Tag Archives: planning

RIP UKIP: More politicians flee the sinking ship

Already it’s not shaping up to be a good year for UKIP.

In yet another blow to the beleaguered party, all 17 of the UKIP councillors in Thurrock, Essex, have now resigned from their membership.

Saying they have “had enough of the aggressive and bitter reality of party politics”, the fleeing UKIP councillors have formed their own group, the Thurrock Independents, which will contest every ward seat in the upcoming local elections in May 2018.

The mass defection, which includes MEP Tim Aker, means the Thurrock Independents have become the official opposition party to the Conservative administration in the Borough and are free of UKIP’s central governance.

It’s a shrewd move for the Thurrock councillors who are reported to have impressed locals with their hard work but are unlikely to be voted in under the increasingly toxic UKIP banner.

The collapse of the central pillar

Thurrock has been one of the few UKIP outposts to consistently perform well over the years, with the party launching its manifesto there in 2015 and receiving a 20% share of the vote for Tim Aker in the 2017 elections.

The loss will come as a huge blow to the UKIP faithful as party leader Henry Bolton continues to cling on despite receiving a vote of no confidence, on top of public embarrassment over his relationship with a young woman who has been branded a racist.

A number of senior UKIP figures have now quit their roles, including Mr Bolton’s deputy and assistant deputy, and it looks like there will be more losses to follow.

Tim Aker MEP, who intends to stay on as UKIP, said: “UKIP has a job to do in the European Parliament in seeing we get the Brexit we voted for. I will stay as a UKIP MEP. But to better represent my constituents in Aveley, I had no choice but to follow my colleagues and represent the Thurrock Independents. We are one seat away from taking control of the council and bringing real change to our borough.”

Thurrock Independents

Somewhat bizarrely, the new Thurrock Independents group has adopted a worker bee as its new logo, with group leader Cllr Graham Snell saying it represents “hard graft, working together towards common goals, sacrifice and the importance of the protection of our environment.”

He went on to say: “Thurrock Independents have the only councillors in Thurrock whose prime concern will be Thurrock residents. They are not compromised by a slavish attachment to a national party.

“Our entire group joined Thurrock Independents as we have had enough of the aggressive and bitter reality of party politics.”

With just over 14 weeks until the local elections, the loss of one of the most influential local government UKIP groups is a substantial blow to the ailing party. Given the party’s extensive problems, there are likely to be further casualties.

Dominic Raab ousts Sharma as new Housing Minister

Minister for Housing

Dominic Raab MP has today been confirmed as the new Minister for Housing. An up-and-coming MP who was part of the 2010 intake, Raab is thought of as veering towards the right wing of the party, and will be a controversial choice for some in the housing and planning sector due to his tough views on immigration.

Raab becomes the 16th housing minister in just 20 years, and will work with the newly re-appointed Secretary of State Sajid Javid to keep Housing at the top of the Government’s agenda.

Leaving his post as Minister of State at the Ministry of Justice, Raab will immediately take over the mantle of delivering a housing agenda to deliver 1 million homes by the end of 2020, and a further half a million more by the end of 2022.

Safe as houses?

Raab, 43, is highly regarded within the Conservative Party and has been an MP for seven years, having had an earlier career as a solicitor. Elected as the Conservative MP for Esher and Walton in May 2010, he has previously worked as a lawyer and at the Foreign and Commonwealth office.

With a whopping 50% majority of just less than 30,000 votes Raab is in absolutely no danger of being displaced via an election loss any time soon, as former Minister for Housing Gavin Barwell was.

Raab will arrive at his office at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) this afternoon to find a pile of urgent papers awaiting his decision, including: the Social Housing Green Paper, the completion of the overdue NPPF reforms, the Letwin Review of land banking, and the findings of the Grenfell Tower inquiry.

The NPPF and Letwin reviews are both significant pieces of work that will require Raab to quickly get up to speed with England’s complex planning laws. The findings of the Letwin review are due by the Spring statement on 13th March, and the NPPF has been touted for a March launch by civil servants.

Raab’s appointment as the new Minister for Housing may come as something of a blow to the development sector, as Raab has been staunch in his opposition of building anything on the Green Belt. In February last year, Raab wrote to Elmbridge Borough Council stressing that “every effort must be made to avoid building on green belt” in the Council’s plans to meet housing need in the area.

Raab has also previously nailed his colours to the mast on immigration, stating in 2010 that “tides of inward population movement” in the South East have increased the “local pressures on housing” and that “there are more people, and finite resources”. In a 2009 blog post, he also seemed to set out his view that the ‘first’ cause of the housing crisis was ‘open door immigration’.

Sajid’s stance has consistently been to deny that the housing crisis is down in any part to mass immigration. If Raab can make his presence felt at MHCLG, we can expect to see the Government’s rhetoric around immigration and housing shift in coming weeks.

Sharma shuffled out of the deck

After a torrid six-month stretch that was mostly been spent reacting to the Grenfell crisis, Sharma will now take up a role as Minister of State for Employment at the Department for Work and Pensions.

