Development Control

Keith Thomas

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781134226610
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture General

Development Control" is a comprehensive introductory text for students of planning and related subjects. Drawing widely on the literature - the approach and treatment are very much geared to the needs of students on courses, rather than focusing on practical and "how-to-do-it" issues. It should be of interest to students in schools of planning, the built environment, estate management, land economy and other related subjects.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Introduction

Planning as an activity is widely recognized as a legitimate and valued aspect of public policy. General understanding of development control is far more advanced than of development plans and their purposes. (McCarthy et al. 1995: vi)

The quotation above is from an investigative survey carried out at the instigation of the Department of the Environment. It established that in the 1990s the activity of development control was recognized by the public as valued by them. However, there was a long-held contrary view.

Development control, the term used in Britain to define the system of issuing permits for land-use development, has been for the most part a vilified process. Although the nadir of its fortunes has passed – the low point seems to have been somewhere between 1980 and 1985 – to British ears the term rings with overtones of bureaucratic time-wasting and negativism. From within the planning profession, too, development control has not always been seen in a favourable light. For long the Cinderella of the profession, as several commentators have described it, until the 1980s it tended to attract less qualified staff and to be associated with drudgery. The smart thing for new recruits to the profession was forward planning …. Some of that at least has changed; there is nothing now to suggest that development control staff have fewer qualifications than their colleagues who prepare plans, and development control has for some time been recognized as no less intellectually challenging than plan-making. Yet, even today, planning literature has rather less to say about the control of development than it does about plan-making and policy (Booth 1996: 1).

Development control in the UK, as it is practised in the 1990s, came into being as a result of powers contained in the Town and Country Planning Acts 1947, which became operative in 1948. After half a century it has come of age as a very important professional activity, both to the public at large and to the professions closely associated with the built environment (McCarthy et al. 1995). The planning of towns, of which development control is part, is a very ancient activity. For example, classical Greek and Roman towns were often laid out in a systematic way. Examples exist from a wide range of cultures from China to Europe and independently in pre-Columbian America. The need to plan towns, and the country, seems to be deeply imbedded in the human psyche. Towns are still with us that were laid out for defensive purposes, the aggrandizement of the powerful, to reflect social and economic divisions in society, as acts of philanthropy, and for religious reasons.

Modern town planning in the UK sprang partly from the need to solve the problems of squalor brought on by rapid urbanization in the nineteenth century and partly to cope with rebuilding war-damaged cities after the Second World War. At that time there was a coalition of interests. In part, planning was seen as an arm of the welfare state, concerned in particular with better housing, better working conditions, slum clearance and better health. Planning in a wider sense, rather than laissez-faire capitalism, was necessary for the successful conclusion of the war effort. In part, planning was promoted by those concerned with the countryside. The protection from development of good agricultural land for food production has been a longstanding theme, as has the protection of the beauty of the countryside from urban sprawl. Another strand has been the “city beautiful movement”: development is a form of public art. This background is enlarged upon in Chapter 6 (see Ashworth 1954, Cherry 1974, Booth 1996.)

The importance of development control can be considered in two other ways. First, about a half of all annual investment in the UK is in “land, buildings and works”. This amounts to about one tenth of the gross national product. Experience has shown that it is vital that these assets are well managed. Much, but not all of this development investment passes through the development control system for a decision as to whether it should be allowed or not. Each year about half a million planning applications for development are processed. They fluctuate with the trade cycle. For example, in England in 1988–9 there were 683000 applications, but in 1992–3 only 464000; that is a fall of about a third in quite a short period (DOE annual, Thomas 1995). These fluctuations can bear heavily on the workloads of local councils. Secondly, development control is the largest single identifiable activity carried out by local authority planning departments. In a survey of planning staff in England and Wales in 1991, development control occupied 26 per cent of the relevant workforce; next were development plans at 13 per cent, management at 7 per cent and appeals at nearly 5 per cent (Local Government Management Board & RTPI 1992: 32). Each of the other activities, arguably and possibly associated with development control (e.g. enforcement nearly 3%) occupied less than 5 per cent of the workforce. Advising clients on planning applications and appeals is also a major part of the work of private planning consultants.

