group (forty of the party's MPs with the narrowest of majorities - 18 of them won their seats with margins of less than 1,000), entitled “Planning for Change”. A summary of the state of the current planning system and why Localism is the solution is explained in a 27 page document. A clear and direct MP, the influence of such a document is yet to be seen, but it is certainly an interesting read!

In short, the government is gearing towards investment in infrastructure and housing development; there was no significant wavering at conference by party members despite the challenges. The follow through is now close as the Localism Bill and NPPF shortly come to a head. Hold on!

James Bird -Conservative Consultant, Curtin&Co

A sign of things to come?

2011-09-29T16:01:00.001+01:00

Eric Pickles has today signalled a real belief in localism by rejecting the advice of a planning inspector and upholding Winchester council’s rejection of a large-scale development. Although the council has an inadequate supply of housing land, Pickles has determined that it should be allowed to conclude its core strategy process.

Time will tell whether this is a victory for nimbyism, a well-placed belief in the competence of local government to make difficult decisions without needing to be second-guessed by Whitehall or a strategic decision designed to take some of the heat off the current draft NPPF debate (the logic of the draft NPPF might have been thought to have favoured the developers in this particular case).

What’s also clear is that some developers will need to adopt a different approach to strategically important planning applications. Instead of assuming that “everything will be alright on appeal”, time spent in genuine stakeholder engagement and community consultation may prove to be beneficial in helping applications clear the hurdle of planning committees – this decision could be a real portent that the Secretary of State is not prepared to second guess the locally elected politicians who are paid to make these decisions.

Nick Stanton, Lib Dem consultant, Curtin&Co

Localism under attack

2011-09-27T17:16:00.002+01:00

Alas, poor Localism! What cries are committed in thy name! As the Localism Bill makes it way towards royal assent the principle that local communities should be entrusted with determining what they want to happen in their localities is under attack from all sides – because it turns out political parties can’t bear to empower people in case they make the “wrong” decisions. Fresh on the heels of the draft NPPF – which suggests that neighbourhood plans are only Good Things if they want even more growth than any other planning policy under the sun – Labour’s shadow housing spokesman Jack Dromey (the man selected from an all-woman shortlist) has suggested that regional strategies centrally imposed need to be brought back (apparently the empirical evidence of their lack of success last time round doesn’t matter).

A more creative use of politicians’ time might be to identify ways of financing infrastructure investment so that it can precede growth rather than follow it (“we don’t mind more homes but we can’t cope with the numbers we’ve already got” has to be one of the commonly used phrases among councillors) and finding the courage to lead from the front in local areas and make a positive case for more growth (something the draft NPPF had the courage to do).

Nick Stanton, Lib Dem consultant, Curtin&Co

Lib Dem conference 2011

2011-09-21T18:55:00.000+01:00

Following this year’s Autumn conference, Lib Dems have been left to reflect on a difficult 500 days in coalition. The focus has been on the lessons the party can learn from its time in government to date, and how it can continue to influence the legislative agenda moving forward.

Coverage of the conference has tried to paint the familiar picture of a frustrated, majority left-wing party membership who feel dissatisfied with the party’s current direction, and particularly the leadership of Nick Clegg. There is certainly an element that conforms to this but, as has been noted by figures within the party, the picture is far more complex.

The party leadership are delivering the “strength through compromise, nation before party, people before politics” message with far greater conviction and confidence. One is still left with the impression that the virtues of compromise are being sold to the membership by Ministers on a continual basis, but they are no longer doing so in the phase of mass discontent and scepticism.

Chris Huhne, amongst others, used the American Right’s failure to compromise on economic reform and the near-dire consequences as an effective illustration of the risks involved in ‘playing politics with the economy’. Continued unease has perhaps in this sense bought the coalition time and lent credibility to the government’s overarching and continued emphasis on 'stability at all costs'.

Of course, despite these moderate positives, voting figures over the past year are a real wake-up call.

The local election results and heavy loss on the AV referendum were an absolute disaster and something that the party will have to come to terms with. The post-mortem into the AV capaign has been abandoned as part of this process - probably no bad thing.

In spite of teh above, there does seem to be a feeling that the party is beginning to turn a corner, or at least that it has begun to feel more comfortable in its own skin.

However, in its response to a number of controversial areas of government policy,it is fair to see that the party has not been brave, particularly in confronting public scepticism over one of the supposed ‘shared values’ of the coalition partners – that of Localism.

The recent media furore surrounding the draft NPPF and the DCLG’s response to this border-line crisis will have caused real concern.

David Cameron entertained the National Trust and CPRE this week and will have had a difficult time dispelling some of the misinformation identified in the DCLG’s recent “Myth-buster” document.

Defining the term “sustainable development” (for which the draft NPPF proposes a presumption in favour) is a key step in giving campaign groups and communities the confidence that Neighbourhood Plans and other key elements of the Localism Bill will carry real weight, and that the process of consultation on the NPPF is not simply a cosmetic exercise.

A difficult tight-rope to walk for the coalition in providing any detailed reassurance on the issue whilst continuing to promote development and growth – let’s see if Ed Miliband can do better and provide a coherent alternative through ‘Mutualism’ next week.

Ally Kennedy,
Liberal Democrat Consultant

The NPPF a missed opportunity

2011-09-19T17:26:00.006+01:00

The draft NPPF has received a bit of a kicking in the national press over the past couple of months. What started out as a little talked of policy paper, quietly ushered out in July of this year, has led to all out conflict, between the Department of Communities and Local Government, and just about everyone else. The participation of prominent groups in the debate, including the National Trust, has propelled the issue to the forefront of public attention.

In the face of a sudden tide of opposition the Government leapt to the NPPF's defence, by producing a three paged ‘Myth Busting’ fact sheet on the DCLG website, which was supposed to answer all questions and allay any concerns people might have about it. This exercise amounted to little more than a poor PR stunt, which has unsurprisingly done nothing to change public opinion.

After all, by that stage, people had already come to their own conclusions about the NPPF, namely, that it represents a developers charter, with presumption in favour of development meaning that local people will not get to have a say in the future of their neighbourhoods.

This is largely a problem of the Government’s own making. At the time the document was produced they focused their attention on the ‘cutting of red tape’ angle, trumpeting the fact that they were shortening the planning policy from 1000 pages to 50 pages. The details of the policy were largely irrelevant at the time, and this has contributed to the problems the Government is currently facing.

This follows a familiar pattern of policies set out by this Government. The so-called cutting of red tape and the abolition of bureaucracy is all too often used as the reason for a policy, rather than as a by-product of good policy.

No one thinks that there should be unnecessary rules and red tape holding back the building of new affordable homes, and no one could seriously argue against the need to stimulate the economy through the construction industry.

These arguments are now likely to fall on deaf ears, as the Government did not come out all guns blazing in the first place promoting the policy in these terms.

What is a pity is that there is now so much public opposition to the NPPF, that there is a good chance it will disappear altogether, or be substantially watered down. If this does happen, it will be entirely the fault of the Government for the way it handled this issue. They will then have to think long and hard about how they intend to solve the pressing need for affordable housing in this country.

David Scane

David Scane is an experienced Labour Party Campaigner having worked for the Party in the run up to the 2010 General Election at their Central Office. He has previously worked in Parliament for a Shadow Minister , and in the constituency office of former Labour MP for Battersea Martin Linton.

City Hall Renaissance?

2011-09-14T17:24:00.004+01:00

The Government’s Localism Bill is being amended in the Lords to allow England’s major cities to have more powers devolved to them to promote economic growth.

Appreciating the desperate need for economic growth on a day that it was announced unemployment has increased by 80,000 people to 2.51million over the last quarter, these changes offer the possibility something quite special and absolutely critical.

In the ‘heyday’ of local government town halls were the driving force for economic growth. It was Manchester, Newcastle and Birmingham that where the powerhouses of entrepreneurial endeavour and these cities generated the economic boom of the industrial revolution. Look at their glorious town hall buildings to see the history of their power and grandeur built on the back of economic success.

The amendments proposed by peers would enable ministers to devolve powers to cities on a case-by-case basis, without the need for further legislation. It would open the door for cities to gain greater control over policy areas such as economic growth, housing & planning and regeneration.

Cities would also be free to cooperate and work together, pooling resources across functioning economic areas. How this will all work alongside LEP and Enterprise Zones is detail which will need working out.

The devolution deal was first proposed by the Core Cities Group, which represents England’s eight largest cities outside London – Bristol, Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield – which deliver 27 per cent of the national economy.

Could this be a rebirth of big city town hall local government, I guess the answer will depend largely on the quality of the leadership in these councils, one thing is certain though, if the devolution of these powers goes ahead we will see more local accountability which cannot be a bad thing, and it may result in a change to the makeup of the councils. This just might be the beginning of a City Hall Renaissance.

Paul Harvey

Paul is a Curtin&Co Consultant and former Leader of Basinstoke & Deane Borough Council. He is also a current councillor in Basingstoke's Norden ward, and Leader of the Basingstoke Labour Group

Lost in Interpretation

2011-09-14T13:44:00.002+01:00

In yesterday’s Telegraph, John Rhodes suggests that the Coalition’s planning agenda is supposed to promote more development and not give communities the power to block new homes, infrastructure or employment sites. It’s no secret that the economy needs more homes to be built so that sounds like a good thing. The problem is that it is not just a matter of how the Localism Bill and NPPF were intended to work; it is also a matter of how they are interpreted locally.

In many Conservative-controlled rural councils, even before the Coalition was in power, there was a view that all talk of development, RSS numbers and planning applications should stop until they were given the ultimate authority to decide by the Localism Bill. In some areas (particularly cities and new towns), the decision was to continue to promote more house-building and development; but in many it was assumed that Localism meant no more housing could be “forced” on their local communities.

Whilst the limitations of this view are now visibly settling and councils do appear to be taking more of a pragmatic approach, the rhetoric of Localism – local decisions made by local people; neighbourhood planning; local choice in development – has taken hold and councillors and residents’ groups are already using it to support their arguments.

If the Government really wants to increase the amount of development across the country and it wants local people to support it then it is first going to have to find a way of communicating the genuine need and tangible benefits which it brings; in the rural areas and the south-east as well as the cities.

Catherine Worboys, Managing Director, Curtin&Co

Government "all in" on housing

2011-09-06T13:01:00.005+01:00

"George Osborne’s foray into the planning row concerning the draft NPPF now engulfing the coalition government will only serve to heighten tensions and provoke angry responses. But why is he wading in?

The economic meltdown now facing the US and Europe is causing the government to react, and the NPPF is a part of that. It is certainly a Treasury driven document.

The economic realities of a possible double dip recession, the reported growth in youth unemployment and the reported slow down in the construction industry have all led to calls from leading economists for the government to change tack. The Manager of PIMCO, one of the largest investment funds, Bill Gross, has warned George Osborne that his austerity measures risk pushing the UK into recession. In an interview with The Times, Gross called on Osborne to rethink the strategy, arguing UK economic conditions had proved it was not working. “'The UK economy in the UK is worse off than it was when the plan was developed”.

So the drive for growth and the presumption in favour of development enshrined within the draft NPPF becomes ever more critical and ever more needed in the eyes of government. Of course politically George Osborne cannot be seen to be changing tack, but as Harold Macmillan said, “events dear boy, events”, have a habit of knocking politicians off course.

There is real fear that the economy is about to take a nose dive, there are red lights all over the economic data and with the US and European Banks taking money out of the European Banking system the bad news just keeps on coming.

Now take the fact the construction industry and housing has been such a driver for economic growth in the UK and the Treasury’s need for the NPPF to open the door to greater house building, and to unlock the door to development over the protests of communities becomes the central driver for policy making.

The row over the NPPF has been heated between the CPRE, National Trust and the Tory led government. It is surreal to see Tory ministers in stand up rows with those who they courted the support of for years, but now they see the economic reality staring them in the face the choices could not be starker.

The row over the NPPF prompted 23 former Royal Town Planning Institute presidents to call for "reasoned debate and clear thinking" in a letter to the Telegraph last week.

So when Osborne weighs into the debate on the NPPF and planning reforms saying they are 'key to our economic recovery', and writing that "no one should underestimate our determination to win this battle". The stakes keep on being raised. The government is at an important crossroads and Localism looks like it may be mortally wounded by the harsh economic reality of austerity and the fact the Treasury has no plan B."

Paul Harvey

Paul is a Curtin&Co Consultant and former Leader of Basinstoke & Deane Borough Council. He is also a current councillor in Basingstoke's Norden ward, and Leader of the Basingstoke Labour Group

Cooperativism and Mutualism

2011-07-26T10:09:00.000+01:00

Localism is the word of the moment. Column inches have been devoted to interpreting it, claiming to understand it, and predicting what it will mean. It looks likely that by November the Localism Bill, which is one of the largest and most far reaching pieces of legislation in recent years, will become Law, and then…..well, the floodgates will open. Local Councils will rush to pick up the powers and run with new and quite different interpretations of what it will mean.

The simple point to always hold in your mind is that the Government does not have a grand design, and that the purpose of Localism is to create such a patchwork quilt of interpretation.

I think it is fair to say Labour has struggled to find a meaningful response to the Localism Bill and more so the full Localism agenda. The Parliamentary Labour Party has rightly sniped away at some of the more ludicrous elements of the Bill which centralises power within the DCLG when the Bill professes to be about de-centralisation. However, Labour needs a coherent answer to this fundamental theme of the coalition Government.

Localism’s Achilles heel is that it is meaningless. What the Bill unleashes is a series of changes in housing policy and planning policy which will radically alter the world around us. But the meaning of Localism is lost in these far deeper and more disturbing changes.

The Bill will have huge impacts on social housing, it will redraw the scope of housing benefit and the delivery of affordable housing and it will lead to a tragedy in housing in general. If you remember ‘Cathy come home’ I think you can safely say that the impact of the changes to affordable housing will be that catastrophic. In essence the Tories have signalled the death of social housing.

Labour needs a repost to this and the answer for the party is in-fact not coming from the top but from the Labour controlled authorities in London and major metropolitan councils.

The unwritten story of the general election in 2010 was the huge success that Labour had in London in the local elections held on the same day. Winning control of 9 Councils it was a good night for the Labour Party in London.

These new Labour Councils have a had a year to begin to address the job of running a Council in the era of austerity and facing the huge cuts imposed by Central Government on Local Government.

