'Ouses, Greenbelt and stuff

Pross

^Sums the system up nicely. You’ll get all sorts of bollox spread by pressure groups that others latch on to and regularly see hundreds of objection letters that are identical other than the details of the objector It does work the other way sometimes, I worked on one job that got refused planning several times and on a fresh application the developer was pushing their consultants to write letters of support. I refused as I lived 50 miles away so shouldn’t comment and told them I wouldn’t ask colleagues to as it was unprofessional.

You can probably understand objections to something like a waste to energy plant or heavy industrial but I’ve worked on several schools developments where there has been highly organised objection at planning, threats of a judicial review that they backed down from as they knew they had no chance of success then all sorts of hassle during construction. They are usually Rick’s boomers and just don’t want anything built in their area.

focuszing723

Pross said:

focuszing723 said:

Pross said:

focuszing723 said:

Pross said:

People seem keen to prove might point about general understanding of planning and development and repeating what they’ve read in the media.

There’s already a presumption in favour of Brownfield land. People tend to get confused because land that looks green is actually Brownfield as it has previously been developed. The land also has to be available for purchase (not everything is for sale) and be cost effective to remediate. There are loads of old colliery sites near me, quite a few have now been built on but you have to grout up all those old shafts. I’m still not sure I’d want to live on one. There’s also a Brownfield site that used to be a chemical re-processing plant.

Bribing locals who already have a house for the loss of value to their house from new developments is an odd suggestion. Did the people who built their houses compensate the houses that were already there? I’m not even sure there is evidence that new development affects house prices. Even if they did is it a bad thing, especially if prices are being pushed up by demand outstripping supply?

Whilst developers do land bank as they need to maintain a supply for future development it would be odd for them to hang onto land for decades. Ultimately they make money by building and selling houses so having a stash of undeveloped land serves little purpose. Chances are there are planning or technical reasons why the land isn’t getting developed. Land purchase isn’t something I know much about but I think a lot of land is purchased as an option pending planning.

The Tories promised a shake up of planning as part of their manifesto and it looked promising but then they caved to the NIMBYs who vote for them and dropped it (surprise, surprise). Even under the current system we have Councillors refusing applications that their own officers have told them meet the requirements of the Planning Regs in order to get votes but it often ends up just costing them a huge amount at appeal.

Developers are by no means angels and often cut corners / do the absolute bare minimum to get planning and maximise profit. Some are better than others. Ultimately though we need more housing and the process needs to be revised so that schemes that comply with planning policy don’t get kicked out to keep voters happy.

Sorry for the lengthy rant!

It's not bribery, it's compensation for the inconvenience caused and possible loss in the value of their asset. Aren't the developers making money? Who are they bribing to get it?

Also, don't the developers want land? Well this might be an answer.

Try and see the other side too, you both (rjsterry) obviously have a vested interest.

You both regularly contribute on such threads.

If we apply your rationale then the god that is Elon Musk should be compensating us all for all the extra cars he is putting on the road that will reduce the re-sale of mine. It’s a bonkers suggestion. The developers buy their land from people who currently own it and want to sell it so I really don’t understand that part of the argument sorry.

FWIW I’ve recently designed a cycle racing circuit in my home town that the Council intends to build with funds mainly coming from S106 contributions set aside for leisure use.

Don't developers want land? This is a way they could encourage areas to agree to it. I don’t see people objecting to cars being built.

You're comparing apples and oranges and equating bonkers.

If you had land you wanted to sell me why should I have to pay off your neighbour as well?

If you gave others in your area an opportunity to object to people buying an additional car I can guarantee they would. ‘There’s not enough parking here already’ ‘I don’t object to them having a car but an SUV is far too big for this area’ ‘they should buy electric not petrol’ ‘we don’t want second hand cars devaluing our area’ etc.