The content of this book has been circumscribed by the availability of the literature. As Booth has implied above, the literature is not as comprehensive as one might hope. No original research has been undertaken here by the author. Reliance has been on published sources. Much day-to-day knowledge of the practice of development control is locked inside the heads of development controllers, developers and other related professionals and councillors. Unless they report it or it is extracted through research, it remains there.

As development control as currently practised is highly dependent on statutory powers, a key starting point is the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and the Planning and Compensation Act 1991 and subsidiary legislation, especially the General Permitted Development Order 1995 and the Use Classes Order 1987. The legislative background is described in Chapter 3. As practice is very much guided by other central government guidance, one must look next to Circulars and Planning Policy Guidance Notes (PPGs). They not only give government policy on how development plan and development control issues should be approached but also the background considerations, of which one needs to be aware to understand the issues. Apart from these, central government publishes other statements of their position, such as good practice guides, and also sponsors research, which is frequently used in the text. However, the literature mentioned so far has been produced in the 1980s and early 1990s by a right-wing government enjoying an almost unprecedented fourth term of office. Clearly, it had an explicit free-market deregulatory agenda: guidance and their research programme are shaped by this. The critical reader should therefore always be asking what would change if a government of another persuasion were in power. It must be remembered that, on the other hand, many local governments who effectively make most of the day-to-day development control decisions are of quite different persuasions.

Apart from central government sources, there is a range of other bodies and individuals that produce literature which has been incorporated in the text, much of it critical of the way the development control system works and how it might be altered and improved. Two major sources are academic and professional books and journals, some of which might be described as research based and others practice based. Research may be for the purposes of practice or into practice itself. It is based on the science and social science tradition that sets up a hypothesis or hunch about reality, which is investigated by systematically collecting and sifting evidence that seeks to prove or disprove it by rational argument. Professional literature, if it can be distinguished from academic literature, is written more from the author’s day-to-day experience as he sees it. It is no less valuable. It may consist of letters to the press or short commentaries. Besides these sources, there is literature produced by environmental pressure groups with particular axes to grind. Of course, planning literature comes not only from those engaged in mainline planning and development control but also from other disciplines, for example law and architecture.

Considered in rather a different way, changes in the principles and practice of development control can come about in at least three structured ways, each of which results in considerable literature:

• As a result of draft policy guidance issued for consultation on the basis of information received. Where improvements in the system are sought, central government often issues draft guidance to other government bodies, academics, professional associations and pressure groups for comment. Comments are considered that lead to modifications before definitive guidance is issued.

• As a result of formal inquiry into particularly fraught situations. Experts and others are invited to submit evidence. It is sifted, and recommendations are made to government for action.

• As a result of specifically sponsored research in the scientific tradition. Projects are set up with a brief from government to investigate particular issues. They are usually carried out by private consultants or academics. Recommendations are made to government for action.

The resulting literature may be ephemeral and/or difficult to locate and access.

Before briefly describing the structure of the book, a description of the structure of the development control system is offered. Coming to the subject from outside for the first time can be very confusing. I therefore offer some structuring devices to aid understanding. They all overlap and interact. Development control is a very wide-ranging subject and can embrace all human endeavour as far as it is expressed in the use of land:

• Substance and procedure Development control is concerned with the real substance of development, for example the colour of a building or the width of a road. It is also concerned with a rational and legal procedure – a bureaucratic paper chase – by which decisions are made. In practice, substance and procedure are inseparable.

• Scale Development control operates at widely different scales. At a humble level it may be concerned with the type of bricks or tiles used in a building. At the other end of the scale it could deal with an international airport extension. The customary scales of operation are: site level, local or district level, strategic or county or regional level, national level and international level. Many planning applications are small-scale householder applications (see Appendix III).

