Do LPAs *have* to engage?

[harry_angel]

We're in a familiar situation to many of you, I'm sure, particularly at the moment.

 

Our planning officer who refused our latest app told me to my face "I'm handling 90 applications currently, I simply cannot engage" (aka offer any feedback or dialogue or advice), and I cannot get him on the phone or to respond to any query emails.

 

The council trumpet the Paid Pre-App service as THE definitive, official way of getting feedback on an app, particularly ones that have been refused.

 

(drumroll), but this has been posted on the council's website........

 

Our pre-application service is currently suspended. We are only accepting new pre-applications for major development for 10 or more dwellings. If you have recently submitted a pre-application request our timescales are extending beyond the advertised response times. Any new pre-applications submitted will be returned and refunded until we are able to maintain advertised service levels once more. We apologise for any inconvenience caused and are working hard to clear existing pre-applications.

 

 

So, to conclude:

 

• Path A to feedback: blocked, officer will not engage
• Path B to feedback: blocked, pre-app service suspended

I saw on another site a quote from the Planning Portal which I now maddeningly cannot locate which essentially said: "by law LPAs must engage constructively with applicants".

 

So with both roads to "constructive dialogue" blocked, what do I do?

[harry_angel]

...and, further, is this a legal issue?

 

Do LPAs, in reality, have to engage with you?

 

Or at least offer a legit way to engage with them?

 

I mean, how many unanswered emails and calls do you have to accumulate before the LPA is, officially and indisputably, not offering a way to engage?!

[Temp]

I spent a year in pre app back in 2007. Planning staff would quit and we wouldn't even find out for 4 weeks. Then had to wait for new staff to be recruited, deal with the backlog etc. before sending us a useless reply.

 

It might be better to hire a planning consultant than to spend a long time in pre app?

 

In my area some planning staff are shared with other counties and some only work 3 days a week. 

 

 

Edited June 3, 2021 by Temp

[Temp]

39 minutes ago, harry_angel said:

 

Do LPAs, in reality, have to engage with you?

 

Not that I know of. Think the only things they care about are the 8 week target for processing applications and possibly the overall number of houses approved per year.

[DevilDamo]

Planning Officer’s do not “have to” engage with applicants or agents pre, during or post the Planning process. The NPPF does advise on positive and proactive engagement during the determination process, which you may be able to use as a trump card.

 

I can understand why they may have suspended pre-application enquiries for the more minor developments. One LPA near’ish to me suspended it’s pre-app service back in 2015/2016.

 

Just out of interest, any reason why you cannot design and submit something that complies with policy?

[Bramco]

2 hours ago, harry_angel said:

"by law LPAs must engage constructively with applicants"

 

Yes it's in the NPPF - although it's not exactly in the form of LPA's shall....

 

Amusingly the decision making section starts off:

 

38. Local planning authorities should approach decisions on proposed development in a positive and creative way.....

 

It then continues under the heading 'Pre-application engagement and front-loading'

 

39. Early engagement has significant potential to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the planning application system for all parties. Good quality preapplication discussion enables better coordination between public and private resources and improved outcomes for the community.

 

You might like to send a copy of that to your local councillor and the leader of the council and ask the questions you've posed here.

 

You can read the rest of the decision making section of the NPPF at https://bit.ly/3vN0Pjt

 

Simon

[harry_angel]

Cheers all.

 

Looks like another case of positive but ultimately evasive language where it would be challenging indeed for a civilian to definitively prove either that a) LPA's must engage at all and b) that this one in question had not, fundamentally, engaged properly.

 

You're just left thinking: this is 2021. And a system this old (1948?) is still This Bad.

 

Is it like this in other countries?

 

 

[Bramco]

I should add, we've done 2 requests for pre-application advice.

 

The first officer got it wrong and we had to go to appeal and they completely dissed the LPA as not knowing what they were doing.   And the officer came to different conclusions about infill in the Green Belt on ours and another application at the same time in a different village. For ours, 32m frontage was too large to be infill (there's no size regulation of course). For the other a frontage of 100m was fine....   Their application was fronted by a local architect, ours was from us - go figure.

 

The 2nd was on the actual application after we'd won the appeal.  They'd brought in a contractor and she really screwed us over, it's too tall, it's too deep, couldn't you flip it side to side, which caused many iterations of the plan and resulted in something sub optimal in terms of space.... and on top of that, the original outline application and appeal are invalid because they don't show the red line all the way to the public highway!!!!!!

 

In the end we thought screw this pre-app business for a lark, put in the application and it was granted permission - I wonder if we'd just not wasted the money and 6 months of time on the pre-app if we'd have got what we really wanted by just submitting the plans we wanted.

 

And through all these pre-apps, the best we got were curt emails with their decisions about our plans - absolutely NO discussion.

 

Simon

[Bramco]

5 minutes ago, harry_angel said:

Is it like this in other countries?

It's better and worse in other countries.

 

Holland is great at proper town planning - we used to live there.

 

Belgium is weird, you can do a lot without permission but on some sites you must leave the sides of your house blank (no windows) in case someone wants to build alongside you, if you look, you'll see these houses with nothing either side but they have blank walls....   Odd

 

Simon