I think we're just going to have to withdraw our own ambassadors and agree on the fact that Elon Musk is a God.

briantrumpet

I've a good friend who's a developer, and I remember one site he had problems with... a big part of the deal was cleaning up what was toxic ex-gasworks ground which was a real threat to the locality, but yet they still were objecting on multiple grounds. One of the objectors was claiming to be a doctor and was coming up with all sorts of health reasons why the ground shouldn't be cleared... my friend didn't think things added up, hired a private detective to find out more about the 'doctor', and discovered he was nothing of the sort.

focuszing723

He's like a top level God too, creation and that.

orraloon

focuszing723 said:

He's like a top level dlck too, procreation and that.

FTFY

focuszing723

orraloon said:

focuszing723 said:

, He's like a top level God too, creation and that.

Yes, Focuszing you're so right. All the greatness he's created is just brilliant

Yep, I completely agree Loon.

rjsterry

focuszing723 said:

He's like a top level God too, creation and that.

Any chance of you keeping your erotic fantasies in the Musk thread?

briantrumpet

rjsterry said:

focuszing723 said:

He's like a top level God too, creation and that.

Any chance of you keeping the Musk stuff in the Musk thread?

I think he needs some new material... the act's gone a bit stale/repetitive, whatever thread he tries it in.

First.Aspect

Pross said:

^Sums the system up nicely. You’ll get all sorts of bollox spread by pressure groups that others latch on to and regularly see hundreds of objection letters that are identical other than the details of the objector It does work the other way sometimes, I worked on one job that got refused planning several times and on a fresh application the developer was pushing their consultants to write letters of support. I refused as I lived 50 miles away so shouldn’t comment and told them I wouldn’t ask colleagues to as it was unprofessional.

You can probably understand objections to something like a waste to energy plant or heavy industrial but I’ve worked on several schools developments where there has been highly organised objection at planning, threats of a judicial review that they backed down from as they knew they had no chance of success then all sorts of hassle during construction. They are usually Rick’s boomers and just don’t want anything built in their area.

I don't know much about the system in England, but as far as I'm aware in Scotland only the planning applicant has the right to seek judicial review. It is an inherently lopsided system in that regard.

Moving back to some of the comments from you and rjst, respectfully you are coming at this from the perspective that your livelihoods directly or indirectly rely on planning permission being granted. And there is some whataboutery when it comes to your perspectives on silly people objecting to things in silly ways. You aren't coming up with any examples of ill conceived plans that draw widespread objections or that are refused, or worse still go through regardless of local sentiment and good reasons to the contrary. Even when I pointed one out to rsjt, the presumption was of people objecting after the fact, when this wasn't the case at all. Even where this is the case, one tends to find that "public consultation" is via creaking planning portals, with hundreds of documents and no indication whatsoever which are the salient ones. At best one might get a public consultation in a village hall for a week or so during working hours. At least around here.

You guys seem to have lost track that whilst you can do this stuff in detail during working hours, or know what to look for in planning submissions for large scale development, some other people are otherwise occupied.

I've address how upsetting it can be for people when there is a material loss of amenity in their area, and I don't know that you can empathise with this until it happens to you. But I do think you are dismissing it too easily as nimbyism because you have a vested interest in the other result.

Similarly, the supposedly spurious objections using template letters will possibly pull in a few objections that would not otherwise be raised, but are often genuine objections by people taking an active interest in the process. Communities do get together and try to speak with a common voice. There is a real incompatibility between criticising silly emotional objectors on the one hand, and then also criticising people who make an effort to object in a way that community councils and the like tell them are the salient issues from a planning perspective.

rjsterry

Just to be clear, the vast majority of my work involves working on people's existing homes. My interaction with the planning system does not involve large scale developments on green field sites. I'm as close to that as you are to, say, IP law in the music industry. Yes, I do need to secure planning consent for our clients but it is in our interest (as well as a professional requirement) to advise them accurately on what the local policies are, and put forward proposals that we believe comply with those policies. In some cases we go beyond what the policies require for the sake of maintaining relations with neighbours.

