Surrey Developers Forum Annual Conference

On a dull and grey 5 November, the great and the good of the Surrey property world assembled at Sandown Park for the annual get together of the Surrey Developers Forum.

John Tarvit, chairman of the Forum and director of planning at Wates Developments, opened the conference and introduced Baroness Taylor of Stevenage, the Lords minister for housing and local government. In her speech she said she had been assured by the planning minister, Matthew Pennycook MP, that the NPPF changes would be published by the end of the year, not slipping into next year as rumour has it. She went on to say that the forthcoming Planning & Infrastrucutre Bill will deal with accountability of planning committees, addressing issues where they reject allocated sites on spurious, non-planning or political reasons. The government also intends to make planning simpler and more straightforward, and will also reintroduce strategic planning at a regional level.

There will also be a devolution bill in December. The government wants mayors and combined authorities across the country. Surrey is going for a level two non-mayoral settlement. Devolution is likely to lead to local government reform, although the form of this has yet to be tabled. It could be far-reaching, changing the local government playing field completely.

Mike Knott, town planning director and strategic land sector lead at Stantec, gave a commentary of the Surrey councils’ local plans. Most of Surrey’s plans are more than 15 years’ old with nine out of the 11 more than five years’ old, so two councils have up to date local plans.  Around half of councils have a 5YHLS and around half are meeting housing delivery targets. The government wants to achieve ‘universal coverage’ of local plans, and will take over the role for councils which do not have them. It also wants to set a higher bar for green belt and has also appointed a New Towns Task force. He mentioned the intention to modernise planning committees with the possibility of of allocated sites not needing to go to planning committees.

Will Forster is the LibDem MP for Woking and sits on the housing and local government select committee. He spoke about the new government being one of growth and that local government reorganistion is very much on the cards, abolishing parishes and districts.

Cllr Tim Oliver OBE is the leader of Surrey County Council and he talked about devolution. There will be four levels with the whole country covered by mayors by 2028. He forsees that all councils will be funded only council tax revenues in the near future.

Charlie Collins, head of Guildford office & south east planning at Savills, pointed out that the new standard methodology for Surrey requires some 10,000 homes per annum, three times more than what is currently provided.

Matthew Fraser, a planning barrister at Landmark Chambers, talked about the requirement for councils to review their green belt if they cannot meet their housing needs – there is a presumption in favour of meeting housing needs in the green belt unless that would fundamentally undermine it. Grey belt will be defined as land with a limited constribution to green belt – there is a definition in the recent consultation (paraph 142).

Cllr Robinson, LibDem leader of Chelmsford City Council, talked about development being a benefit to communites, not a burden. Developers should be asking: what benefits do you want? He went on to say that Chelmsford has changed the definition of ‘affordable’ housing from 80% of market to the current housing benefits rate. This is within the new local plan and he will see how it is received by the inspector.