Lambeth is setting the standard by championing the idea of a Cooperative Council. The idea of mutualism and cooperativism runs deep in the Labour Party, and these themes have been asserted in a lot of discussion about ‘Blue Labour’. The difference between the theorising of ‘Blue Labour’ and the reality of Labour politics in action is that Lambeth is actually delivering a model of a Co-operative Council.

The Co-operative Council draws inspiration from the values of fairness, accountability and responsibility. A Co-operative Council is about finding new ways in which people can participate in the decisions that affect their lives. The Co-operative Council is also not just about changing the council, it is about building more co-operative communities and realising that, for too long, councils have stood in the way rather than supported this development. A Co-operative Council seeks to do things with its community rather than do things to the community.

“This new approach to public service delivery aims to reshape the settlement between citizens and the state by handing more power to local people so that a real partnership of equals can emerge. I believe the huge level of interest in our ideas both locally and nationally is driven by a genuine desire to find new and better ways to deliver public services in the 21st century. Although we publish this report at a time of unprecedented Government cuts in funding for local services, ours is not a cuts-driven agenda. I believe that if we do not make this change then the future of public services will be much more uncertain.”

Cllr Steve Reed, Leader of Lambeth Council

Labour has a far more radical and far more meaningful repost to the Tory idea of Localism. The interesting point for local authorities up and down the rest of the country is that they will need to better understand what they are about, what they are there for. Localism will unwittingly create an accountability that will painfully expose those councils that suffer from weak leadership.

The planning process is then a part of this transformation and as Labour takes control of more authorities over the next few years of local elections, the change in the way Localism is actually implemented will hold greater meaning. The idea of a Co-operative Council is quite exciting because Localism will let this Labour idea grow and mature.

The national planning framework will set out the new principles of planning; but let’s not forget not a lot will actually change, LDF’s remain and so too the national targets for housing.

Lambeth, like other local authorities looking to deliver a Cooperative Council model, offer a solid direction of travel that grasps the opportunity Localism presents, but puts a Labour perspective on it.

The Treasury know that in most Tory authorities the idea of development and planning is dominated by a NIMBY agenda, and in a complete contradiction to the Localism Bill their proposals, now adopted by the DCLG and out for consultation, will allow developers to purchase employment land, change its use to residential without the need for planning permission and then submit an application in which the change of use is no longer a material reason for rejection. This will likely create a significant amount of windfall development that falls outside of local plans and therefore the Tory Councils can claim to have stuck to their local housing targets, and the Treasury can claim to be driving growth through greater house building. The irony of Localism will not see local people in greater control of development in their neighbourhoods; that will not be a reality of Localism.

So within that vacuum and sense of disappointment that will grow under the Localism Act the Labour Party can and should fill it with a better and far more meaningful answer based on Cooperativism and mutualism. The next few years will be some of the most interesting and uncertain as this whole new political landscape becomes a reality in practice.

Dr Paul Harvey, Curtin&Co, Labour Consultant

A Consevative election review

2011-05-12T13:47:00.000+01:00

So what’s the verdict on the first set of nationwide elections since the General election?

Most Conservatives would admit to being in a bit of a daze, we were anticipating a battering and the loss of up to one thousand seats we were defending. Quite incredibly we actually increased our councillor base, admittedly just by 81 at the time of writing but this was the last thing we anticipated.

The Liberal Democrats, as expected, fared badly but even worse than was imagined. Of the 1800 seats they were defending, they lost over 700; almost 40%. Whilst the Lib Dem High Command swung quickly into defensive mode about Nick Clegg’s position, there will be a large section of the voluntary party that will be very uneasy about the combined loss of so many councillors, key flagship councils and the AV vote.

So what about Labour? On paper they look to be the main beneficiaries but this is deceptive. Whilst they did well in some areas, they failed to make significant breakthroughs in much of the country, which explains why the Conservatives did so much better than expected. Ed Miliband had a golden opportunity to cement his slightly precarious leadership with a solid set of results and he failed to deliver. As a result he will continue to suffer from mutterings about his leadership.

So what are the implications of these results?

The high tide of conservative fortunes in the local government world, which I had predicted as having started to turn last year, is still in and looks to stay for a little longer. Cameron will feel obliged to try and help protect Clegg’s flank with a raft of legislative sweetners and other bolsters. The Conservative Parliamentary party which tolerates rather than enthuses over the coalition will get increasingly belligerent over what they see as being too many compromises. Whilst there is widespread relief over the AV result in much of the Conservative Party, this will only deliver a certain amount of political credit for Cameron at a time when it was running dangerously low.

The Lib Dems could go through one of their frenzied internecine periods with a leadership election. Huhne who was widely seen as lining himself for such a tilt may be damaged beneath the waterline by imminent reveleations from his former wife. That leaves Cable and Fallon as the only obvious alternatives. Both are left to the current leadership but more in tune with the party grassroots, but the key question is if there is a change of leadership what else is going to change. The Lib Dems have very limited room for manoeuvre as coalition partners, they are already getting significant manifesto commitments delivered. The only significant change left is a looser coalition arrangement or a complete splitting altogether. Both could be suicide for the parliamentary party but it does have form on this.

And finally, what of the Labour party? It will be pleased with the direction of travel its 800 plus seats gives but disappointed not to have done better. Scotland will be a major disappointment and, as I said earlier, speculation over its leader will continue.

Frank Browne, Conservative Consultant, Curtin&Co

May 5th predictions

2011-05-03T13:01:00.003+01:00

We now have less than a week to go before the first major elections after the 2010 General Election. You can feel the tension in the air as politicians of all parties up and down the length and breadth of the country are anticipating the results.

YouGov published a poll on April 24^th for the Sun that showed the Liberals had slipped to a 20 year low of just 7%. Labour were on 43%, and the Tories 39%. Predictions based on national polls are pretty inaccurate because local factors in a local election can, and often do, make a difference.

One thing is clear from the doorstep, the Liberals are in uncharted waters. They have never campaigned as the Government before, and their usual position as the protest party has gone. In this election they have become the party a lot of people are protesting about. The Liberal vote in this scenario is vulnerable and the response from voters is clear they are leaving the sinking ship.

Nick Clegg is one of the most unpopular leaders of any party in recent history, and his personal journey from the anointed success of the General Election to almost pariah status today is unprecedented. The Liberals cannot escape what they have done in Government, and for the first time they will be held accountable at the ballot box and it doesn’t look good for them.

The Tories are playing things carefully, they know they will lose seats to Labour, and that the national picture will look very different on May 6^th, but they may feel emboldened by their relative survival in the face of a Liberal collapse. Watch out for expectation management of all the parties. Labour will talk of slow progress, the Liberals of losing to a national mood, and the Tories will talk of the high watermark they achieved last time, and this is purely a natural readjustment of that. Truth is the Liberals and Tories will lose badly and Labour will gain.

The bigger question that begs to be answered is at what point do the Tories pull the plug on the coalition and go for a General Election in the hope of an overall majority?

Labour meanwhile will begin its rehabilitation in the eyes of voters, gaining seats on a scale it hasn’t seen for over 15 years. Major cities, including key councils like Trafford, Reading, Newcastle and Sheffield will all swing back to Labour. Even in the leafy shires Labour will begin to regain previously lost ground. This is will improve Labour’s activist base and demoralise the opposition. It is fair to argue that at the moment Labour is the only opposition party to the Tories, and in many cases the real choice instead of the Liberals.

May 5^th will be a watershed for many reasons, not least for those poor foot-soldiers of each party who will win and lose. We forget sometimes how much personal effort and commitment councillors give in getting elected or trying to stay elected. May 5^th will shape the political narrative, we’ll just have wait and see what the voters actually serve up.

Dr Paul Harvey, Labour Consultant, Curtin&Co

Time for a Quickie Divorce ?

2011-04-27T10:57:00.002+01:00

Last month I wrote how the AV referendum had the potential of sowing the seeds of destruction for the coalition government.

The latest turf war suggests the break up might be more imminent.

It is almost unprecedented that cabinet ministers criticise each other in public and the tone of the recent carping by Huhne and Cable suggest a deliberate fracturing could be about to take place.

It is increasingly difficult to see how the growing divisions can be smoothed over that is if the protagonists even want them to be.

So what is going on?

Huhne’s behaviour could be interpreted as a softening up exercise ahead of a leadership challenge to Clegg.

Remember this man would have won the Lib Dem leadership had it not been for delays caused by the Christmas post.

Not a member of the Orange Book clique that is more comfortable in the coalition, he is more in tune with the majority of the Lib Dem party membership and could well harness the significant unease that is likely to erupt after the inevitable bloody nose the party will receive on May 5th.

Meanwhile, stage left, Cable is almost daring Cameron to sack him. His manoeuvring is more difficult to interpret, if it is a thought out ploy but could be seen as a possible precursor to a splintering of the party or a jump to the Labour party.

If the referendum is lost, informed insiders believe Cable’s behaviour might be an attempt to negotiate another referendum with the Labour Party. Quite how realistic this is has to be questioned.

Behind these scenes of internecine manoeuvring, the mutterings are growing in the Conservative ranks. Talk of more compromises to prop up an embattled Clegg is met with an increasing belligerence. Cameron is busy using up his political capital and there will come a time when the predominantly right wing parliamentary party is going to put its foot down. Whilst there is no talk of a leadership challenge, Cameron will find his room for manoeuvre increasingly restricted.

Hang onto your seats for an interesting six months.

Frank Browne, Conservative Consultant, Curtin&Co

Budget Reaction

2011-03-23T15:40:00.004Z

Housebuilders in particular can take encouragement from today's budget, with the press conference emphasis on a new 'drive for homes' finally giving rise to legislative change - relaxing rules around the conversion of commercial to residential property is an important step, and will free up an estimated 266,000 commercial units for housing.

Vince Cable's much vaunted 'land auctions' also make the cut in the budget, with the first set of pilot auctions of undeveloped land from local owners scheduled for the summer. How successful these pilot projects is yet to be seen, but the willingness of both developers and cash-strapped councils to take a punt on undeveloped sites will be a concern.

Other headlines of the budget carry the usual emphasis on the relationship between property ownership and scoial mobility. In a bid to get first-time buyers onto the ladder, those with 5% deposits will now be eligible for a 20% government loan on top of income-assessed mortgage entitlements.

How all of this will sit alongside the Loclaism agenda, particularly in relation to pre-permissioned plots being sold to developers by local authorities at auction, is highly questionable. The Bill's resilience during its passage through parlaiment over the next 12 months will be key.

Pickles was congratualted on the strength, scope and ambition of the Bill when it finally came; all of that will count for nothing if it continues to unravel over the next nine months.

Ally Kennedy
Liberal Democrat Consultant

The local government elections, be careful what you wish for…

2011-03-22T14:38:00.004Z

Nominations have opened for the forthcoming local government elections on May 5th. In addition to the 279 councils and 8000 plus seats up, we have elections for the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the ill considered referendum on AV.

The Conservatives will be defending some 5000 seats, the Lib Dems just over 1800 and Labour 1600. Privately the Conservatives are bracing themselves for losses of up to 1000 seats, the Lib Dems are probably vulnerable in over 500 seats with Labour set to be the main beneficiary from both.

Despite the slightly ridiculous issue being subjected to referendum, the result either way, combined with the likely local government elections are likely to have far reaching effects than should normally be expected.

If the referendum succeeds, quite possible given the current shambles of the NO campaign, coalition governments could become the norm rather than the exception.

If it falls, the result combined with the likely loss of seats and councils for the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats at local government level will place a huge strain on the coalition government.

Whilst it is doubtful if it would cause the imminent collapse of the government, it will probably sow the seeds of an eventual split.

So where will the pressure come from?

The Liberal Democrats are most likely to crack first. The nature of the party makes it more vulnerable to the pressures council losses will exert, and I suspect we may see the left breaking off to form a more left leaning Liberal Democrat grouping or, completely jumping ship to join Labour who is assiduously courting them already, with the Orange bookers (the more solid right wing) remaining in the coalition. They certainly have form and you only need to look at the coalitions of 1918 and the 1930s so see what might happen. The big question is what happens to the government’s majority? Will enough Lib Dem MPs stay to ensure a workable majority or could the government fall?

Authored by Frank Browne, Conservative consultant for Curtin&Co and former council leader on Wokingham Borough Council.

Pre-budget planning pressure builds on Osborne

2011-03-21T13:58:00.000Z

Eric Pickles' promises to cut the planning system 'down to size' this week make for interesting pre-budget reading. Whether the rhetoric here will be backed up by decisive action following the ongoing debate on Localism's capacity to impede or assit growth, is another matter.

The lowest house-building rates since 1923 are beginning to force the treasury's hand on this one.

Tomorrow's budget will lay out how the government intends to reverse the current 'inertia' gripping developmnent in the UK (as the DCLG Select Committee put it so aptly this week).

New Homes Bonus- A Conservative View

2011-03-04T14:40:00.002Z

Critics of the Localism agenda have been saying for some time now that the new system is unworkable; after all, who’s going to vote for new developments in their back yard? Certainly not councils who fear a political back-lash in any up-coming election, that’s for sure!

But will they now with added financial incentives? The common theme of local rags up and down the country has centred on “cuts” after being spoon-fed by the Labour Party Press Office carpet-baggers. How will we possibly cope without all those diversity and climate change officers?

Anyway, the financial incentives of the New Homes Bonus will provide local councils with an ideal way to avoid some of the most devastating cuts. A few million quid in the council coffers should help save a few local libraries so their 3 or 4 customers can continue to enjoy their Mills and Boon and books on ornithology. Great!

George Saliagopoulos Curtin&Co Consultant

Cala Homes Challenge Failure: A Conservative Perspective

2011-02-08T12:30:00.002Z

Labour's central planning has for a long time stifled diversity and local initative. It has for too long prevented local individuals from having a say in the future shape of their communities and denigrated the power of the local decision-making authorities, hence making them less accountable. This is bad for democracy.

So the news that housebuilder Cala Homes has just lost a legal battle against the Government's claim that its intention to abolish regional housing targets should be considered when deciding on planning decisions is brilliant news.

In short, it is a resounding victory for the Coalition Government's localism agenda and is proof that Labour's top-down planning system is tentatively close to dying its long-awaited death. Good riddance I say.

George Saliagopoulos

Conservative Consultant

Oldham East & Saddleworth by-election result

2011-01-14T08:29:00.000Z

The results are in, and it's a fairly unsurprising outcome that all but the most excitable political commentators have been predicting for weeks:

LAB - 42.1
LD - 31.9
CON - 12.8
UKIP - 5.8

No real surprises for those who felt the Liberal Democrats were never seriously in the contest, but there will be some disquiet within the third-placed party ranks as to the 'gentle' campaign run by the Conservatives.