The move will come as an unwanted demotion for Sharma, who has relished playing a more senior role and will not jump at the junior position on the same footing as his housing role.

Ministry for HCLG

The Prime Minister’s ‘personal commitment’ to ensure housing is the Government’s key priority has led her to rebrand the Department of Communities and Local Government as the ‘Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’. Sajid Javid says that the change reflects how much importance is being put on housing within Government, saying: “Building the homes our country needs is an absolute priority for this government and so I’m delighted the Prime Minister has asked me to serve in this role. The name change for the department reflects this government’s renewed focus to deliver more homes and build strong communities across England.”

National Infrastructure Commission

Two wheels good, four wheels bad for Cambridge-Oxford competition winner

A cluster of green, car-free villages connected by cycle routes, with swathes of common land and shared amenities to make sure communities interact with each other. This is future of growth in the Oxford-Cambridge-Milton Keynes corridor, if the winning entry to the National Infrastructure Commission competition is anything to go by.

Launched in June, the competition looked for inspirational visions for future development and new homes within the Growth Arc around Cambridge, Milton Keynes, Northampton and Oxford.

Led by Velocity – an all-female team of designers, planners and engineers from Tibbalds Planning and Urban Design – the team’s vision sees six new communities created along the planned East-West rail line, along with environmentally friendly new homes connected to shared amenities.

The team initially met each other through a women’s cycling event, and went on to work together through a shared interest in designing places that “put the pedestrian and cyclist first”.

Announcing the award last week, Bridget Rosewell, competition jury Chair, said she was struck by Velocity ‘commitment to ensuring new settlements would be communities from the get-go’, with large common land at the heart of each development providing a focus for residents to co-operate.

A striking vision for the Cambridge-Milton Keynes-Oxford Arc

The competition ties in with the NIC’s ‘Partnering for prosperity: a new deal for the Cambridge-Milton Keynes-Oxford Arc’ report last month, which set out how Government investment would double housebuilding rates and deliver one million new homes and jobs by 2050. At the crux of the report is the proposal for the Government to fund a £1bn commuter service between Bicester and Bedford by 2023, and a new East West Rail line between Bedford and Cambridge by 2030.

The Chancellor subsequently backed the Commission’s vision for one million new homes by 2050, and announced plans to complete both a new East-West Rail link and an Oxford-Cambridge Expressway by 2030.

The Commission launched the competition in June, and received more than 50 first-stage submissions from teams across the country. Entries from Barton Willmore, Mae, and Fletcher Priest Architects were also shortlisted by the panel, and received an honorarium of £10,000. The next steps now are for VeloCity’s vision to be showcased, along with all earlier submissions, at a conference and public exhibition on the Growth Arc in early 2018. The National Infrastructure Commission are expected to release further details in the coming weeks.

With Government having committed to helping deliver significant growth in the Growth Arc area, developers and local authorities will now need to work together to demonstrate their ambitious visions to sustainably deliver a million new homes for the area.

Secretary of State threatens to intervene with Local Plans

Sajid Javid has today announced he will be formally intervening in “unacceptably slow” local authorities who are yet to adopt their local plans.

Blasting local authorities who are lagging behind in adopting a local plan for development, the Communities Secretary said that his “patience has run out” and that the formal intervention process for non-compliant local authorities will begin.

Speaking in Bristol this morning, Javid set out the need for sustainable housing development across the country and praised the majority of councils who were performing well, adding: “Where councils are showing drive and ambition the government will back them every step of the way, including with a kind of housing deal we are negotiating here in the West of England.”

While many authorities are performing well, too many local authorities “still leave much to be desired” he added, highlighting how not having a local plan in place can bring “piecemeal speculative development with no strategic direction”.

In a clear message to local authorities to engage with communities and get local plans agreed, the Communities Secretary announced he has been ‘left with no choice’ but to begin formal intervention.

The Housing White Paper released in February made mention of Government’s willingness to intervene in the affairs of any local authorities who had not adopted a plan, but as of yet no local authorities have been subject to the measure.

While over 70 local authorities are yet to adopt a local plan, Javid has singled out 15 as being a “particular cause for concern” that will require Government intervention to help them adopt a local plan and deliver certainty for local residents.

The 15 local authorities are:

  • City of York Council,
  • Basildon,
  • Brentwood,
  • Bolsover,
  • Calderdale,
  • Castle Point,
  • Eastleigh,
  • Liverpool,
  • Mansfield,
  • North East
  • Derbyshire,
  • Northumberland,
  • Runnymede,
  • St Albans,
  • Thanet,
  • Wirrell

Crispin Blunt MP tightens Greenbelt on Government

Crispin Blunt and some London based colleagues have taken up the cudgels in the green belt debate. Mr Blunt, MP for Reigate, formed the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for London’s green belt with the intention of pressuring the Government to do more to protect green belt, build on brownfield land and increase the speed that developers are building out.

In a letter from Mr Blunt to Communities Secretary Sajid Javid, the group claim the new housing need assessment put forward by Government in September imposes “excessive housing targets” in areas where local authorities will have little choice but to build on green belt or AONB land.