We're straying off topic again, but the best example I can think of where a poor decision was overcome through judicial review was the Stonehenge Tunnel. Obviously that needs professional input, but I think that's probably a good thing.

On the objection point, I have seen too many self-appointed community leaders painting a client as some sort of malevolent force intent on destruction to not be sceptical. That said, there are undoubtedly poorly conceived developments. I think the target should be to make the developments that are needed (and they are needed) better not to just refuse everything that is not perfect.

briantrumpet

From the 'consultation' perspective:

All Topsham residents were sent letters proposing residents' parking, and giving details of the actual proposals and different ways of participating. 'Surprisingly' few responded, but enough for DCC to look at each road affected, and the balance of views. One end of town overall clearly favoured restrictions, the other didn't, so DCC brought in a scheme for half the town. Residents from the other half of town then kicked up a fuss because they weren't included in the scheme.

tl;dr - this was a simple and clear consultation, well publicised, and still not many people participated and then complained.

I can see both sides of the coin - the whole planning process is complicated and opaque to laypeople, even if it's the least worst system (managed by both experts and elected officials). I don't know what the answer is, other than localised groups that draw on the expertise of those who know how to sift out salient points and put together reasoned responses.

That said, I can tell from FB Groups for both Topsham and Exeter, that the overwhelming public response would be to want block everything - there used to be a dual carriageway right down Exeter High Street, and every time someone puts up a photo of it from the 60s, everyone piles in with "Oh it was so much nicer then!", FFS. They would literally prefer to see a derelict building from the 60s than a decent new building, because they "used to play there as kids".

I don't envy the planning committees who want to move things on, but are castigated for every development, no matter how sympathetic.

Still tl;dr - I'm blowed if I know the answer.

rick_chasey

Is there a sensible reform that could be passed that makes it more difficult for unreasonable objections to work?

First.Aspect

rick_chasey said:

Is there a sensible reform that could be passed that makes it more difficult for unreasonable objections to work?

It would also need to preclude unreasonable applications I'd have thought. So no.

briantrumpet

First.Aspect said:

rick_chasey said:

Is there a sensible reform that could be passed that makes it more difficult for unreasonable objections to work?

It would also need to preclude unreasonable applications I'd have thought. So no.

Given the enormous amounts of money involved for developers, and the equally massive effect it can have on existing communities, we probably shouldn't be surprised that both sides will try every trick in the book, especially on the less ethical extremes on either side.

rjsterry

Local authorities were (until the recent Gove cave-in) were given a housing target and were required to identify where that housing should be built in their Local Plan. That is where the strategic decisions are made to add, say 500 homes to this town and 300 to that village. The preparation of that Local Plan does involve local consultation, but I think this is definitely an area where local authorities could improve their engagement. Depositing a copy in the local library is a not really good enough.

By the time a planning application is submitted, the question should be just 'does it comply with the Local Plan or not?' The principle of development in that location should have already been decided.

briantrumpet

rjsterry said:

Local authorities were (until the recent Gove cave-in) were given a housing target and were required to identify where that housing should be built in their Local Plan. That is where the strategic decisions are made to add, say 500 homes to this town and 300 to that village. The preparation of that Local Plan does involve local consultation, but I think this is definitely an area where local authorities could improve their engagement. Depositing a copy in the local library is a not really good enough.

By the time a planning application is submitted, the question should be just 'does it comply with the Local Plan or not?' The principle of development in that location should have already been decided.

This. The local plan proposal for Topsham went up somewhere, but when I wrote to the transport bod at DCC, despite being very engaged on sustainable transport @Pross - Cllr Stuart Hughes... you might have had dealings with him) was only able to give a wishy washy answer about it only being in the early stages of consultation so he couldn't do much until somewhere further down the line, whereas my point was the it shouldn't even be in the initial ideas unless there was a firm commitment to sort out the access problems, and that being an obligation for whatever developers started looking at feasibility... a £5-10m access bridge ought to be in there from the start.