• Professional disciplines It is in the nature of the building industry that many professionals are involved, all with their own perspectives. These include architects, landscape architects, surveyors, civil engineers, lawyers, financial experts and others, including politicians and administrators. The role of the planning profession is to ensure that what is built fits into the environment in an orderly way.

• Activities in adapted spaces Planners are concerned with four basic types of human activity and the buildings and spaces that accommodate them: workspaces, such as factories and schools; residential buildings, such as houses and residential institutions; and leisure facilities, such as playing fields and theatres. Transport is the fourth activity, which physically connects the other three, for example by road. Development control is not only concerned with new buildings but also with new activities in old buildings. Consider the parking implications of changing a house to an office. Moreover, these activities interact: substantial new housing leads to an increased demand for new shops, schools and road space.

The structure of the book is as follows. Chapter 1 introduces the subject and deals particularly with the purposes and characteristics of development control. Chapter 2 is concerned with the town and country planning system and sets development control in its wider context. Chapter 3 outlines the legal basis and deals inter alia with planning application procedures. The reader will become aware that the legal basis is complex. Chapter 4 on simplifying development control is somewhat of a diversion. It may be left until later, although it follows logically from Chapter 3. It contains arguments as to where the boundaries of development control should lie. Chapter 5 describes the factors taken into account when planning permission is granted or refused, with an emphasis on this crucial decision. Chapter 6 deals with the substantive subject matter of most applications: siting, design, external appearance, access and landscaping. Chapter 7 is something of a potpourri, ranging from the relatively nice to the relatively naughty in development control terms: conservation, the countryside, advertisements, minerals and hazardous uses. Each is a special topic deserving special treatment. Chapters 8 and 9 stand somewhat apart. I have sought throughout to intersperse the text with the arguments that surround development control issues. Chapter 8 has, perhaps idiosyncratically, topics not hitherto touched on, which lend themselves to debate, for example development control and land values. Chapter 9 looks to the future by examining three topics considered important in the mid-1990s: quality in the environment, sustainability, and the ramifications of international influences.

At this stage I would like to enter three caveats or warnings. First, the book is not exhaustive. I have taken a range of subjects pursuing them to different depths. Sometimes there is little more than discussion and comment but in other cases arguments and research are reported in more depth. This is partly dictated by the literature available and partly by the need to keep the length of the book manageable. The latter has been ameliorated by a Glossary and short notes Appendix. Secondly, principles have been exemplified by drawing on a variety of scales and activities in adapted spaces. It has not proved possible to do this in a systematic way so that all scales and activities are dealt with. Thirdly, there is the matter of development control case studies. I considered the introduction of “boxed case studies”, that is boxed insertions in the text in which individual planning applications are described and analyzed by way of illustration (see Ratcliffe & Stubbs 1996, which included case studies). Many of these are available elsewhere: a selection is given in Appendix II.

The purposes and characteristics of development control

The purposes of development control

The purposes of the development control system are part of the wider purposes of town and country planning. The purposes of town and country planning are part of the wider purposes of environmental control dealt with in Chapter 2. At the highest level of generalization the purpose of the development control system is to ensure efficient and effective land use in the public interest. As far as it is possible to separate them, we can disaggregate this general purpose into “people purposes” and “property purposes”.

People purposes

A prime people purpose is to satisfy the social and economic aspirations of the citizenry as far as they are expressed through land use. Thus, the decision-makers in the development control system will normally react positively to proposals to develop, wheth...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Development control and the town and country planning system
• 3 Legal aspects of development control
• 4 Simplifying development control
• 5 Granting and refusing planning permission
• 6 Major issues in development control
• 7 Other topics, other perspectives
• 8 Conflict and controversy
• 9 The future
• Appendix I Planning in Celtic lands
• Appendix II Development control case studies
• Appendix III Selected development control statistics
• Glossary and short notes
• Bibliography
• Index