Reaction from the party leaders below:

ED MILIBAND - Labour leader
"This is the first step in a long journey for Labour. But more importantly, I hope the government will listen to what they've said about those key issues. I think the voters have sent a very clear message. They've said to the government: 'Think again on VAT, think again on the trebling of tuition fees, think again on the police cuts that are going to affect their communities"

NICK CLEGG - Lib Dem leader and deputy prime minister
"This was a very hard-fought contest but we were not able to gain this Labour seat on this occasion. I am proud of each and every one of the hundreds of activists and volunteers who have brought the fight to Labour's front door in a way that will have confounded our critics. It was always going to be a big ask to take this seat from Labour, given the circumstances. We are undertaking some enormously difficult decisions because Labour left Britain's economy in a mess"

DAVID CAMERON - Prime minister and Conservative leader
"I think we fought a good campaign. Our candidate, Kashif Ali, was a strong candidate, I was one of the first prime ministers for many many years to campaign personally in an English by-election. I enjoyed doing that, I'm proud of the campaign we fought. But of course we started in third place, we ended in third place, and that's often the way with by-elections"

Oldham and Saddleworth by-election- A Tory Perspective

2011-01-11T14:50:00.001Z

Ring the bell, its by-election time! The Oldham by-election, in the wake of the dishonest Phil Woolas’ annulled victory, is fast looming. On January 13th the voters of the Oldham and Saddleworth constituency will be granted the opportunity to punish Labour for the dirty campaign in the run up to the 2010 General Election (a campaign in which Labour won by 103 votes).

It looks like time for the Liberal Democrats to get some sweet revenge, but most wouldn’t bet on it. I certainly won’t. The Liberal Democrats have lost well over half their national support since last May after having ostensibly signed up to the Coalition’s tuition fee rises and “nasty cuts”.

Labour’s bleating over the Coalition’s “savage cuts” of 3.3 % in an attempt to deal with the £155 billion yearly deficit seems to have penetrated the thick skulls of the witless British voters. Accordingly, Labour are sitting pretty with 41% opinion poll ratings (far far above the 9% who said they would vote Lib Dem if an election were held tomorrow). If the Lib Dem candidate Elwyn Watkins wins on Thursday I’ll eat my hat.

Localism - A Conservative view

2010-12-13T17:18:00.002Z

In response, and to balance out the earlier post, one of our Conservative consultants has given his views on the Localism concept below......................

Localism Bill - A Conservative view

The Localism Bill has been applauded for its emphasis on decentralisation and is seen as a first crucial step away from the top-down and inefficient system inherited from the last Labour Government. It was conceived as a way of releasing local councils from the controlling hand of the oligarchical State and enabling them increased autonomy, thus accountability and economic efficiency.

Eric Pickles today stated that:

“For too long, central government has kept local government on a tight leash, strangling the life out of councils. This has stopped councils doing anything without running to ministers first. It means that local public services are run on the whims of bureaucrats many miles away. It has stopped councils from using their creativity to improve services and from focusing on what residents want.”

The system of control over local government by the State has had a two-fold effect: first, it has bred complacency among local councils. They have found a convenient scape-goat on which to pass the buck. Second, it has resulted in apathy among the general public who realise that their local council is essentially powerless up against the State’s bureaucrats- resulting in declining turn-outs in local elections.

The Bill has been described as a “triumph for democracy” on two fronts. First, by increasing the powers of locally elected Councillors to set up services and to better create tailored responses to the financial challenges ahead. Second, by empowering local individuals:

• Communities can question how services - such as children's centres, care homes and transport - are being run and potentially take them over.

• Directly elected mayors in 12 cities.

• More power for local people to overrule planning decisions, decide where new homes should go and protect green spaces.

• Powers for people to approve or veto "excessive" council tax rises.

• Giving local people and organisations the right to buy community assets like shops, pubs and libraries. If a council decides to sell a property community organisations will get extra time to develop their bid.

Critics of the Bill have argued that it amounts to no more than “swingeing cuts”. In the short term these cuts will of course be felt. The logic behind the Localism Bill, however, is that by granting councils greater autonomy and, by proxy, accountability, they will rise above the simplistic mindset that you can solve problems simply by throwing money at them. As such the Localism Bill is the long-awaited shot in the arm needed to deliver the public, faced with continually rising Council Tax bills, a remedy from the disease of local government profligacy.

George Saliagopoulos, Curtin&Co Conservative consultant

Localism - A Labour view

2010-12-13T14:22:00.005Z

With the Localism Bill being published this afternoon and already elements of it seeping out we asked one of our Labour consultants for his thoughts on it ............................................

"I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power." Thomas Jefferson.

The Localism Bill has been one of the most trailed and well publicised bills of recent years, but it is hard to find anyone who can truly tell you what Localism actually means. And that is the point. Simply devolving power and saying in effect ‘here you go, you do it now’ is not enough. That is the coalitions biggest mistake, because while localism is in principle right, the approach being taken is one of potential disaster not enlightenment – think of the Titanic sailing towards the ice berg, think of Local Government sailing towards 27% cuts and then overlay the Localism Bill’s proposed free-for-all.

The Government’s big idea is that the bill will enable local communities and councils to quite literally do their own thing. Therein localism truly means different things to different people and will in reality be interpreted and implemented differently all over the country.

The cry of power to the people only has resonance if it is also matched by the resources to achieve. The Achilles heel of the Localism Bill is that it is based on the largest and most swinging cuts to the budgets of local government in post war Britain. The funding cuts will in themselves change the face of service delivery to local people across England and will result in some of the hardest choices councils will have to make. Do they cut education, social services, youth services, or community safety? In reality all will be cut and hit very hard. Indeed one senior local government officer commented recently that the cuts proposed were catastrophic and the most vulnerable in society would literally be cut adrift.

The New Local Government Network has described the Localism Bill, already, as ‘a real disappointment to communities’. ‘If you are a council facing frontloaded cuts of up to 40 per cent, then greater freedom in how you spend it means little but a devolved axe.”

What the bill will do:

• Give councils a general power of competence

• Give residents the power to instigate local referendums on any local issue and the power to veto excessive council tax increases

• Grant greater financial autonomy to local government and community groups

• Return decision-making powers on housing and planning to local councils and communities

• Abolish Regional Spatial Strategies

• Give communities the right to bid to take over local state-run services

• Require public bodies to publish online the job titles of every member of staff and the salaries and expenses of senior officials

• Create Local Enterprise Partnerships (to replace Regional Development Agencies)

• Review the Housing Revenue Account

The Localism Bill will include proposals to make councillors approve and publish pay rules for their chief executives. It will also include powers to create directly elected mayors in 12 of Britain’s cities such as Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool. Of real interest is the power for people to approve or veto "excessive" council tax rises, which will impact very heavily on those councils whose revenue budgets to deliver services are dependent on council tax income.

The Bill will create a "community right to buy" which will give local community groups and parish councils a legal right to name assets like shops, libraries and community centres as critical to their neighbourhoods and if they are put up for sale, local people will be given time to prepare a business plan and raise the funds they need to bid for it.

There will also be a "community right to challenge" - whereby community groups and parish councils will have the power to challenge and take over a local service. This could include running children's centres, social care services and local transport links. Councils would be forced to publish the reasons why the service could not be run by local groups, the onus being placed on the principle that they should be run by the community.

This is paternalism writ large and is essentially a ‘do gooders charter’. Every religious, community and neighbourhood group will be coming out of the woodwork to potentially take over services that until now have been professionally run by local government civil servants in the interests of the whole community and those most vulnerable. Without that professionalism local groups will likely choose who is deserving and who is not – can you imagine the impact that will have on those in most need. It has Dickensian overtones of the poorhouse running throughout the idea. Consider a local children’s social services department which could be run by a community group? The bill while well meaning will open a Pandora’s Box of paradox’s to be unravelled sometime after the initial damage is done.

The result of the bill will be confusion, much introspection amongst local government mandarins as the implications are slowly understood. The landscape of local government will be changed that is certain, not many people have yet realised just how radical these reforms are, and in terms of ambition set against available resources to deliver the bill the reality is that while it may read well and look good on paper, its implementation is another story all together.

Dr. Paul Harvey, Curtin&Co consultant and Labour councillor

Localism Bill will be introduced on Monday 13th December

2010-12-10T12:49:00.005Z

After several weeks of 'will they won't they' and various dates flying around, the government have finally announced that the Localism Bill will be out on Monday 13th December. The news was first announced by Eric Pickles via Twitter in a post that read, "Localism Bill will be introduced next Monday. Lots of power to to Councils".

Stay tuned for more information and analysis..

http://www.planningresource.co.uk/bulletins/Planning-Resource-Daily-Bulletin/News/1046146/Localism-Bill-on-Monday/?DCMP=EMC-DailyBulletin

Local Government Landscape Set To Change

2010-11-19T15:41:00.002Z

Well the Tories all knew that this would happen, but even by our own very pessimistic forecasts the results of recent local council by-elections has been quite staggering. In one election this week the Conservatives lost a previously impervious council seat on Sandwell MBC in the West Midlands with a huge 45% swing to Labour. Of course local factors would doubtless be in play, and this local authority was hit hard by the cancellation of the Building Schools for the Future programme. But even taking this into account that result really does stand out.

This result follows a pretty predictable pattern of local government strength increasing for parties in opposition. Immediately prior to 1997 the Conservatives suffered a meltdown in their local councillor base. In one night in 1994 over 1,500 councillors were wiped out. Whole swathes of the UK became Tory-free zones. As John Major shuffled out of Downing Street on that gloriously sunny day in May 1997 the Conservatives were in an absolutely awful state.

Over the next 13 years there was not a single year where the blues didn't make significant new gains. Voters are far more likely to vote against the government. It is human nature to be motivated against something than to be for it. In the coming years it is entirely likely that previous Labour strongholds seized by the Conservatives and Lib Dems when Gordon Brown and Tony Blair occupied Number 10 will return to the fold.

The political landscape in local government is really set to change.

Antony Calvert
Conservative Consultant, Curtin&Co

PINS response to CALA Homes: Analysis

2010-11-17T16:46:00.003Z

Following the Cala Homes decision in the High Court most local council’s haven’t really known which way to jump in recent days. They have reacted quite understandably like rabbits caught in the glare of headlights.

The advice from the Planning Inspectorate then is not surprising but it is important. The advice is aimed at settling the minds of both developers and Council’s but when we take a closer look it is nothing more than a fudge to hold the line.

The new Localism Bill will in very simple terms state that the Regional Strategies are revoked and therein the housing targets derived of them are gone as well.

The Planning Guidance is careful to offer weight to both the Government’s view that it is intent on revoking the RSSs and the High Court decision that states until legislation is formally adopted the 2004 Act establishing RSSs applies, and any evidence or analysis using the policies of the RSS has relevance as a consequence.

There is no way that local councils can escape the conundrum this places them in – developers will now be able to cite the RSS policy framework as a material consideration that inspectors will have to give weight to.

In essence the judgements that will be made by inspectors will be a balance of fairness. If the application of RSS can be adjudged as unreasonable set against the prospect of the new legislation then an Inspector can give that perspective weight. The problem is that until the legislation is made law the existing statute is of greater importance than a Government’s announced intent.

Those sites that are subject to appeals that have fallen after Eric Pickles July announcement and the reinstatement of the RSSs under the Court ruling will have to be carefully assessed against the relevance and fairness test. Again, this is highly subjective and is likely to lead to some fairly complex legal wrangling.

The following approach has been developed by the Planning Inspectorate to assist in determining which cases may merit reopening, which may be dealt with by a reference back to parties for comment and which cases may not need any additional action:

(a) where RSS policy has no material relevance because the decision is of limited (local only) scale and impact and the decision-maker can rely on local statutory development plan policy alone as would have been the case before 6 July 2010, no further action is required;

(b) where it appears to an Inspector that RSS policy may be material as a consequence of the significant (greater than local) scale or impact of the proposal, but the cases put by the parties make no reference to RSS, the Inspector must refer to the parties, seeking a view as to the materiality and weight of RSS policies. Chart should be informed.

(c) where a decision relies on both local policy and RSS policy on the same issue, it is possible that the local statutory development plan policy can be relied upon if by applying less weight to the RSS policy the outcome does not change;

(d) where both local policy and RSS policy are relied upon on the same issue, but the RSS is relied on to a greater extent and if as a result of applying reduced weight to the RS the outcome is less certain or could change, then the parties’ views should be canvassed (Chart should then be advised); and

(e) where the parties’ cases rely primarily on the RSS, then the parties should be canvassed.
(f) If there is a reference to the parties or a re-opening, the Inspector should consider whether the case can be completed following consideration of issues raised by the parties or whether a postponement or adjournment is warranted.

None of this is straightforward and each developer with a case will have to test the water on a site by site basis, authority by authority. The position of those Councils who ripped up their Local Plans with great glee since July is of most note, they are vulnerable to appeals.

It appears as if the authorities are carefully acknowledging that they cannot ignore the court ruling, but that they are aware of the Localism Bill hitting the ground very shortly. Therein this debate becomes a matter of timing and process, how quickly can developers get their sites reconsidered using the RSSs before Pickles gets the Localism Bill adopted as an Act.

Dr Paul Harvey
Consultant, Curtin&Co

Planning Inspectorate confirm RS numbers form part of all development plans "on an ongoing basis"

2010-11-17T13:46:00.003Z

The Planning Inspectorate has issued guidance following thte CALA homes decision - effectively confirming that the 'former' RSS numbers will still apply in planning decisions until the abolition is ratified in legislation following the Localism Bill's passage through parliament.

This effectively leaves developers with an open window for applications and appeals on the basis of RSS numbers until this point in time (estimated as November 2012).

The Planning Inspectorate's key line as far as the development community is concerned reads as follows:

"Until any further announcement is made and/or legislation to formally repeal or revoke RS is implemented, the Cala decision means that RS is part of the development plan on an ongoing basis."

Updates on the situation will follow as they are made public.

A "victory for Localism" as Manchester becomes the first city-region authority outside of the capital

2010-11-15T14:23:00.002Z

Manchester's super-council was signed off by Ministers today to become the first city-region authority outside of London.

The council will hold responsibility for housing, job creation, transport and economic development, and will formalise the Manchester region LEP approved by the DCLG and BIS last month.

Centre for Cities think tank analyst Keiran Larkin has hailed the move "a victory for localism" - watch out for further developments in city-region LEPs across the country over the coming months.......