Pross

First.Aspect said:

Pross said:

^Sums the system up nicely. You’ll get all sorts of bollox spread by pressure groups that others latch on to and regularly see hundreds of objection letters that are identical other than the details of the objector It does work the other way sometimes, I worked on one job that got refused planning several times and on a fresh application the developer was pushing their consultants to write letters of support. I refused as I lived 50 miles away so shouldn’t comment and told them I wouldn’t ask colleagues to as it was unprofessional.

You can probably understand objections to something like a waste to energy plant or heavy industrial but I’ve worked on several schools developments where there has been highly organised objection at planning, threats of a judicial review that they backed down from as they knew they had no chance of success then all sorts of hassle during construction. They are usually Rick’s boomers and just don’t want anything built in their area.

I don't know much about the system in England, but as far as I'm aware in Scotland only the planning applicant has the right to seek judicial review. It is an inherently lopsided system in that regard.

Moving back to some of the comments from you and rjst, respectfully you are coming at this from the perspective that your livelihoods directly or indirectly rely on planning permission being granted. And there is some whataboutery when it comes to your perspectives on silly people objecting to things in silly ways. You aren't coming up with any examples of ill conceived plans that draw widespread objections or that are refused, or worse still go through regardless of local sentiment and good reasons to the contrary. Even when I pointed one out to rsjt, the presumption was of people objecting after the fact, when this wasn't the case at all. Even where this is the case, one tends to find that "public consultation" is via creaking planning portals, with hundreds of documents and no indication whatsoever which are the salient ones. At best one might get a public consultation in a village hall for a week or so during working hours. At least around here.

You guys seem to have lost track that whilst you can do this stuff in detail during working hours, or know what to look for in planning submissions for large scale development, some other people are otherwise occupied.

I've address how upsetting it can be for people when there is a material loss of amenity in their area, and I don't know that you can empathise with this until it happens to you. But I do think you are dismissing it too easily as nimbyism because you have a vested interest in the other result.

Similarly, the supposedly spurious objections using template letters will possibly pull in a few objections that would not otherwise be raised, but are often genuine objections by people taking an active interest in the process. Communities do get together and try to speak with a common voice. There is a real incompatibility between criticising silly emotional objectors on the one hand, and then also criticising people who make an effort to object in a way that community councils and the like tell them are the salient issues from a planning perspective.

I get paid whether a site gets consent or not and we make far more on sites that don’t get through at the first time of asking. Of course I can empathise, my parents had a beautiful view across open fields from their back garden to the mountains in the distance and it now has a large estate being built on it. It’s not great but ultimately it wouldn’t have been great for previous residents when their estate was built. The fact is we need more housing and it has to go somewhere.

My frustration comes from when you make applications that tick all the boxes required under various complex planning policies introduced by various elected Parliaments and Local Authorities, the planning officer agrees everything is OK and then a bunch of untrained Councillors overrule their own officers and policies purely to keep a bunch of vocal voters happy. These Councils literally take years allocating land for various types of development, agree how many houses are needed in each area and then refuse applications to build them.

First.Aspect

Pross said:

First.Aspect said:

Pross said:

^Sums the system up nicely. You’ll get all sorts of bollox spread by pressure groups that others latch on to and regularly see hundreds of objection letters that are identical other than the details of the objector It does work the other way sometimes, I worked on one job that got refused planning several times and on a fresh application the developer was pushing their consultants to write letters of support. I refused as I lived 50 miles away so shouldn’t comment and told them I wouldn’t ask colleagues to as it was unprofessional.

You can probably understand objections to something like a waste to energy plant or heavy industrial but I’ve worked on several schools developments where there has been highly organised objection at planning, threats of a judicial review that they backed down from as they knew they had no chance of success then all sorts of hassle during construction. They are usually Rick’s boomers and just don’t want anything built in their area.

