Is there a funny smell around here?
Hot on the heels of the news that our local aristocrat, the Duke of Northumberland who is still trying to build on the local allotments, is the staggering revelation that the Northumberland fortune has seen upwards of a £36M increase. Quite why some of that can't go towards the work we keep being told is needed on Syon House we do not know.There are also worries about the somewhat close relationship of Hounslow council's Leader and the Northumberland Estate who have had three meetings to dicuss future plans which include a fresh planning application, in spite of the Estate losing the public inquiry at the end of 2018, which says the allotment site should remain as local open space.We seem right to be concerned about these meetings when you read what 'The Guardian' has highlighted about the dubious deals councils - Hounslow among them - are stitching up with developers, and not for the good of any local people."Revealed: London councils take funds from developers to pay for planning guidelinesCritics say ‘poachers have become gamekeepers’ as a result, but councils deny conflict of interestThe final straw? Tory heartlands in revolt over planning reformsMoD cavalry barracks in HounslowThe Ministry of Defence paid Hounslow council £20,000 to fund supplementary planning guidance for its cavalry barracks, which it plans to sell for the development of 1,000 homes. Photograph: Martin Argles/The GuardianRobert Booth Social affairs correspondentSun 23 Aug 2020 17.40 BST266Councils have accepted hundreds of thousands of pounds from property developers to fund planning guidelines designed to help govern their own schemes, a Guardian analysis has found.In deals that have been criticised for allowing unfair influence and marginalising local residents, bodies including housing developers, landowners and urban regeneration companies paid large sums to draft supplementary planning documents (SPDs), which councillors must then consider when determining planning applications.The planning documents subsequently published set out major and potentially lucrative development strategies for the sites in which they have an interest. The payments are not declared in the documents.AdvertisementCouncils, which normally fund SPDs, and developers have denied allegations of conflicts of interest, but critics fear the arrangements mean “poachers become gamekeepers”.The practice has emerged less than two weeks after ministers announced a wholesale reform of the planning system which campaigners and voters fear will hand greater powers to developers in order to speed up building.According to responses the Guardian obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, Conservative-run Barnet council in north London received £223,000 from the housing association Notting Hill Genesis to cover the costs of a planning brief for Grahame Park, a 3,000-home estate regeneration. The borough accepted the money via its joint venture company with Capita.The SPD for Grahame Park specified additional social housing only “where viable” and the housing association later proposed cutting the number of affordable homes by 257. The London mayor, Sadiq Khan, described it as “a classic example of how not to do estate regeneration”.In Hounslow, west London, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) paid the Labour-run council £20,000 to fund supplementary planning guidance for a barracks site it is planning to sell for the development of 1,000 homes, which critics have attacked as over-development.In response to a freedom of information request to all English councils, none outside the capital said they engaged in the practice.The London councils insist the arrangements afford developers no unfair influence over what is permitted on the sites, but some cited budget shortfalls as the reason for needing to take the money. Critics, however, attacked the practice.“It is blatant collusion between planning authorities and developers,” said Bob Colenutt, the head of research the Northampton Institute for Urban Affairs and author of The Property Lobby. “Is this what the government means by cutting planning red tape? ... Poachers have become gamekeepers with local councils ceding yet more influence over planning to vested interests in speculative development.”Steve Reed, the shadow communities and local government secretary, said: “Government cuts to council funding have left town halls without the resources to develop full planning guidelines so developers have been allowed to write their own. This appears to be part of a strategy to diminish the voice of local communities and let wealthy developers bulldoze and concrete over local neighbourhoods and green spaces increasingly at will.”Reed said it was a harbinger of the “anti-democratic planning reforms” the government proposed earlier this month, which could fast-track development without a requirement for detailed planning consent.Councils usually pay for and draw up SPDs to provide guidance for what developers will be allowed to do. Councils said that plans drawn up using developer cash must still be meet wider planning rules. They are a material consideration in planning decisions.“It is often said that ‘he who pays the piper calls the tune,’” said Steve Goodrich, a senior research manager at Transparency International UK. “Any planning guidance developed which then contributes to council policy should be drafted in the public interest, not that of landowners and develope