I don't agree with much Eric Pickles says, and his speech to the CBI the other night was the finest example of "saying something that is sure to go down well with your audience" I've ever heard, but he was certainly right when he talked about how dealing with Planning Departments often being a bureaucratic 'battle'.Afew weeks back I submitted a medium sized application (20 residential units) for a major housebuilder on land where the lawful use is currently as a tyre fitting/vehicle servicing centre (a general industrial use) with around 25 customer parking spaces. The surrounding area is mixed use with lots of residential, and last year for the same client we secured permission for around 65 residential units on the adjoining site.Out of the blue the Council has now invalidated the application, saying that an Air Quality Assessment must be provided. My client has already, on top of the statutory planning fee, spent a large sum commissioning a plethora of experts to write technical reports accompanying the application. The Council's own validation checklist states that an Air Quality Assessment is only required where the proposal is likely to have an adverse impact upon air quality/odour. It doesn't take Einstein to deduce that 20 homes are going to have considerably less impact upon air quality than a general industrial use, so clearly there's no need for such an assessment.The delay caused by the Council's stance means my client will 'lose' at least 1 month, and more likely 2 months, of potential construction time, as 3 weeks of the determination period have suddenly 'disappeared' because the application has been invalidated, and my client will now have to pay a further considerable sum appointing yet another technical expert to write a report that clearly isn't required. But, there's no right of appeal to the Inspectorate on issues of validation, so my client has no alternative (especially as so far my attempts to contact the Planners by both email and phone don't get any response/acknowledgement).This is what infuriates me with the whole planning system, there's this perception that big developers have lots of influence/are treated different than Joe Public etc, yet in reality it isn't like that at all. My big concern for the future though, is that Eric's two big things don't, in my view, mix, i.e. on the one hand increased community involvement/empowerment, on the other less red tape for developers - either one or the other inevitably will not get what they'd hoped for !.
Adam Beamish ● 5493d