I don't know much about the system in England, but as far as I'm aware in Scotland only the planning applicant has the right to seek judicial review. It is an inherently lopsided system in that regard.

Moving back to some of the comments from you and rjst, respectfully you are coming at this from the perspective that your livelihoods directly or indirectly rely on planning permission being granted. And there is some whataboutery when it comes to your perspectives on silly people objecting to things in silly ways. You aren't coming up with any examples of ill conceived plans that draw widespread objections or that are refused, or worse still go through regardless of local sentiment and good reasons to the contrary. Even when I pointed one out to rsjt, the presumption was of people objecting after the fact, when this wasn't the case at all. Even where this is the case, one tends to find that "public consultation" is via creaking planning portals, with hundreds of documents and no indication whatsoever which are the salient ones. At best one might get a public consultation in a village hall for a week or so during working hours. At least around here.

You guys seem to have lost track that whilst you can do this stuff in detail during working hours, or know what to look for in planning submissions for large scale development, some other people are otherwise occupied.

I've address how upsetting it can be for people when there is a material loss of amenity in their area, and I don't know that you can empathise with this until it happens to you. But I do think you are dismissing it too easily as nimbyism because you have a vested interest in the other result.

Similarly, the supposedly spurious objections using template letters will possibly pull in a few objections that would not otherwise be raised, but are often genuine objections by people taking an active interest in the process. Communities do get together and try to speak with a common voice. There is a real incompatibility between criticising silly emotional objectors on the one hand, and then also criticising people who make an effort to object in a way that community councils and the like tell them are the salient issues from a planning perspective.

I get paid whether a site gets consent or not and we make far more on sites that don’t get through at the first time of asking. Of course I can empathise, my parents had a beautiful view across open fields from their back garden to the mountains in the distance and it now has a large estate being built on it. It’s not great but ultimately it wouldn’t have been great for previous residents when their estate was built. The fact is we need more housing and it has to go somewhere.

My frustration comes from when you make applications that tick all the boxes required under various complex planning policies introduced by various elected Parliaments and Local Authorities, the planning officer agrees everything is OK and then a bunch of untrained Councillors overrule their own officers and policies purely to keep a bunch of vocal voters happy. These Councils literally take years allocating land for various types of development, agree how many houses are needed in each area and then refuse applications to build them.

Do the public have a say? If they do, it seems not unreasonable for local councillors, who are elected to represent the public, to make decisions based on feedback they receive from the electorate; regardless of whether it is compliant with the local development plan or not. Imo developers should face a very high bar because you can't undevelop something if it turns out to be dreadful.

Repeat applications are an interesting one. Seems to me that the system is routinely abused as a means of making non-fundamental changes to get something through by sheer endurance. The public loses interest, the planning officers get beaten down.

There are farms near here with tenants on them, and home owners with private water supplies at material risk who have been living with the threat of one particular development for a decade now, that has been dressed up as a series of "new" applications with a different shade of lipstick.

Eventually, the developer is bound to win.

rjsterry

First.Aspect said:

Pross said:

First.Aspect said:

Pross said:

^Sums the system up nicely. You’ll get all sorts of bollox spread by pressure groups that others latch on to and regularly see hundreds of objection letters that are identical other than the details of the objector It does work the other way sometimes, I worked on one job that got refused planning several times and on a fresh application the developer was pushing their consultants to write letters of support. I refused as I lived 50 miles away so shouldn’t comment and told them I wouldn’t ask colleagues to as it was unprofessional.

You can probably understand objections to something like a waste to energy plant or heavy industrial but I’ve worked on several schools developments where there has been highly organised objection at planning, threats of a judicial review that they backed down from as they knew they had no chance of success then all sorts of hassle during construction. They are usually Rick’s boomers and just don’t want anything built in their area.

I don't know much about the system in England, but as far as I'm aware in Scotland only the planning applicant has the right to seek judicial review. It is an inherently lopsided system in that regard.