The secretariat for the APPG will be provided by the London Green Belt Council, a group chaired by Richard Knox-Johnston, who is also the vice-chairman of CPRE Kent. CPRE and the London Green Belt Council have always worked intimately with each other, and jointly published a paper last year calling for a moratorium on development in the green belt.

Given the new group will have close involvement from the CPRE, it’s perhaps no surprise they have already echoed CPRE’s calls on Government to prioritise development on brownfield land rather than release more land for homes in expensive areas of the country to ease the housing crisis.

The group has also called for councils to be given the power to reject development proposals which do not meet local affordable housing requirements, even if they don’t have a Local Plan or an establish five year housing supply. However, given the National Planning Policy Framework’s presumption in favour of sustainable development, and the number of rulings which have been determined on this basis in recent years, it’s unlikely Government will budge on this when the NPPF is updated.

Announcing the launch of the APPG, Crispin Blunt said:

“I am delighted we have formed the APPG for London’s Green Belt. With the number of Green Belt sites around London under threat from development more than doubling over the past year, we urgently need to review our approach to housing policy across the region. The group will inform the debate and develop recommendations for Green Belt-friendly planning policy.”

The group consists of:

  • Crispin Blunt MP, Co-Chair, (Conservative, Reigate)
  • Lord Rogers of Riverside CH, Co-Chair, (Labour)
  • Gareth Thomas MP, Vice Chair, (Labour and Co-op, Harrow)
  • Adam Holloway MP, (Conservative, Gravesham)
  • Rt Hon Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)
  • Baroness Jones of Moulsecomb (Green)

The group is well versed in green belt issues and brings considerable influence to bear within Westminster, with Lord Rogers of Riverside CH having served as Chief Advisor on Architecture and Urbanism to Boris Johnston and Ken Livingston and Gareth Thomas MP the current President of the London green belt Council.

Given Crispin Blunt MPs assertion that failures in the planning system have  placed “unreasonable pressures on local authorities to provide new homes whilst developers have ‘land banked’ sites”, we can expect the APPG to steer Government to include measures on speeding up  build-out on sites which have already received planning permission, in upcoming planning changes.

No group meetings have been arranged yet, but keeping watching this space.

Housing breakfast briefing

Join Chelgate Local and Bidwells for Breakfast in Essex!

Chelgate Local and Bidwells welcome you to attend our housing breakfast briefing on garden towns and villages, with a focus on north Essex, Harlow and Gilston.

The session will discuss what garden towns and villages are in terms of planning and development and how they are being progressed.

We will look at the Government’s objectives and how it is likely to accelerate development in the region, whether that be through funding or procedural measures. We will also look at the impact these large developments will have on the economic prosperity in the area.

 

Date: 5 December 2017

 

Venue:  The Pavillion, Essex County Cricket Club,  The Cloudfm County Ground, New Writtle Street, Chelmsford, CM2 0PG

 

Agenda:

Arrival & breakfast:        08:00

Seminar starts:               08:30

Q&A:                                 09:30

Networking:                    10:00

Close:                               10:30


Speakers:

 

Liam Herbert, Chelgate Chief Executive – Chair

 

housing breakfast briefing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cllr John Spence CBE, Essex County Council – North Essex Garden Villages

 

housing breakfast briefing

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cllr Linda Haysey, Leader, East Herts District Council – Harlow & Gilston Garden Town

 

housing breakfast briefing

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cllr Kevin Bentley, Essex County Council – Economic Impact of Garden Towns & Villages

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mike Derbyshire, Head of Planning (Bidwells) – Planning for Garden Towns & Villages

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Places are limited so RSVP now to secure your place!

 

Bids Open for Ambitious Land Release Fund

 

After several false starts, the DCLG’s ‘Land Release’ fund announced in the Housing White Paper has opened for bids.

Operated as a partnership of the DCLG, the Cabinet Office and the Local Government Association’s One Public Estate programme, the fund will be used to help councils overcome barriers to development on brownfield land. However, at just £54 million, the government target of unlocking enough council owned land for the provision of 160,000 by 2020 seems more than a little ambitious.

Local authorities will be able to bid for funding to cover the costs of land remediation and the provision of small-scale infrastructure. At a time when councils are facing unprecedented pressure on their finances, the government hopes that the funding will help bring forward land and development that would otherwise lie dormant.

Interesting, in a change from previous announcements of the same money, this time around no mention is made of priority being given to “innovative delivery models” or areas of “high housing demand”.

Councils making successful bids are expected to generate £615m in new homes bonuses and other tax revenue; save £158million from no longer having to maintain surplus land; create 44,000 new jobs and release land for 25,000 homes by 2020 – signalling just how ambitious the government is being with its targets to increase the delivery of new housing.

Alok Sharma, the Housing and Planning Minister said in a statement: ‘To build the homes this country needs, we need to increase the supply of land available to build more homes, more quickly. As a major landowner, local authorities have a crucial role to play in this task’.

While what Mr Sharma says is true, £54m won’t spread too far and successful bids will probably need further funding to unlock them for the market – the simple sites have already developed. All in all, this re-announcement may simply be one to show that the “Government is getting on with governing”.