Cala High Court ruling political analysis

2010-11-10T14:31:00.004Z

An Analysis of the Political Dimension to the ‘Cala’ Decision

The High Court decision to wrap Eric Pickles across the knuckles for acting unlawfully when he unilaterally announced without primary legislation that the Regional Spatial Strategies and housing targets based on them were scrapped in July is a very serious political decision.

It is not just a case of political embarrassment that the High Court has judged the Secretary of State for Local Government and Communities to have acted unlawfully: The far more salient point is that councils across the country have been ripping up their Core Strategies and throwing out planning applications based on his decision.

If, for now, the Regional Strategies are alive and kicking and their targets are relevant and enforceable then developers will have a field day at appeal with sites that local authorities have thrown out, or sites that have been allocated in Core Strategies that authorities have since thrown out. Everybody who acted immediately on Pickles’ decision in July is now in a Pickle.

This decision could mean planning by appeal for the next year or more whilst the Localism Bill travels through the Parliamentary process. Developers may be submitting applications at some considerable pace based on the Regional Strategies policies and targets in order to beat the new legislation scrapping those same policies and targets. This is a recipe for confusion and for a lot of work for the Planning Inspectorate. It will also mean developers having to explain what will look like a very aggressive move to both councillors and communities who had assumed RSSs were gone for good.

You could not script the drama that this High Court decision is going to create. Watch out now for the Town Hall reaction which is likely to be as dramatic and angry – this is politics and the Judiciary are getting in the way of politicians doing what they want.

The Judgement:

The Judgement itself was very clear and stated that:

“The LDEDCA 2009 maintains in place, with some modifications, the whole elaborate machinery set up by Parliament under the PCPA 2004 to create a new statutory tier of regional planning guidance in the form of Regional Spatial Strategies, now re-named as Regional Strategies. I refer to some particular features of the regime set out in Part 5 of the 2009 Act below, but the main and critical point is that there is no sufficient indication in section 79(6) of the 2009 Act that Parliament intended to reserve to the Secretary of State a power to set that whole elaborate structure at nought if, in his opinion, it was expedient or necessary to do so because it was not operating in the public interest. If Parliament had intended to create such a power for the Secretary of State – something akin to a Henry VIII clause, since the practical effect of it would be to grant the Secretary of State power to denude primary legislation of any practical effect, without having to seek the approval of Parliament for such a course by passing further legislation – it would in my opinion undoubtedly have used much clearer language to achieve that effect and would have given the provision far greater prominence than section 79(6) has, tucked away as a final sub-section in a provision otherwise dealing with revision of Regional Strategies. A contrast may be drawn in that regard between the location of section 79(6) in Part 5 of the 2009 Act and the prominence given to section 70(1) as the leading provision in Part 5, which sets the scene for the provisions which follow in that Part and is the basis for the whole elaborate framework which that Part puts in place.

The provisions in Part 5 of the 2009 Act requiring Regional Strategies to be published, making provision for the public to have opportunities to make representations regarding their drafting (including, where appropriate, at examinations in public) and for community involvement in the preparation of such planning policy guidance (see section 75) are all strong indications as to the importance which Regional Strategies are intended to have in the operation of the planning system and for the guidance of the public. These are important means of ensuring public participation in the creation of planning policy and transparency in relation to such policy, and it is not plausible to suppose that Parliament intended that they should be capable of being simply by-passed by action taken by the Secretary of State under section 79(6), which carries with it no procedural protections or requirements at all;

The centrality which Parliament intended Regional Strategies to have in the planning system is underlined by the strong practical effect to be given to them as set out in section 36(3) and (6) of the PCPA 2004 (as amended by the 2009 Act), when applications for planning permission fall to be determined. Again, I do not consider that it is plausible to suppose that Parliament can have intended that the Secretary of State's power in section 79(6) should extend to abrogating the whole system to have in place and give effect to such a primary instrument of planning policy.”

Conclusion:

The central legal point is that the Judge declares that the legislation regarding Regional Strategies exists, that the Secretary of State does not have the delegated authority outside of Parliament to abrogate RSSs from the planning system and, crucially, that they remain in place and applicable to all planning considerations. It will take an Act of Parliament to remove them.

The Government is, at this stage, not proposing to appeal the decision and other developers are lining up to launch their own legal actions based on their own experiences around the country.

There are a few key points that need to be established:

1) How local authorities will react – they have neither the expertise nor finances to tackle legal challenges, and they will be wary of the High Court ruling. However, for those authorities that have already scrapped their LDFs or have taken decisions based on the scrapping of housing targets and RSS policies, they now find themselves in a no-man’s land. Developers will need to carefully explore the options with these authorities in light of the publication of the Localism Bill’s timetable.

2) The Localism Bill’s timetable is everything now: Just how much time have developers got to play with until the RSSs and Housing Targets are scrapped under primary legislation. There is no question that the Government is still committed to its new planning framework so it is a question of “when” rather than “if”.

3) The dialogue between councils and developers is now emphasised not just as a part of the Localism agenda, but also as a part of the process of planning between now and the adoption of the Localism Bill.

The three key points are watching for reaction, looking for time, and opening dialogue. This is a messy situation and everyone will be picking up the pieces and trying to feel their way over the coming weeks.

Dr Paul Harvey, Curtin&Co

DCLG launch Business Plan for 2011-2015

2010-11-08T14:30:00.000Z

Timescales were published today by the DCLG in their ‘2011-2015 Business Plan’.

The Localism Bill will be introduced this month.

An ‘Affordable rent’ scheme which will contribute towards up to 150,000 new affordable homes will be implemented in April 2011.

Funding for town and parish councils to develop neighbourhood plans will be made available in April 2011.

The New Homes Bonus Scheme entitling planning authorities to cash for every new home built is also due to commence in April 2011.

RDA Assets list published

2010-11-05T14:22:00.003Z

The RDA's asset-list was released today following in the wake of a parliamentary question and the Government's White Paper last week.

Should be interesting to see how the DCLG disposes of these in the coming months.

The full list will be made available online here in the coming days:

http://deposits.parliament.uk./

Curtin&Co win Rising Star Consultancy award

2010-10-28T12:54:00.004+01:00

Curtin&Co was last night named “Rising Star Consultancy” at the prestigious Public Affairs News Awards. The award recognises the highest achieving public affairs agency which is less than two years old.

Presenting the award, Laura Kuenssberg (Chief Political Correspondent for the BBC) highlighted Curtin&Co’s rapid growth, project wins and excellent client references.

Chief Executive Tom Curtin said:

“It is a real honour to win this award and receive recognition from our peers. We strive to bring real value to our clients by providing effective communication with both local communities and politicians and this award shows that we are moving in the right direction.

We are also very grateful to our clients who provided such excellent references for us to really set our entry apart.”

Super-council for London

2010-10-25T12:15:00.000+01:00

Following the CSR, radical plans have been announced for a new ‘super council’ in London. Under the plans the London Boroughs of Westminster, Hammersmith & Fulham, and Kensington & Chelsea would merge, saving up to £ 100m.

Some in a Labour camp see this as a sneaky move by the Conservatives to keep control of the London councils. While all the three boroughs currently have a Conservative majority, Hammersmith & Fulham was controlled by Labour until 2006 and there’s a good chance this could return to Labour in the next batch of elections. However if plans go ahead, Labour would still find themselves the minority party.

The Chief Executives of the three councils are currently examining the proposals and will report back in the new year. With £81bn of cuts being set out in the CSR and councils being hit with a 26% reduction in central government grants, maybe a merger is the only solution? It will be interesting to see if more councils follow suit.

Green light for housing incentives

2010-10-22T12:43:00.002+01:00

The Conservatives have stuck with their commitment to incentivise local auhtorities to build more homes, confirming thei pledge to match council tax for the first six years on all new homes built.

A huge piece of news for the industry after the policy had looked in doubt last month as talks continued between the DCLG and HM Treasury - and a welcome piece of good news after this weeks CSR!

Comprehensive Spending Review Reaction

2010-10-21T14:38:00.002+01:00

The day of reckoning – postponed

So, after six months of speculation, rows and leaks the country’s necessary but bitter medicine has been prescribed and dispensed.

There were few surprises, a number of worrying political flourishes which reminded me of the former Chancellor who had got us into this mess originally, but also some important strategic decisions such as the continued investment into science and infrastructure that should be warmly applauded.

The process was seriously compromised from the start by the Party’s electoral commitment to ‘protect Health and Overseas Aid’. As a result Welfare, the Home Office, Housing and Local Government have been really clobbered to make up the gap. We’ve probably squeezed our Armed Forces too much too given their existing commitments.

Welfare needed to be addressed, despite the pain this will cause people and families in genuine need, there is too much misdirected money which needs to be reigned in and targeted more effectively to those that really need it. With the country still in dire straits after the worst recession in 70 years there has to be a question as to how achievable some of the proposals are. I applaud the start to tackle the ludicracy of universal benefits, despite the cack handed way it was initially rolled out but l fear the Coalition Government will wither in its determination on this necessary reform.

The key question now is how is the patient going to respond?

I fear not well and ironically the real threat is not the Chancellor’s cuts but interest rates.

Few people can genuinely defend the current Welfare system or budget and with IDS we probably have the best chance for 40 years to reform the current mess but it will be tough. If Cameron didn’t enjoy the debacle over Child Benefit, he’s going to really squirm over the plethora of other measures that will need to be imposed to deliver the draconian savings set out yesterday.

Local Government after several years of squeeze of Gershon efficiencies, is now one of the most efficient parts of the public sector but is being tightly squeezed again. Worryingly infrastructure investment has been savagely hacked – too much in my opinion and many councils will find this unsustainable. Maybe this is where the funding from new houses will play a key role in rescuing them from the impending black hole.

The real elephant in the room is interest rates. Vast swathes of the middle classes have emerged from the last two years almost unscathed due to incredibly low interest rates. Inflation is above the Bank of England’s target, we have a VAT rise due in the New Year which will increase it yet further albeit for a just a year but the current level of interest is unsustainable. Has the Chancellor acted to prevent inflationary pressures? Not enough, and this will be the catalyst for real unrest and political change.

Frank Browne
Conservative Consultant

The death of compassionate Conservatism

The Comprehensive Spending Review is one of the most ideologically loaded decisions of any Government in recent years. This is the true face of the Tory Government - the ‘nasty party’ are back and they have some yellow friends this time!

The impact on the Welfare State and Public Sector of these cuts will be the greatest since the 1945 Post War Settlement. This is what many Tories came into politics to do - rip up welfare and slash and burn the public sector.

The rush to cut the deficit endangers the recovery and reduces the prospects for employment in the short term, and prosperity in the longer term. Before Nick Clegg discovered Greece (in the period between the ballot boxes closing and the door of his ministerial car opening) they, like Labour, argued that in the context of reducing the deficit, speed kills. It’s amazing how power has changed everything the Liberals ever believed.

There is nothing fair about Child Benefit changes that leave a single earner on £45,000 losing thousands of pounds, while a family on £80,000 gets to keep every penny. As things stand the government is looking for a bigger contribution to reducing the deficit to come from children than from the banks. That can’t be right.

The poorest 10% will bear a greater burden than the richest – with the middle squeezed, and women are shouldering three quarters of the cuts?

A 75% cut in the social housing capital budget and putting social rents up by 80% to bring them closer to the private market will result in a large increase in homelessness. The landscape of housing will change dramatically as people who cannot afford a home or as a result of these changes even a social home will find themselves excluded and what do we do then – leave families homeless who can’t afford to rent? Developers are going to be forced away from delivering affordable housing and in so doing large parts of our population will find that they cannot afford a home, this will hit social mobility very hard - it will make the poorest poorer.

This whole spending review is about easing the pain on the wealthy, avoiding doing too much damage to the middle class, and hitting the poorest hardest. It is regressive and cruel. In the middle of this political storm are the Liberal Democrats and they have a lot to answer for…it’s amazing how power corrupts principles, I’m sure Nick Clegg’s Conservative Party membership card is in the post.

Dr Paul Harvey
Labour Consultant

The silent partners

Liberal Democrat members will have received a communication from Nick Clegg following the CSR yesterday reassuring them that “Liberal Democrat values and priorities are written through the review, like the message in a stick of rock”.

A stick of rock straight out of the Conservative ‘tuck shop’ presumably - for which Mr Clegg has developed a worryingly sweet tooth in the last 3 months.

Liberal Democrat ministers have had an input into this review. This is beyond doubt - but the principles upon which Liberal Democrats would like to think their leadership base policy programmes and decisions upon are, bar a few exceptions, nowhere to be seen here.

The party’s rhetoric on ‘Fairness’ in particular has not translated into anything substantial. The concept itself needs redefining according to David Cameron, and the Conservatives have put down something of a marker in this regard over the past week.

The Comprehensive Spending Review was never going to be a pleasant experience (though the government’s front bench seemed to enjoy themselves) and, there were some tough but necessary decisions that needed to be taken by the government yesterday.

Cuts to welfare in some shape or form were inevitable and justified. More detail on Duncan-Smith’s plans for the area is long overdue, and any reasonable judgement of welfare cuts must take into account what will replace the current structure.

Investment in education, foreign aid and innovation are all welcome steps of course. Although granting the NHS holy cow status at the outset of this process has inevitably resulted in an over-squeeze of other areas. Whilst ultimately effective as a political tactic, ring-fencing emotive areas may come back to bite the Conservatives as the knock-on effects to other departments (particularly the Home Office and DCLG) begin to take hold over the next year.

What will deeply concern those who consider themselves on the progressive end of the political spectrum is the unrestrained joy with which these cuts were greeted from the government benches yesterday – and not just from the kind of Conservatives who have made it their life’s mission to deal a blow to the ‘nanny state’ (though there was no shortage of those lining the aisles).

It was an unpleasant moment – and one that reveals a deeply entrenched lack of empathy within the government with those who will be made jobless as a result of these cuts. Labour’s handwringing will only carry them so far in the political dynamic we now found ourselves in, and although the impact of these cuts will have a huge impact on the public’s perception of the coalition, the Labour party need to haul themselves out of 1945 and engage in the debate in the meaningful way if they are to present a credible challenge.

Ally Kennedy
Liberal Democrat Consultant

Why the Gloom?

2010-10-19T14:09:00.001+01:00

Everyone seems to be expecting the CSR to be a doomsday for business. I am not surprised that planners are worried for their jobs – it is a feeling most industries will understand well after the last few years.