Moving back to some of the comments from you and rjst, respectfully you are coming at this from the perspective that your livelihoods directly or indirectly rely on planning permission being granted. And there is some whataboutery when it comes to your perspectives on silly people objecting to things in silly ways. You aren't coming up with any examples of ill conceived plans that draw widespread objections or that are refused, or worse still go through regardless of local sentiment and good reasons to the contrary. Even when I pointed one out to rsjt, the presumption was of people objecting after the fact, when this wasn't the case at all. Even where this is the case, one tends to find that "public consultation" is via creaking planning portals, with hundreds of documents and no indication whatsoever which are the salient ones. At best one might get a public consultation in a village hall for a week or so during working hours. At least around here.

You guys seem to have lost track that whilst you can do this stuff in detail during working hours, or know what to look for in planning submissions for large scale development, some other people are otherwise occupied.

I've address how upsetting it can be for people when there is a material loss of amenity in their area, and I don't know that you can empathise with this until it happens to you. But I do think you are dismissing it too easily as nimbyism because you have a vested interest in the other result.

Similarly, the supposedly spurious objections using template letters will possibly pull in a few objections that would not otherwise be raised, but are often genuine objections by people taking an active interest in the process. Communities do get together and try to speak with a common voice. There is a real incompatibility between criticising silly emotional objectors on the one hand, and then also criticising people who make an effort to object in a way that community councils and the like tell them are the salient issues from a planning perspective.

I get paid whether a site gets consent or not and we make far more on sites that don’t get through at the first time of asking. Of course I can empathise, my parents had a beautiful view across open fields from their back garden to the mountains in the distance and it now has a large estate being built on it. It’s not great but ultimately it wouldn’t have been great for previous residents when their estate was built. The fact is we need more housing and it has to go somewhere.

My frustration comes from when you make applications that tick all the boxes required under various complex planning policies introduced by various elected Parliaments and Local Authorities, the planning officer agrees everything is OK and then a bunch of untrained Councillors overrule their own officers and policies purely to keep a bunch of vocal voters happy. These Councils literally take years allocating land for various types of development, agree how many houses are needed in each area and then refuse applications to build them.

Do the public have a say? If they do, it seems not unreasonable for local councillors, who are elected to represent the public, to make decisions based on feedback they receive from the electorate; regardless of whether it is compliant with the local development plan or not. Imo developers should face a very high bar because you can't undevelop something if it turns out to be dreadful.

Repeat applications are an interesting one. Seems to me that the system is routinely abused as a means of making non-fundamental changes to get something through by sheer endurance. The public loses interest, the planning officers get beaten down.

There are farms near here with tenants on them, and home owners with private water supplies at material risk who have been living with the threat of one particular development for a decade now, that has been dressed up as a series of "new" applications with a different shade of lipstick.

Eventually, the developer is bound to win.

The bar is already sufficiently high to have induced a national housing shortage, so I don't think it needs to be higher. Perhaps more carefully enforced, but if you starve planning authorities of funds it's no surprise that they are understaffed.

What does the Local Plan (or Scottish equivalent) say about the use of that land?

Pross

It should be a two way street with Councillors, they should also be able to stand in front of those they represent and explain how the system works and that they’ve voted on the basis of national and local policies and that the scheme does / does not meet those policies. There needs to be a reason why they are voting to reject otherwise it will go to appeal and they’ll normally lose. It’s pretty tough on their own officers to make them stand in front of a planning inspector and try to argue why the scheme has been rejected when there is public record of them having recommended approval. All it does is cost everyone time and money but the Councillors can then say ‘sorry, I tried but it went above me’. I doubt they ever say ‘that rejection cost the Council £100k of council tax payers money in professional fees and costs’.

First.Aspect

rjsterry said:

First.Aspect said:

Pross said:

First.Aspect said:

Pross said:

^Sums the system up nicely. You’ll get all sorts of bollox spread by pressure groups that others latch on to and regularly see hundreds of objection letters that are identical other than the details of the objector It does work the other way sometimes, I worked on one job that got refused planning several times and on a fresh application the developer was pushing their consultants to write letters of support. I refused as I lived 50 miles away so shouldn’t comment and told them I wouldn’t ask colleagues to as it was unprofessional.

