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There has been a big announcement in Parliament by the Housing Minister of State about big revisions to the planning framework. These were my expectations posted elsewhere, which seem mainly to have been delivered, though not necessarily quite in this form: IMO they need to hit the vested interests which are blocks (eg speculative private land banking), in a way that aligns Local Political interests with development following the legal principles. In a way which is enforcible. My checklist of what is required: 1 Local Councillors to be focussed on long term direction / strategy / local plans, not micro-management of individual applications. 2 Individual applications to be determined by Planning Professionals following law, not Planning Committees following parish pump politics. This should also remove some conflicts of interest / opportunity for corruption, though not all. 3 Housing targets to be mandatory, and obsessed objectively. 4 Possibilities for robust intervention if local Councillors sit on their hands. 5 Planning Gain to be capped in some effective way. 6 Encouragement / facilitation for local councils to be more proactive in Compulsory Purchase, potentially involving the opportunity to intervene on sustainable (in planning terms) development sites. 7 Possibility is streamlining enforcement. 8 All of the above will require capacity building. My tentative assessments (just from the speech) on what may impact self-builders are: - Much increased pressure on councils to pass local plans, and have them in place quickly. Transitional arrangements for a few months. - The pre-Election NIMBY-pandering done by the last Government is being summarily reversed. Good. - Planning Committees powers to micro-manage individual application will be reducing. PP will be tipping towards determination by Planning Officers. - Building on grey or brown belt to become more straight forward, ie on scrubby bits of the Green Belt. Likely to be a slow-burn - 6 months not next week. - If a development follows planning principles and does not walk the edges of what is acceptable, chances of getting it through straightforwardly are better than before. - Heavy circumscribing of use of "viability assessments" by developers, which is a tool used to control the planning process. Not really relevant to self-builders, but interesting. But these are major changes, so take time to do the homework. There are a few webinars being announced. NPPF announcement and document:: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-planning-policy-framework--2#full-publication-update-history https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/675abd214cbda57cacd3476e/NPPF-December-2024.pdf

I saw an interesting note on social media, from a green belt campaigning group which reflected on the huge backlog of apps being handled by my LPA (each officer is handling over 100 cases, reportedly, and they are leaving/dropping like flies). The green belt campaigner (who's worried about a local development) commented: "If the LPA has failed to rule on the application within set time limits applicants can go straight to appeal and, in order not to prejudice developers, this leads to a presumption favour of development". 2 questions/discussion points: How does skipping the LPA's ruling body and going straight to the inspectorate "prejudice developers"? Is the consensus that exercising one's right to non-determination has a higher shot of being approved? (I assume because all the objectors and the parish council and the planning officer and all the other local numpties sticking their oar in are simply ignored as the application is assessed purely against the NPPF) My LPA is literally miles behind on my applications, having missed the deadlines wildly, so I am considering options.* *of course, the bummer with skipping the LPA is that you then enter the inspectorate's queue, which I assume is even worse/longer than the LPA's!

Hello All, newbie here! I have an issue with a neighbouring property and I wondered if any of you have had a similar experience that could shed some light. The site in question is adjacent to my property and is contiguous to 2 others. Historically (past 30+ years) this site has had 2 buildings on it, which were used for a workshop and garage for the owner who lives in a house on the opposite side of the (adopted) road – ie. not a contiguous property. In 2015, these two buildings were included in an application for a new dwelling on the site, which was approved with the existing garaging and workshop/storage utilised in that development. The development is in a conservation area and won favour by being an eco-friendly and low energy property, buried into a hillside with a grass roof etc., and specifically repurposing the existing buildings as garaging. What then happened is that the land owner split the plot, and sold only the part with the new dwelling to a self-builder, and retained the existing buildings which formed the garaging and workshop in the approved permission. He has subsequently had 2 attempts to gain permission for a dwelling on the remaining part of the site with these existing buildings, together with an appeal, but so far, he has not been successful. The self-builder is now close to completion of the new dwelling, and is about to put through a planning change for the reduced site area, a new garage and other minor amendments made along the way. The planners seem to be accepting that when presented with the application, they will have very little option but approve the amendments and reduced site area, which we find very worrying. Having looked online I have found a couple of references to the ‘red-line’ site area on a planning application as being fundamental and cannot be reduced or indeed increased without a whole new/full application and proper consideration. Both myself and another contiguous neighbour bought our properties post this approval being granted and expected a single dwelling to be built between us. To now find that the same property will be built on a compromised site and potentially another dwelling on the retained land is very upsetting. This particular neighbour’s property is grade 2 listed, which we hoped would carry some weight in this matter. Any thoughts or advice on this would be very helpful and appreciated.

So there's some farmland come up for sale at the edge of the town where I live. I'd very much like to build in or close to this town, but plots are hard to come by because its not very big and its surrounded by farmland. I could afford to buy a couple of acres (if the vendor is willing to split the land parcel), though as its agricultural clearly I wouldn't get permission to build a house on it in the shorter term. But what I was wondering is whether there is an opportunity to play the long game here the same way that a commercial developer would. Its adjacent to the settlement boundary and access is at the end of an existing residential lane so in theory, when the LPAs local plan is up for review in a couple of years time I could propose it for allocation as residential and they would have a perfectly logical and policy-friendly way of altering the official land use to permit a dwelling. Until then I could use it basically as an allotment, orchard and nature reserve (part of our longer term plan anyway if we can get a plot big enough) because that would count as agricultural land use and I could also probably get consent to build a barn. Anybody have any experience of this approach? Does it sound like a completely stupid idea?!

Does anybody know where the government are with progress on the National Planning Policy Framework? (This is England). I am talking to the Council, and I have just been quoted to from what I think is the Draft Version of the new NPPF. Does anyone know when this will be going active, so I can assess what I need to pay attention to for a Planning Application? I do know about our Local Plan - last month it was withdrawn AGAIN, so I think we are still on saved policies from the 2007 one or perhaps the 2002 one, and there does not yet exist an emerging Local Plan, so I think no weight can be attached to ithe new one yet. Is there any Guidance on how much weight attaches to a Withdrawn Local Plan? This app will relate to a preferred town-centre use (D2: Leisure) on an industrial estate which needs the time limit of the Use Permission extending, so it could be a bit of a shark-infested custard. Cheers Ferdinand