However, speaking regularly to politicians, there is a firm belief that the CSR is going to hit local government even worse than has been anticipated. When this has sunk in and budget deficits have become clear where will they find the plug for their spending gap? Development.

Localism says that there will be incentives for councils to build in order to meet their housing requirement (read “target”, if you like) and, even if this is not at the level that Shapps has been promoting to date, it will still be necessary in order to fund community projects.

So we should be looking at localism in a different way: as an opportunity.
The Government is right that it will mean less of the top-down, target-driven development which we saw under New Labour, but this does not (indeed, it cannot) mean the end of development full stop.

Instead, we need to begin from a new starting point: not the pristine masterplan which has been worked up for months before being released upon an unsuspecting public; but with that public itself. Planners will still be key because nobody else fully understands the complexities of the job they do. Under localism, though, they will not be the first cog turning in the planning machine any more, but will have to learn to respond to what the community wants. In this way, effective communication is the most important feature of localism – mediating between two distinct parties (communities and developers, planners, etc) to create win-win developments.

Will 'Third Party RIghts' lose out in the Localism Bill?

2010-10-19T13:22:00.003+01:00

Interesting (although not altogether surprising) to note the DCLG's refusal to confirm the inclusion of 'third party rights' in the forthcoming Localism Bill today.

Whilst empowering communities remains top of the coalition's agenda, the move signifies a recognition that the country's planning system must not grind to a complete halt at the hands of local residents groups and vehement objectors.

The door remains open for an inclusion of third party rights in some shape or form, although one would expect this to be significantly watered down if a 'rebalancing of the planning system' is to avoid the obvious danger of gross imbalance in the opposite direction.

The coalition's resolve to reform remains firm.

However, industry professionals will doubtless be thankful that a sense of reason is also starting to manage expectations as to how sweeping the Localism agenda can be.

Opinion: Labour's Shadow Cabinet

2010-10-13T09:09:00.007+01:00

We asked two of our political consultants to give ustheir views on Ed Miliband's recent Shadow Cabinet announcement, and a flavour of some key contests to watch in the months ahead.......

From Red Ed to Sensible Ed

So Ed Miliband has chosen his Shadow Cabinet, whilst being a David Miliband supporter in the run-up to the leadership election, I was warming towards Ed, thinking that maybe he would be able to move the party on from New Labour. After seeing his Shadow Cabinet appointments however, I am yet to be convinced.

Despite winning the most votes by far and being, and in my view the most qualified for the Shadow Chancellorship, Yvette Cooper was appointed as Shadow Foreign Secretary. Instead Ed Miliband appointed former postman Alan Johnson – the safe option, the easier to control option, possibly the keeping the seat warm for David option. Yvette Cooper was also appointed Shadow Minister for Equalities, yet it seems to me that rather than being a champion for equality Cooper is scared to step out of her husband’s shadow.

Balls takes on the role of Shadow Home Secretary, in my view one of Miliband’s best appointments, and Teresa May should be shaking in her leopard-print kitten heels at the prospect of a showdown.

Caroline Flint, who during her time as housing minister introduced new shared ownership and equity schemes and who is known for her outspoken views, takes the Shadow Cabinet role at the DCLG.

Burnham takes education, and Healey who came 2nd in the Shadow Cabinet elections takes health - both safe and sensible options.

Evidence that Ed Miliband is looking to the future however is in his appointment of several new MPs as junior ministers, including Chukka Umunna the Streatham MP who has been hailed as ‘Britain’s Barack Obama’ and named by the Economist as one of the 8 new MPs to watch.

He’s been called ‘Red Ed’, from his Cabinet appointments I see ‘Sensible Ed’, but when are we going to see ‘Progressive Ed’?

Anna Mitra
Labour Consultant

Christmas comes early for Mr Miliband

Parliament reconvenes this week after a lively conference season and the beginning of the end of the coalition government’s honeymoon.

Reports that Mr Cameron is rubbing his hands with glee following ‘Red Ed’s’ surprise victory over his brother are likely to be short lived following a canny set of cabinet appointments.

Whilst the political pundits got all hot and bothered about the surprise appointment of Alan Johnson to Shadow Chancellor, what most missed was Ed’s opening up of a second front with the positioning of Ed Balls to face the Home Secretary Theresa May. The Home affairs brief is almost always the most unpredictable and whilst Mrs May has surprised many by an adroit handling of the brief many considered too big for her, she will neither enjoy nor respond well to the pressure Balls will bring. Not only has he demonstrated that he is not the one trick treasury pony many expected him to be by being a robust and energetic education secretary, almost out Blairing Blair in this field; he has been one of the nimblest and most effective labour M.P.s to handle the transition from power to opposition, causing serious damage to Michael Gove on the way. Labour’s very own semi-trained polecat will ruthlessly exploit the differences between the Liberals and Conservatives in the government as well as being merciless in highlighting any failings – real or perceived.

The positioning of the former postman Alan Johnson against ‘never had a real job’ Osborne ahead of the necessary cuts is also a neat trick from a labour perspective. The Conservatives have, so far, failed to successfully get the message across as to why the heavily trailed cuts are necessary and with Johnson in place as Osborne’s shadow, Labour is well positioned to benefit from an empathy with the country over the cuts they really do not deserve.

The other ‘one to watch’ is Sadiq Khan who will be facing both Ken Clark and Nick Clegg. My guess is that he will be quick to out-tough Clarke on the justice brief and will ruthlessly exploit the gaping splits between the Conservatives and Liberals on the political and constitutional reforms currently rumbling through the Houses. Whilst the threat of a full scale Conservative revolt over AV is receding, prepare to enjoy the spectacle of Khan shamelessly highlighting the unease and mutual dislike on the green benches opposite him on this issue.

With tuition fees, electoral reform and the spending review coming up over the next 10 weeks, it will not be long before the Michaelmas term cannot end fast enough for the Con Dem coalition whereas ‘Red Ed’ could be forgiven for thinking that all his Christmases had arrived early.

Frank Browne
Conservative Consultant

Broken Promises and Yet More Cuts.

2010-10-06T16:55:00.002+01:00

George Osborne’s announcement yesterday that child benefits will be cut to middle income families should have been nothing of a surprise. After all, this is the government that seems to want to make the young in society suffer the most, with the cutting of the BSF, Sure Start, pregnancy grants, Future Jobs Fund amongst many others. However, during the election campaign, one thing that was explicitly and repeatedly said by both parties in this coalition government was that universal benefits would not be cut. It seems clear now, that these election promises were just words. Only this morning, David Cameron was forced to apologise for not including these cuts in their party manifesto. An act of omission is one thing; a broken manifesto promise (which this is) is another.

Nobody denies the deficit or the fact that it has to be tackled, but the reality is that the deficit was caused by the irresponsible actions of the banks, not the average hard-working middle income families. The current government have attempted to insinuate that they had no choice; that their backs were against the wall over these cuts. Let me be very clear; this government had a choice and this is what they choose to do. They have on the one hand chosen to cut these benefits under the premise that it is only fair to ask everyone to contribute to the deficit, whilst on the other hand chosen to give the banks a multi-billion pound tax cut. Where is the consistency or ‘fairness’ in that?

However, for me, the problem goes much deeper. By deciding to test child benefit on single salaries, as opposed to the household income implies a complete disregard for single parents and the right of mothers (or fathers) to choose to remain at home. The reality of modern living means that families often make the choice to keep one parent at home, on the basis of the other being able to provide a higher wage packet. Furthermore, these proposals may place undue pressure on stay-at-home mums and dads to re-enter the workplace at a time when unemployment is still high, and these roles could go to those in desperate need of employment.

If the Tories were only after fairness, then I would argue that it is only ‘fair’ to look at household incomes, not to punish those that have worked hard and slowly and consistently worked their way up the salary ladder. They may be classed as middle-income but the reality is that a lot of people rely on these payments, set their budgets on the basis of having these payments and the loss of thousands of pounds a year (in addition to the earlier cuts mentioned above) would have a profound adverse reaction on them. In addition, the expected announcement of married couples tax credits all seem to paint the picture of what this government sees as the ‘ideal’ family set-up, a view which is not shared by me. One can only look forward (ha!) to October 20th to see what other misery this coalition has in store for families, children and the rest of us already struggling with their annihilation of public services.

Pavitar Mann
(Labour consultant)

The devil is in the (lack of) detail

2010-09-24T11:14:00.010+01:00

Like every other Minister pouring over their departmental spending budgets, Grant Shapps has been keen to keep his cards close to his chest of late - and who can blame him.

As the Comprehensive Spending Review (and this Autumn's Localism Bill) draw ever closer, so does the dreaded fleshing out of government policy.

The process of soundbite-peppered branding begins to morph into a tangible legislative program, and it is upon this (not the all-to-easy rhetoric of 'fiscal responsbility', 'reconceptualisation' and 'unleashing entrepreneurail spirit') that the coalition will be judged.

During the brief period of limbo we now find ourselves in, a few policy details will be drip-fed through to demonstrate the government's ongoing reformist and progressive credetials.

Occassionally, however, details of this kind trickle through that might give you the impression that the policy had not been entirely thought through. Grant Shapps' announcement on Wednesday regarding Right to Build is one such detail.

The previous requirement of 90% in a local ballot to trigger automatic approval of a development was, in truth, a ridiculous figure if the policy was ever to achieve its desired aims - empowering communities, devolving responsibility and reducing bureaucracy in local government.

In this sense, the new 75% figure is a progressive move (if one agrees with the policy's premise in the first instance).

However, the emergence of 'Community Right to Build organisations' in the rhetoric presents another huge grey area - with the structure and remit of these organisations (and their relationship with the local planning authority) still anyone's guess.

Doubtless we will receive "further details after the CSR/Localism Bill" - and perhaps the policy will prove to be a grand success.

But, it is the lack of clarity and detail that has industry professionals tearing their hair out on these proposals - and thankfully, the waiting is almost over.

Ally Kennedy
Liberal Democrat Consultant

Which 'Jedward' to choose......???

2010-09-14T11:49:00.005+01:00

"Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated" said Mark Twain after a newspaper published an obituary of him.

The same could be said of the Labour Party, who continue to perform well in local by-elections.

They have just taken control of Exeter City Council, which is a fairly major coup, and held Norwich.

In the euphoria of the general election, it was easy to miss how well Labour did in the local elections of the same day - especially in London.

When one of the brothers Miliband succeeds their predeecessor as the party's new hope - their opponents will be genuinely wary of them, with good cause.

Whichever 'Jedward' act the public opts for in the end (whether it be Ed/David or David/Nick), the next few months should make for interesting reading.

Pushing incentives another rung down the ladder of localism

2010-09-07T13:49:00.003+01:00

Interesting aside on the localism debate from Policy Exchange recently - the think-tank widely regarded as the epitomy of 'Cameron Conservatism' during the party's time in opposition and a key influencer on the no.10 policy unit.

The group has suggested residents in specific areas most affected by development should vote on project proposals, and be provided with cash incentives to persuade them to back development in their area.

The move's motivation has been publicised as preventing small and militant community minoirites effectively lobbying councils against development without legitimacy as representatives of the local view.

This, no one would argue with.

Whether local residents are best placed to weigh the strategic considerations of a council's vision against their interests as local residents fairly and objectively will remain a contentious issue.

Grant Shapps' silence on the matter suggests we will not see this being muted as a policy option in the Localism Bill - although it may resurface should localism's mantra fail to translate into effective and reasoned legislation by the end of the year.

PAN nominated Curtin and Co for rising star consultancy award

2010-09-02T10:56:00.005+01:00

Public Affairs News (PAN) have announced the nomination of Curtin&Co under the category of "Rising Star Consultancy" at this years PAN Awards ceremony.

See further details on the nominees, categories, past winnners and the awards ceremony itself at:

www.publicaffairsnews.com/panawards

Featured Article: The Problem with Localism

2010-09-01T15:34:00.004+01:00

Our consultants have been grappling with the implications of Localism for regeneration in the UK as well as the wider planning system.

You can view their thoughts in this weeks Regeneration & Renewal Magazine here:

www.regen.net/news/ByDiscipline/Policy/1024705/Opinion-problem-localism/

(if you are not a current subscriber to the magazine, type ''opinion problem localism'' into Google and click on the first link)

Planning in the South West - to scrap or not to scrap?

2010-08-18T11:14:00.004+01:00

Interesting to see a number of Council's in the South West have scrapped their housing targets this week, lopping almost 60,000 off the regional requirement in total.

In the same week, the Gloucester, Tewkesbury & Cheltenham Joint Core Strategy team have used the former RSS figures to publish their urban extension outline document, for use as a guideline in determining suitable development sites in the area.

Mixed messages, as always, appearr the dominant form of communication with regard to Planning matters under the coalition, and until we get some more clarification on the incentives on offer for ambitious Councils from Shapps et al., this sort of uncertainty looks set to continue. We could see similar steps taken up and down the UK as Councils struggle to adapt to the interim period ofuncertainty. Watch this space.........

A View from the Bridge

2010-07-29T16:39:00.003+01:00

Never out of the limelight for long, Boris Johnson has returned to the fore.

This morning he issued supplementary Planning guidance for London's View Management Framework, promising greater clarity and a closer resemblance to the Londonplan policies, protecting views of key landmarks and world heritage sites.

Let's hope the plans will avoid another St. Paul's episode in the months ahead!

Click on the GLA website link below to view the document:

http://www.london.gov.uk/who-runs-london/mayor/publications/planning/revised-london-view-management-framework-spg

Chris Huhne's Climate statement to the Commons

2010-07-29T07:55:00.006+01:00

Interesting reading over the DECC climate statement delivered by Huhne to the Commons on Tuesday.

Good to see some of the Climate Secretary's comments in the Sunday Telegraph on the importance of rolling-out wind farm development fleshed out to include a few more specifics.

(Although, in essence, the document is another coalition policy programme broad in scope but very thin on specifics).

Nonetheless, some useful clues of what we can expect from the reports '32 actions'.

Click on the links below to view the DECC's accompanying press release and the annual climate statement document itself

Media launch: http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/news/pn10_85/pn10_85.aspx

Annual climate statement:

http://www.decc.gov.uk/media/viewfile.ashx?filetype=4&filepath=what%20we%20do/uk%20energy%20supply/237-annual-energy-statement-2010.pdf

Picklewatch: turning of the tide?

2010-07-28T09:42:00.003+01:00

South Oxfordshire

South Oxfordshire Council led the pack in withdrawing its core strategy in June, and could prove a trend-setter agan over the next few months as it re-commences forumlation of its core strategy this week. The authority clearly has one eye on the end of its current Local Plan in 2011. How pragmatic/politically prudent other Councils choose to me in the timing of teir corer strategy negotiations remains to be seen, and should make for interesting reading.

Commenting on the news on the South Oxfordshire authority's website, Planning Cabinet Member Cllr Angie Paterson said:

"We now have a strong steer from government that we are responsible for establishing the right pattern of development for our area, including the right level of local housing provision. The withdrawal of the South East Plan means that housing targets will no longer be imposed upon us.

"The responsibility is now ours to address how best to meet the various challenges facing us, including how best to foster a healthy local economy and how to meet the present and on-going need for more housing.

"To respond fully to these new freedoms and responsibilities will mean a fresh approach to producing local planning policy documents and we know this will take some time to do, probably several years. But in the meantime we are also very conscious that our current Local Plan only takes us to 2011. We need a clear vision to carry us through the next few years until we can deliver the next generation of local plan. We need a vision that will help us to continue to attract funding and investment for those areas where we are confident there is support for further development and that will also ensure we are in control of what development happens elsewhere - development led by our vision and not by speculative planning applications."

Read the full article here: http://www.southoxon.gov.uk/ccm/content/cmt/press-releases/july-2010/council-moves-ahead-with-core-strategy.en;jsessionid=aEMrMdpT8jW4

London autonomy bid

2010-07-27T11:50:00.002+01:00

Interesting news on London's autonomy as Boris and the London politicos send a unified letter to Eric Pickles outlining a proposed devolutionary package for the capital.

View the full letter here:

http://www.londoncouncils.gov.uk/London%20Councils/DevolutiontoLondonjointlettertoSecretaryofState.pdf

RTPI questions 'Right to Build' credentials

2010-07-26T13:44:00.001+01:00

Interesting to see the RTPI has warned that the government's Right to Build proposals could "disempower" communities by bypassing the current structure of representative Council decision-making.

The RTPI's spokesperson Jamie Hodge's comments are particularly revealing:

"Proper planning scrutiny has served us well whereas this proposal appears to disempower local authorities by removing their right to determine development proposals and may mean that new housing built as a result may conflict with existing wider community priorities, and will only have to meet nationally proscribed minimum standards, even if the local authority wishes to see higher design standards in its own area."

Huhne eyes wind farm development surge

2010-07-26T12:42:00.002+01:00

Some good news for Wind Farm developers yesterday with the Energy Seretary Chris Huhne's statement on the importance of wind technology in averting a possible power crisis.

To read the full Yorkshire Post article, click on the link below:

http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/Energy-Secretary-supports-increase-in.6439035.jp

Shapps announces 'Right to Build' proposals

2010-07-26T09:52:00.003+01:00

The coalition Government has launched its Right to Build policy, allowing rural area communities to build homes, shops and other local amenities without planning permission.

Early indications suggest the detail will be published in the Localism Bill (set for Autumn 2011).

We may well see an unrealistically high threshold for voting through planning proposals, or another caveat that effectively prevents the populist thrust of the announcemens translating into effective action.

Picklewatch - Pickles outlines plans to abolish regional government

2010-07-23T15:32:00.001+01:00

Eric Pickles, Communities and Local Government Secretary, has announced the Government's intention in principle to abolish the remaining eight Government Offices for the Regions across England, subject to using the Spending Review to resolve consequential issues. The final decisions will be made at the end of the Spending Review in the autumn.

http://www.communities.gov.uk/news/corporate/1646834

Clarification of LEPs

2010-07-21T13:38:00.003+01:00

Adrian Bailey, Labour MP for West Bromwich West, has the unenviable task of determining how LEP partnerships will work in practice.

How local indpendence can be reconciled with cross-boundary cooperation could prove an intractable problem for the BIS committee tasked with the policy's thorough formulation.

As always, details look set to remain unclear until the Localism Bill's publication.

Planning Officers Society offer Pickles Advice on Cutting Red Tape

2010-07-20T17:23:00.004+01:00

The Planning Officers Society today responded to Eric Pickles call for planning professionals to advise him on how to simplify the planning system and do away with time consuming and unnecessary bureaucracy and red tape.

Links to the letter and list of suggestions are below

Letter from Planning Officers Society re deregulation suggestions

Planning Officers Society easing the Burden of regulation draft paper

Shapps vows to relinquish Treasury's grip on local authority funding

2010-07-16T08:47:00.001+01:00

Local government minister Grant Shapps yesterday promised to push the Treasury to relax its grip on local bodies' financial activities.

In a question and answer session at the National Regeneration Summit in London, Shapps said that he would "ask the Treasury for more flexibility" in areas such as prudential borrowing.

He said: "I think local authorities have the ability to put together sensible schemes and do extraordinary things."

He also told the audience that he already had anecdotal evidence that the government’s financial incentives for councils to allow new housebuilding were taking effect.

The Conservatives have pledged to match the council tax for each new property in a local authority area with an equivalent contribution to the council for the six years after the house is built.

Shapps said: "Major developers have told me that local authorities are starting to work with them because they realise that their finances depend on it".

National tenants body funding slashed

2010-07-16T08:46:00.001+01:00

The Government is to stop funding the quango set up by Labour to give tenants a voice in national policymaking.

National Tenant Voice was told this week by housing minister Grant Shapps that its funding will be withdrawn.

Set up by the Labour government in April this year with a budget of more than £1m, NTV was made up of 50 unpaid tenant representatives and a 15-member board, nine of which were tenants.

A spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government said the organisation was "too distant" and represented poor value for money.

He added that Shapps had asked NTV chair Michael Gelling to consult members of the organisation on how some elements of its operations could continue.

"The best way to ensure tenants have a more influential role over the services they receive is by putting more power and voice directly into their hands", the spokesman said.

Northants & Leicestershire lead the way in LEP formations

2010-07-16T08:45:00.000+01:00

Cllr Harker of Northamptonshire County Council was the first leader to meet with Communities Secretary Eric Pickles about the bodies, and announced today that the council is proposing a new Local Enterprise Partnership looking to join forces with Leicestershire and other potentially interested partners to drive the wider area forward.

Cllr Harker said: "What is clear is that the growth agenda with its thousands of new homes in the county is now a thing of the past. What is also clear is that we will be expected to set up more local partnerships with our neighbouring counties to plan the future.

"This is a golden opportunity for us to now drive forward new arrangements working at a more local level to reduce bureaucracy and creating new ways to boost the local economy and enterprise of the area.

"I am delighted that Northamptonshire with Leicestershire were the first authorities to have discussions with Eric Pickles about Local Enterprise Partnerships, and I am equally delighted that already we have made real progress in this area. We are working with Leicestershire and hopefully with others on proposals which would see a partnership set up of leading business figures and the public sector to drive investment, planning, infrastructure, skills and employment in our counties.

"We are also already talking to other potentially interested partners to join this Local Enterprise Partnership and look forward to submitting our proposals to government in the coming weeks."

RDAs forced to drop ERDF grants

2010-07-14T17:17:00.000+01:00

The government has ordered regional development agencies to halt further grants to projects seeking to access £2.7bn of European funding, the body representing England's regional development agencies said today.

The directive, issued by the Treasury on Monday, covers the £2.3bn European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and Regional Competitiveness and Employment programme, which are in place across the whole of England outside Cornwall.

It also covers Cornwall’s access to the ERDF Convergence Fund, a £384m funding stream reserved for areas with a GDP of less than 75% of the EU average, a spokesman for South West Regional Development Agency (Swerda) said.

The delivery of both ERDF funding streams is managed by the RDAs.

The funding covers the period 2007-2013, meaning up to 50% of grants have already been accessed.

'London will keep its housebuilding targets' - Deputy Mayor

2010-07-14T17:16:00.001+01:00

London will retain its housebuilding targets despite the fact that they are being dropped in the rest of the country, the capital's deputy mayor said today.

Regionally-set housebuilding goals have been dropped as part of the coalition government’s revocation of regional spatial strategies. But, speaking at Regeneration & Renewal’s National Regeneration Summit, Greater London Authority deputy mayor Sir Simon Milton said that they would remain in the capital. "The affordability of housing is a big issue," he said. "It would be bizarre for [the mayor] not to be concerned about the production of housing".

However, he said the mayor’s team disagreed with the methodology that had been used to produce housing targets for some boroughs under the last government, and that revisions to those borough’s figures would be presented to the ongoing public inquiry into the draft London plan.

Urban regeneration company funding up for review

2010-07-12T16:02:00.004+01:00

Sir Bob Kerslake says the agency is assessing its involvement in various delivery vehicles.

The boss of England's housing and regeneration quango has said that its future funding for urban regeneration companies is "an area up for review".

Homes & Communities Agency (HCA) chief executive Sir Bob Kerslake said the organisation was reviewing its involvement in "a range of different local delivery vehicles", including urban regeneration companies (URCs), on a "case-by-case basis".

Last month, housing and regeneration minister Grant Shapps revealed that the HCA would not be abolished under the new coalition Government, although it faced a future as a smaller body.

The planning power vacuum

2010-07-12T11:35:00.002+01:00

Eric Pickles announcement that housing targets are scrapped and with them the Regional Spatial Strategies is all well and good, but what do Council’s do now?

The Conservatives and Liberals current view is that all things to do with central government are bad. They have an ideological aversion to the role of government in society; therefore planning matters should be devolved away from government.

By removing the only mechanism that existed to provide a framework and context for development beyond the individual local authority and placing the responsibility on local Council’s for determining numbers, the coalition have simultaneously created a planning vacuum and removed themselves from responsibility for its consequences.

How many houses do you know you can build if the money for a new motorway junction, or hospital or school isn’t confirmed?

Is there a role for the old County Structure Plans?

Now Council’s are waiting on every announcement as they have no idea which way to jump, and the uncertainty that this creates in the development industry is not healthy in a time of fragile recovery.

The Con Dem idea is to devolve the responsibility, but at the moment this responsibility is handed down to Councils without the means to deliver. The government are able to blame the Council’s if they get it wrong because it’s their role now to determine how many houses get built, where and with what infrastructure.

There is an idea that Council’s could keep a sum of money from each unit built, a Council Tax rebate to the authority for infrastructure. This could be millions for localities based on building thousands of units, but it will be a trickle down fund that will not meet major infrastructure costs of motorways, hospitals or schools. Also, Council’s do have a tendency to divert monies into pet projects rather than focusing investment on the bigger picture.

The aim of this localism is sound, to empower local communities to directly influence what housing gets built where.

In reality the localism the current Coalition are delivering is devolved responsibility to Council’s who, as a reaction to over a decade of disempowerment, will horde their new powers and decide for communities without necessarily listening to them. The Councils that use the new framework in the manner it is intended by truly enabling a bottom up planning system will be few.

It’s all well and good unpicking the previous government’s policies and structures, but you need a coherent idea of what you are replacing it with. Interestingly, as we slowly move towards the publishing of the Localism Bill, the drip of reality is taking hold. SHLAA’s are now valuable pieces of evidence, Council’s can now work together in cross-boundary economic partnerships, and entities such as Thames Gateway which make sense and are good examples of regionalism working are now to be kept in some form. Opposition rhetoric is becoming government reality

Watch this space; localism won’t go that far because it isn’t in the politician’s interests that it does.

Dr Paul Harvey, Curtin&Co

More political commentary from Curtin&Co

2010-07-12T11:31:00.001+01:00

Stay tuned for our Labour consultant's analysis of the coalition's planning power vacuum.................

Coalition halves eco-town funding

2010-07-09T15:24:00.000+01:00

The coalition government has halved funding for eco-town projects, the Department for Communities and Local Government has confirmed.

In a letter sent last week to local authorities working on plans for eco-town developments, housing minister Grant Shapps told council leaders he was reducing funding for 2010/11 from a total of £70 million to £35 million.

Earlier this year the previous Labour government pledged £60 million to fund homes and infrastructure projects on the first four confirmed eco-town sites in Hampshire, Cornwall, Norfolk and Oxfordshire. A further £10 million was pledged for 11 projects in the second wave of the eco-towns programme. Those amounts have now been reduced to £30 million and £5 million respectively.

A spokesman for the DCLG said: "While there has been a 50 per cent cut in eco-town funding awards for 2010/2011, this still provides a good level of start-up funding for these projects in the current circumstances."

Pickles blasts ERDF mismanagement

2010-07-08T13:27:00.000+01:00

The Communities Secretary, Eric Pickles MP, today pledged to end the mismanagement of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

The Communities and Local Government accounts for last year, laid today, show the extent of the financial irregularities in the administration of the ERDF by the previous Government. The failure to ensure compliance with EC rules has left a bill for more than £150 million to be picked up by taxpayers.

EC Auditors found instances where projects allegedly failed to keep proper records or used the funding inappropriately. The Department is challenging these issues robustly. But where there is no convincing case, the EC will impose financial penalties on the Government for these failures of monitoring and, where the misspent funds can't be recovered from projects, the taxpayer has to bear the loss.

"The 'financial irregularities' which have been reported mean that we are likely to need to find up to £155 million to pay back to Europe.

"This mismanagement ends now.

"I am urgently reviewing how we manage and distribute these funds to make sure taxpayers have confidence that their money is not being wasted. And I will be pressing the EC Commissioner about the needless bureaucracy which holds up the money from being spent to kick start the recovery in Britain."

Pickles calls for planners input

2010-07-07T12:54:00.000+01:00

Secretary of state for communities Eric Pickles has invited "council staff and sector experts" to suggest regulations which could be scrapped to improve their ability to do their jobs.

Unveiling the initiative today Pickles published a list of what he described as "unnecessary regulations, ridiculous micromanagement or outdated laws".

The list includes a proposal to combine the Town and Country Planning (General Development Procedure) Order 1995/419 and 16 amendment orders into one. Pickles said this would "greatly clarify the planning application system for local authorities, applicants, and other interested parties. The greater clarity provided will free-up valuable local planning authority officer time, which can be redirected towards more fruitful actives than wading through pages of amendments to secondary legislation."

Pickles LGA speech

2010-07-07T12:42:00.001+01:00

Click on the link below to view Eric Pickles' speech to the Local Government Association this week:

http://www.24dash.com/news/local_government/2010-07-07-Eric-Pickles-speech-to-the-Local-Government-Association-annual-conference-in-full

Pickles scraps Labours 3 million homes target

2010-07-07T12:38:00.001+01:00

Labour's plans to build three million new homes by 2020 have been scrapped.

Gordon Brown announced plans shortly after becoming Prime Minister in July 2007 to build three million new homes by 2020 in a bid to stimulate new house building.

However the Government said yesterday that "the reality is that construction has slowed down so much the country is facing the lowest peacetime housebuilding rates since 1924".

Mr Pickles said he was "hammering another nail in the coffin of unwanted and an unaccountable regional bureaucracy".

"Communities will no longer have to endure the previous Government's failed Soviet tractor-style top-down planning targets. They were terrible, expensive, time-consuming ways to impose house building and worst of all threatened the destruction of the Green Belt.

"They were a national disaster that robbed local people of their democratic voice, alienating them and entrenching opposition against new development."

Pickles confirms RSS scrap

2010-07-06T13:36:00.001+01:00

Secretary of state for communities Eric Pickles has announced the revocation of Regional Strategies (RSSs) with immediate effect.

Pickles made the announcement in a letter sent today to chief planning officers in Local Planning Authorities across England.

The letter includes guidance which reads: "In the longer term the legal basis for Regional Strategies will be abolished through the 'Localism Bill' that we are introducing in the current Parliamentary session.

Click on the link below to read the letter in full, which includes a Q&A appendix:

http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/planningandbuilding/pdf/1631904.pdf

U-turn on LEP funding

2010-07-05T08:48:00.002+01:00

The coalition Government has withdrawn its stipulation that the public-private partnerships with which it intends to replace the regional development agencies will have to fund their own day-to-day running costs.

Earlier this week, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department for Communities and Local Government jointly wrote to councils inviting them to bid to become new local enterprise partnerships.
A version of the letter uploaded on the DCLG website on Tuesday morning said that LEPs would have no dedicated funding for running costs. The news cast doubt on coalition government assurances that, in areas of the country where councils and businesses backed RDAs, they would be able to retain them more or less as they were, albeit in a rebadged form.

Localism Bill Analysis

2010-07-02T10:18:00.004+01:00

The cut and thrust of the Localism Bill looks set to focus on three main elements: transparency, accountability and, most prominently, devolved decision-making powers.

Devolved decision-making - Regional Spatial Strategies and Comprehensive Area Assessments will be consigned to the scrap-heap in a planning system shakeup that promises to be ruthlessly comprehensive in tackling ‘waste’ and centralised bureaucracy.

However, in spite of some over-zealous rhetoric and enthusiastic cuts of RDAs amongst other cross-Council organisations, do not expect ‘umbrella’ authorities to disappear entirely. The Conservatives Green Paper in early 2010 is clear in its assertion that it is uniformity in the application of planning procedures that is the enemy, not the administrative network itself.

Greg Clarke’s announcement this week regarding obligatory cooperation between Council’s on cross-boundary policy further acknowledges the limitations of localism as a panacea for the ills of Labour’s planning system. Elements of its ties to central government will quite necessarily and sensibly remain, and it would be a mistake to assume that some of the slash and burn rhetoric flying around parliamentary press conferences will translate into concrete legislative proposals.

Accountability - Unelected regional bodies will almost certainly go in their entirety, with Local Authority Leader Boards the first to feel the sharp end of the Localism agenda. The proposal of a democratically elected Infrastructure Unit will be of particular interest to developers involved with Transport projects, who may find political motivation begins to play a greater role in securing project approval and funding. The power for residents to instigate local referendums on ‘any local issue’ will prove a thorny topic, and is likely to be dropped at least in part if the coalition is to avoid stalling development further following the standoff that has emerged since Eric Pickles letter to Councils on 27th May.

Transparency - There is a real appetite for Council boss salaries in particular to be exposed, a desire that has verged on blood-lust in the local press since the Coalition’s formation brought with it a sense of opportunity for radical reform. Councils will publish the names and wages of salaried staff members, as (in all likelihood) will the vast majority of all other publicly funded bodies.

-----------------------------------

Speculation over the Localism Bill’s contents will doubtless continue until it is first tabled in Westminster in September (a date that will be subject to the successful passage of George Osborne’s emergency budget). The potential disparity between the ‘localism’ of Conservative rhetoric and the Bill’s legislative program is certainly there, although one suspects that by and large the Localism Bill will deliver, at least in part, on the Conservative’s program of greater flexibility and civil engagement in local government. Whether the Coalition’s legislative program will have its desired effects, on the other hand, remains to be seen.......

Localism Bill will enforce Council cooperation and compliance

2010-06-30T12:48:00.003+01:00

Decentralisation Minister Greg Clarke has announced The Localism Bill will contain a statutory obligation for councils to cooperate across area boundaries.

In a keynote speech to yesterday’s RTPI Conference, Clark said he was "passionately in favour of localism and passionately in favour of development."

He emphasised points made in Eric Pickles' letter to Councils last month, stating the importance of ensuring that Regional Spatial Strategies were "cast aside and they won’t come back."

However, he said that a shift away from regionalism wouldn’t see the end of cooperation between councils. The Localism Bill will contain an "obligation on authorities to cooperate on those parts of their policies which cross borders and boundaries and in a way that cross boundaries that were perhaps not recognised in the regional system."

Housing and Planning Unit scrapped 'with immediate effect'

2010-06-29T13:18:00.003+01:00

In a letter to stakeholders Richard McCarthy, director general of housing and planning at the Department for Communities and Local Government, said that the National Housing and Planning Advice Unit would be wound up.

"In order to achieve savings, it has been decided to close the NHPAU with immediate effect," the letter said.

"This does not mean that the new Government is any less committed to increasing housing supply."

Housing supply exceeds demand according to new research

2010-06-28T13:09:00.001+01:00

Supply of housing has grown three times faster than demand, according to research published by property analyst Hometrack today.

Six out of ten English regions have seen demand fall this month, while new supply has grown 15 per cent compared to a 4.9 per cent increase in demand.

Growth in demand has been slowing for the past four months, said Hometrack, with the run up to the general election, pre-budget talk of austerity measures and a continuing lack of mortgage finance all contributing to market uncertainty.

Council newspapers next to feel the sharp end of Conservatives' localism

2010-06-28T12:49:00.002+01:00

Mr Pickles announced over the weekend that he would toughen up council publicity codes to prevent ‘council PR passing itself off as independent journalism’.

Commenting, Mr Pickles said ‘At the same time, communities are seeing a decline in the number of local newspapers. This is a sorry trend.

‘One council prides itself on having the leading newspaper, with more readers, more news and more influence than any other paper in the borough. This jars with me. Is this really something a council should be boasting about?

‘Or should they be worrying more about whether they are providing leading schools, clean streets and value-for-money services?’

Minister urges planners to engage with communities

2010-06-25T16:27:00.002+01:00

Junior planning minister Bob Neill has called on planners to become "experts at working with communities, and translating their visions into action".

Community consultation and local engagement were given pride of place in the Minister’s address to the National Planning Forum today, as Mr Neill called on the profession to “lead the revolution to put power back into the hands of people”

Mr Neill said: "We're abolishing this ridiculous system where Whitehall tells communities what they must build, and then dictates when and where they have to build it. Those who make planning decisions will no longer be able to avoid reporting back to those whose lives are directly affected by them.

"Communities will be able to come together and take responsibility for solving their own local challenges in a way that make sense for them. And in return, they will be offered powerful incentives that ensure they see the benefits of the development they welcome.

"But we can't return to localism simply by changing the rules. We need your help to make this work. Planning has its roots in a democratic system that engages local communities.

"You were there at the beginning, and you will be there again to give communities the real power and real influence they deserve."

PickleWatch

2010-06-25T11:50:00.002+01:00

Tunbridge Wells: Update

The Council’s review into its newly adopted core strategy will investigate the possibility of:

* A reduction in total housing numbers.
* Whether there should be any review of Inner Green Belt boundaries before 2026.
* That windfall sites should be counted in the first ten years of the Plan.
* Changes be made to reflect the abolition of minimum densities (PPS3) and garden grabbing.

Cllr Roy Bullock, Leader of the Council - ‘I am delighted members agreed to the adoption of the Core Strategy now. With the review, we can start to change the Core Strategy, following due process, to reflect the concerns of Councillors and residents with elements imposed on the Council by the last government. This review will be carried out in parallel with the consultation on Area Action Plans and the Allocations Development Plan Documents’.

CAA's scrapped in localism shake-up

2010-06-25T11:48:00.000+01:00

The Communities and Local Government Secretary has written to Councils up and down the country with the announcement that Council league tables have been formally scrapped by the new Government. Comprehensive Area Assessments (CAA) are the latest over-arching local government mechanism to get the chop in the Coalition’s localism agenda.

Commenting, Mr Pickles said: "Today I have instructed town hall watchdogs to stop tying the hands of council workers with unnecessary red tape and paperwork.

"It is much more important for the public to know what their councils are doing than having thousands of hush-hush, unseen papers being sent back and forth between Whitehall bureaucrats and the town hall. We are already pushing power as far away from Whitehall as we can and calling on councils to throw open their books to create much more cost effective and efficient local public services."

Budget Opinions from 3 Political Viewpoints

2010-06-25T10:03:00.006+01:00

We asked three of our political consultants to give us their view on Tuesdays Emergency Budget. Here's what they had to say.....................

Conservative Opinion

Fixing the mess

It was the budget that no-one really wanted, but everyone accepts the country desperately needed. George Osborne has set out a package of very stiff measures aimed at reducing the record £158billion deficit. To put this in perspective, for every four pounds the government currently spends one pound of that is borrowed. That is a huge amount of money and the consequences of not getting to grips with this mean that we are now shelling out more on debt interest than the cost of educating our children.

It needs to stop and the Coalition government have resolved to do something about it.

This budget was remarkable for the way that it went out of its way to protect poorer people. Those on modest incomes in the public sector will have to make a contribution as their salaries will be frozen, but this is more than compensated by increasing the personal allowance by £1,000. Almost a million people will be taken out of paying tax altogether.

Of course the headline of this budget is the VAT rise to 20%. For any government serious about getting a deficit down this is the best way of doing it as you tax at the source of any purchase. But the commitment to restore the link between pensions and earnings should insulate those who would feel a VAT rise the most, pensioners.

All in all this budget plans for a full parliament. It aims to bring the deficit down from 25% of national income to 1.1% in 2015. Most importantly it has given the UK economy the kind of credibility it needs to carry on functioning on the international markets. It has, in essence, saved this country from bankruptcy.

Antony Calvert

Antony was the Conservative prospective parliamentary candidate (PPC) in the Morley and Outwood constituency for the 2010 General Election and was also formerly a Wakefield councillor and deputy leader of the Conservative group.

Labour Opinion

This Con Dem Budget is the biggest gamble since Apollo 13 attempted re-entry, and it has just as much a risk of burning up.

The fundamental risk is that cutting deeper and faster the Con Dem government will damage the fragile recovery. This slash and burn approach to the public sector is dressed up as some national crisis. We all know that debt reduction is important, but economic growth and sustained investment in key sectors is a better solution than ripping the heart out of the public services and making hundreds of thousands more people unemployed. The Tory Party have a long held an ideological aversion to the public sector and this is truly at the heart of this budget. The economic recession gives them the cover from which to unpick the national health service, deregulate and privatise education, and destroy the safety net of the welfare state. This is a radical budget, a right wing radical budget - the Nasty Tory Party are back in power.

So how the Liberal Democrats can be happy sat there nodding in approval as the Tory Chancellor announces policies only a few weeks ago they were opposing in the election is beyond belief and principle. They have surrendered any pretense to progressive centre left politics.

The key points that stand out are a real terms cut in Child Benefit, a freezing of public sector pay while VAT is pushed back up to 20%. People on housing benefit will have it capped at £400pm and this will result in thousands of people losing their homes. Child Tax credits will be limited, and thousands of public sector employees will be sacked as 30% cuts are pushed through. That will mean less nurses, police and teachers as well as civil servants.

The poorest in our society will be punished and the bankers still with their bonuses get off lightly. As local government budgets are slashed, social services, education and children’s services, care homes and support for the most vulnerable in our society will be hit very hard.

The danger is that all of this will stall the recovery and lead to a double dip, the Americans have been so worried by this approach Obama even called on our politicians to think twice before embarking on this journey of such risk. The impact will not just be reducing the public state, but it could tip the balance of recovery in the private sector. The Japanese followed the same budget philosophy in the 90s and it led to years of pain and no recovery.

Before the general election, Nick Clegg said that big, early cuts in public spending would be dangerous for the ordinary working people of Britain. But this week's Con Dem budget is a combination of tax rises and spending cuts -- and it will hit ordinary families the hardest of all.

Paul Harvey

Paul is the former leader of Basingstoke and Deane County Council and a current Labour councillor.

Liberal Democrat Opinion

Tuesday’s emergency budget made for interesting if rather demoralising reading. Those on the political centre-Left will have found solace in a lower than forecast VAT rise, but little else. The £1,000 increase in personal income tax allowance, 10% rise in capital gains tax on top-rate earners and the extension of the entrepreneurs 10% “relief rate” from the first £2m to £5m too will go some way to appeasing the Conservative’s critics.

Any enthusiasm for the above, however, will be tempered by the understanding that this budget has been a hammer-blow to the public sector, and anyone unfortunate enough be in a position of dependence on the services that its mechanisms provide.

Of course, in tackling the deficit, the coalition has been left with little choice but to trim the fat of the state where it sees fit, and to confront wasteful spending head on. We can all accept that the country needed a radical financial overhaul, and that New Labour left the Conservatives an unenviable task in restructuring an economy in tatters. However, the disparity between the rhetoric (particularly that of “fairness”) and the budget’s main thrust is striking, and will have done little to comfort Liberal Democrats gauging the party’s influence over their Conservative “allies”.

Some Tory maxims, devolution for example, have been more fully evinced in the emergency budget, particularly with regards to planning. The emphasis on localism will encourage local Councils, although the Conservative proposals for replacing the current bureaucratic planning structure remain a mystery. Commitments to the environmental agenda were predictably thin and flakey, burying the central issues in Committees, reviews and the usual decade-spanning targets for emissions cuts. Given the overwhelming ambivalence on the Conservatives’ part, it seems unlikely that this will change for some time.

Osborne was quite right in saying that this Budget was the one that nobody wanted, but the country needed. Whether he has got the balance right remains to be seen.

Ally Kennedy

Ally has recently joined Curtin&Co and previously worked on policy and research for the Liberal Democrats at their Headquarters in Westminster and at constituency level.

Planners' Budget Breakdown

2010-06-22T17:53:00.006+01:00

Simplifying the planning process

* through the use of Local Development Orders, was "part of the shift to a more locally driven planning regime".

* a rise in VAT to 20%

* two-year pay freeze for public sector workers the government

* confirmation of intention to scrap Regional Development Agencies and replace them with "strong local enterprise partnerships, particularly those based around England’s major cities and other natural economic areas, to enable improved coordination of public and private investment in transport, housing, skills, regeneration and other areas of economic development."

* a new Regional Growth Fund for England in 2011-12 and 2012-13 to support employment and economic growth. The Devolved Administrations will be "encouraged" to undertake similar action.* a "new approach" to the English regions with a white paper on the issue later in the summer.

Further Cuts

* government departments including CLG, Environment and Transport will have their budgets cut by 25% over the course of the Parliament.

Go-aheads

* Osborne confirmed the upgrade of the Tyne & Wear Metro, the extension of the Manchester Metrolink, the redevelopment of Birmingham New Street station and improvements to the rail lines to Sheffield and between Liverpool and Leeds.

* the establishment of Infrastructure UK (IUK) to lead work within HM Treasury to "enable greater private sector investment in infrastructure, and improve the government’s long-term planning and delivery".

Budget Reaction

2010-06-22T13:06:00.002+01:00

Stay tuned for analysis from our Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Labour consultants on the most eagerly anticipated budget in a generation...............

PickleWatch

2010-06-18T22:00:00.000+01:00

Tunbridge Wells

The Council has resolved to adopt its Core Strategy Development Plan Document (aka the Core Strategy) following a meeting of Full Council on the 17th June. It becomes one of the first Councils to adopt a DPD following Eric Pickles’ letter concerning the abolition of Regional Spatial Strategies.

However, the Council has voted to conduct immediate reviews into its newly adopted DPD, particularly with regard to a very specific ‘reduction in housing numbers’.

Updates will follow as the situation develops.

Government gives green light to transport projects

2010-06-18T20:00:00.001+01:00

The DfT has confirmed that major transport schemes including a £121 million project to extend Manchester's Metrolink tram system and a £19 million road-widening scheme in Liverpool will go ahead after escaping the latest round of Treasury cuts.

Confirmed schemes:

- Luton-Dunstable Busway- A130/A13 Sadlers Farm Junction (Essex)- Tees Valley Bus Network Improvements- Metrolink Extension (Greater Manchester)- Edge Lane/Eastern Approaches (Liverpool)- Bidston Moss Viaduct Maintenance (Merseyside)- Poole Bridge- A41 Expressway (Sandwell)- A65 QBC (Leeds)- Silver Jubilee Bridge Maintenance (Halton)- Tyne and Wear Metro- M1 J19 Catthorpe Viaduct Replacement

Labour Government schemes hit hard by £2bn cuts list

2010-06-17T16:13:00.002+01:00

Cancelled Schemes

Stonehenge Visitor Centre - £25 million, Department for Culture Media and SportLocal
Authority Leader Boards - £16 million, Communities and Local GovernmentSheffield
Forgemasters International Limited - £80 million, Business Innovation and Skills
Roll-out of the Future Jobs Fund - £290 million, Department for Work & Pensions
Six-month offer recruitment subsidies - £30 million, Department for Work & Pensions
Extension of Young Person's Guarantee to 2011-12 - £450 million, Department for Work & Pensions
Two-year Jobseeker's Guarantee - £515 million, Department for Work & PensionsActive Challenge Routes - Walk England - £2 million, Department of Health
County Sports Partnerships - £6 million, Department of Health
North Tees and Hartlepool Hospital - £450 million, Department of Health
Local Authority Business Growth Initiative (LABGI) - £50 million, Local Government: (previously announced)
Regional Development Agencies - Outukumpu: £13 million

Suspended Schemes

Libraries Modernisation Programme - £12 million, Department for Culture Media and Sport
Sevenstone Sheffield retail quarter - £12 million, Communities and Local Government
Kent Thameside Strategic Transport Programme - £23m, Communities and Local Government
University Enterprise Capital Fund - £25 million BIS
Newton Scholarships - £25 million, BIS
Birmingham Magistrates Court - £94 million, Ministry of Justice(2010-11 element included in Osborne's £6.2 billion announcement)
A14 road - £1.1 billion, D for Transport

Local Authority Leader Boards to be scrapped

2010-06-16T23:00:00.000+01:00

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles announced today that the coalition Government plans to roll back regional bureaucracy by abolishing unelected Local Authority Leader Boards.

The Leader Boards, created in the last weeks of the Labour regime, replaced appointed regional assemblies which had previously held responsibility for regional strategies on a range of issues including planning, housing and transport.

PickleWatch

2010-06-16T15:52:00.000+01:00

West Dorset

Hilary Jordan, Planning Policy Manager - “It is likely that local authorities will be expected to take account of evidence of housing need and forecasts of population growth when deciding on the right level of development for their areas, but no targets will be set at national or regional level.

“With no regional target now being set ... we will need to consider what level of development is appropriate and achievable in West Dorset and will be consulting our local communities later this year on the potential options for development.”

PickleWatch

2010-06-15T15:40:00.001+01:00

Durham

The Council is considering revising its housing targets in light of the Secretary of State’s letter almost three weeks ago.

Cllr Alan Napier, Deputy Council Leader - “We may have to revise this as a local plan because it will have to take into account the regional spatial strategy. Everyone has heard the announcement by the Lib Cons, or whatever you call them, that they have already abolished the regional spatial strategy.”

Cllr Richard Bell - “It is a long-term plan, and some of its assumptions on housing numbers come from the Regional Spatial Strategy which is probably going to be torn up by the new Government. We need a good ‘bottom up’ debate on where we see ourselves going in planning and economic development. Teesdale has an opportunity here to say how it sees itself in the future: as a dormitory for the rest of the county, or as a sustainable working economy.

RDAs next for the chop

2010-06-14T15:13:00.000+01:00

The coalition has announced its intention to scrap all nine regional development agencies. The move is expected to save up to £2.3 billion a year.

Eric Pickles announced that all nine RDAs will go as part of Coalition plans to streamline government and find big efficiency savings.

Pickles letter 'not legally enforceable'

2010-06-14T14:36:00.000+01:00

A letter from communities secretary Eric Pickles advising councils that they can disregard regional housing targets is not legally enforceable, according to a leading planning barrister.

Peter Village QC has already provided formal advice to three major housebuilders - including Persimmon - that the minister's letter would not stand up in court. The letter was recently cited by Cotswold District Council in its rejection of an application for 300 homes by housebuilder Cala Homes.

Village said that the Pickles letter was flawed because it effectively assumes that the regional spatial strategies do not exist and will be abolished, but this is a matter that Parliament has yet to decide.

Watch this space for Ministerial reation to the news.........

HMR ring-fence ditched

2010-06-14T14:32:00.000+01:00

The ring-fence has been removed from £236 million of housing market renewal funding as part of the Government’s drive for towards devolved decision-making powers.

See http://www.regen.net/news/ByDiscipline/Housing/1009511/Pickles-removes-HMR-ring-fence/ for details details

PickleWatch

2010-06-14T14:31:00.000+01:00

Derbyshire Dales

The Council has been advised by Government Office for the East Midlands that:

“The Government is expected to confirm in follow up advice that local planning authorities should continue to bring forward Development Plan Documents and to plan for housing growth, and though it will be for local authorities to assess how much growth is necessary in their areas they should continue to recognise that such growth needs to be assessed across housing market areas.”

PickleWatch

2010-06-11T13:13:00.001+01:00

Ipswich Borough Council

The Council has adjourned its core strategy Pre-Hearing meeting scheduled for the 15th June in light of Eric Pickles’ letter to Councils. The Council will await further clarification from Ministers as to the restructuring of the planning process before proceeding further with its core strategy formulation.

PickleWatch

2010-06-11T09:40:00.000+01:00

St Edmundsbury

The Council has elected to enter a second period of consultation on the District’s core strategy following Eric Pickle’s letter. A decision will is expected from the local planning inspector in July or August.

Cllr Ian Poole – “All the comments will go back to the Inspector and they will consider all those before writing his final report and submitting that to us ... His report is binding to the council and if he says ‘I think something should be changed' then the council has to take note of that and change it. It will take legislation to rescind a government document like [regional spatial strategies]”

Taunton Deane

The Council has confirmed that as a result of Pickles’ announcement its new housing target is likely to be 14,000 for Taunton with a further 3,000 for the rest of the Deane – figures previously adopted by the authority in 2005. Before the announcement on scrapping RSS’s, the housing target for the District had set out 18,000 new homes for Taunton and 3,000 for Wellington by 2026.

The Council’s core strategy remains under scrutiny, and In the short term two sites are set to be earmarked for 300 homes each – Nerrols in Taunton and at Cades Farm in Wellington.

PickleWatch

2010-06-11T09:16:00.001+01:00

Broadland, Greater Norwich

Fresh questions were raised about the fate of growth schemes earmarked for Norfolk as Councillors rejected a proposal to build a green business park on the edge of Norwich because of uncertainties over government planning policies.

Cllr Tony Adams - "Everything we are considering is based on the previous government's ideas, or lack of them ... We have already had one letter from Eric Pickles about the regional strategy being thrown out of the window. Anything that they put forward would be very dangerous at this stage until things become clear.”

PickleWatch

2010-06-10T16:36:00.001+01:00

Wiltshire

Wiltshire County Council is reportedly moving towards cutting the home-building target in the region in response to Eric Pickles’ letter.

John Brady, Cabinet Member - “We are told new guidelines about what will replace core strategies will be worked on during the summer Parliamentary recess. In the meantime we are seeking clarification from Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary.

“Our planning team is talking to developers to remind them there are still a number of sites available to develop that were allocated in the old Salisbury District Council’s local plan. There is land at Archers Gate, for example, or Old Sarum.

“But in future, the vision is that these things will be driven from the bottom up and not the top down ... A lot of the figures for projected economic growth were produced in the boom times, and the climate has changed. I personally think they were too optimistic and there is every likelihood the housing figures will be reduced. It was a lot to expect south Wiltshire to take.”

PickleWatch

2010-06-10T16:28:00.001+01:00

Wealden District Council

Cllr Roy Galley, Planning Committee Chair - "We are delighted with [the announcement regional spatial strategies will be scrapped] from the Secretary of State as we have very strongly been opposed to the South East Plan figure of 11,000 houses that were required to be developed within Wealden. This Council has consistently expressed its objections to such a figure as being unsustainable within a district which has such a high number of environmental constraints and limited infrastructure capacity.

Councillor Galley has confirmed that he will be writing to the Secretary of State to request more details as soon as possible and the Council awaits with interest the further announcements promised in Eric Pickles' letter.

"It will take some time to carefully consider the implications of this statement but we will do this as quickly as possible ... Most importantly we welcome the opportunity it appears to offer in allowing us to develop a long term plan for Wealden which more clearly meets the needs and aspirations of our local communities."

The new transparency agenda for local government

2010-06-08T19:30:00.000+01:00

Eric Pickles set out his agenda for transparency in local government this week with a letter to councils urging them to publish all expenses over £500. The move follows the proposition of pay cuts for senior positions of public service and the publication of the COINS database last week – detailing annual government spending at a national level.

Commenting on the most recent diktat handed down to council bosses, the Communities Secretary said:

"Getting council business out in the open will revolutionise local government. Local people should be able to hold politicians and public bodies to account over how their hard earned cash is being spent and decisions made on their behalf. They can only do that effectively if they have the information they need at their fingertips.

"The public should be able to see where their money goes and what it delivers. The swift and simple changes we are calling for today will unleash an army of armchair auditors and quite rightly make those charged with doling out the pennies stop and think twice about whether they are getting value for money.

"Throwing open the council books will open the door to new businesses and encourage greater innovation and entrepreneurism. Organisations that might have been effectively locked out before, including voluntary sector and small business, will be in a much stronger position to pitch for contracts and bring new ideas and solutions to the table."

PickleWatch

2010-06-08T18:00:00.000+01:00

Epping Forest

Di Collins, Council Leader - "This is great news. It means the end for the deeply unpopular Government Directive that effectively forced the Council and our residents into one of the most prolonged, expensive and bureaucratic consultations our residents have ever had to endure.

"It was disliked by everyone including our local Gypsy and Travelling community and it will be a great relief for everyone to know we will now see the back of it. I applaud Eric Pickles for his swift action."

Peterborough

Marco Cereste, Council Leader - "I welcome the coalition Government's proposals for the reform of the planning system, and in particular the decision to abolish the Regional Spatial Strategy and return decision making on planning matters to the city council and our local communities ...

Once there is greater clarity about the Government's proposals for a new planning system we will review our future growth allocations to ensure that we plan properly for the natural growth of our city and the investment that we need”

PickleWatch

2010-06-04T18:29:00.000+01:00

Since Mr Pickle’s letter started hitting Council doormats on the 27th May, pre-emptive moves to cut core strategies and abandon the doomed RSS planning process have been seen up and down the country.

We’ll be keeping track of developments and keeping you abreast of the situation throughout - but for now - here are the Council’s who have been quickest off the mark:

East Herts District Council

Cllr Peter Ruffles - “We’ve long needed smaller component parts in planning and better small part liaison and agreement. Playing with big jigsaw puzzle pieces is simplistic. Regional government is remote from the living levels of people... Mr Pickles may have taken an intelligent step towards better local government.”

Cotswolds District Council

Cllr Sue Jepson – “"Local decision-making will be more prominent and local communication and concerns will be listened to. Before we were very restricted because the numbers were set to us by central Government."

Warwick

Cllr John Hammon – “We're extremely relieved that we are not expected to completely ruin and overdevelop our area, because the infrastructure can't take it. Now we have to decide what we can do. We require somethig to keep our district in some sort of order."

- South Oxfordshire, West Oxfordshire and Canterbury have all singalled their approval of the plans previously

- South Oxfordshire have gone as far as removing the core strategy from the Council’s Cabinet agenda.

TCPAs "Future of Planning"

2010-06-03T14:44:00.001+01:00

The TCPA have today published a new document which has been born following a series of roundtable debates earlier this year. It is entitled "Future of Planning" and they are hoping it will act as a guide to the coalitions planning reforms.

It seems our friends at the TCPA are at least as - if not more - concerned than the rest of us about our new Governments planned upheaval of the planning system, with their chief planner, Dr Hugh Ellis, going so far as to say he was "profoundly concerned" over the government’s proposal to abolish regional planning.

I have attached a link to the full document and let's hope that our friend in Westminster take heed of the industry's concerns and warnings!

Future of Planning by TCPA