You can probably understand objections to something like a waste to energy plant or heavy industrial but I’ve worked on several schools developments where there has been highly organised objection at planning, threats of a judicial review that they backed down from as they knew they had no chance of success then all sorts of hassle during construction. They are usually Rick’s boomers and just don’t want anything built in their area.

I don't know much about the system in England, but as far as I'm aware in Scotland only the planning applicant has the right to seek judicial review. It is an inherently lopsided system in that regard.

Moving back to some of the comments from you and rjst, respectfully you are coming at this from the perspective that your livelihoods directly or indirectly rely on planning permission being granted. And there is some whataboutery when it comes to your perspectives on silly people objecting to things in silly ways. You aren't coming up with any examples of ill conceived plans that draw widespread objections or that are refused, or worse still go through regardless of local sentiment and good reasons to the contrary. Even when I pointed one out to rsjt, the presumption was of people objecting after the fact, when this wasn't the case at all. Even where this is the case, one tends to find that "public consultation" is via creaking planning portals, with hundreds of documents and no indication whatsoever which are the salient ones. At best one might get a public consultation in a village hall for a week or so during working hours. At least around here.

You guys seem to have lost track that whilst you can do this stuff in detail during working hours, or know what to look for in planning submissions for large scale development, some other people are otherwise occupied.

I've address how upsetting it can be for people when there is a material loss of amenity in their area, and I don't know that you can empathise with this until it happens to you. But I do think you are dismissing it too easily as nimbyism because you have a vested interest in the other result.

Similarly, the supposedly spurious objections using template letters will possibly pull in a few objections that would not otherwise be raised, but are often genuine objections by people taking an active interest in the process. Communities do get together and try to speak with a common voice. There is a real incompatibility between criticising silly emotional objectors on the one hand, and then also criticising people who make an effort to object in a way that community councils and the like tell them are the salient issues from a planning perspective.

I get paid whether a site gets consent or not and we make far more on sites that don’t get through at the first time of asking. Of course I can empathise, my parents had a beautiful view across open fields from their back garden to the mountains in the distance and it now has a large estate being built on it. It’s not great but ultimately it wouldn’t have been great for previous residents when their estate was built. The fact is we need more housing and it has to go somewhere.

My frustration comes from when you make applications that tick all the boxes required under various complex planning policies introduced by various elected Parliaments and Local Authorities, the planning officer agrees everything is OK and then a bunch of untrained Councillors overrule their own officers and policies purely to keep a bunch of vocal voters happy. These Councils literally take years allocating land for various types of development, agree how many houses are needed in each area and then refuse applications to build them.

Do the public have a say? If they do, it seems not unreasonable for local councillors, who are elected to represent the public, to make decisions based on feedback they receive from the electorate; regardless of whether it is compliant with the local development plan or not. Imo developers should face a very high bar because you can't undevelop something if it turns out to be dreadful.

Repeat applications are an interesting one. Seems to me that the system is routinely abused as a means of making non-fundamental changes to get something through by sheer endurance. The public loses interest, the planning officers get beaten down.

There are farms near here with tenants on them, and home owners with private water supplies at material risk who have been living with the threat of one particular development for a decade now, that has been dressed up as a series of "new" applications with a different shade of lipstick.

Eventually, the developer is bound to win.

What does the Local Plan (or Scottish equivalent) say about the use of that land?

Not sure, it's across a council border and although I'd be able to see it I don't feel that justifies my time or gives me a sufficiently valid opinion.

Right now it's a mix of upland grazing and forestry.

The multiple planning applications are for wind turbines. The changes are to tweak where they are sited and make them larger with one or two fewer each time.

The issues as I understand them are that there are about a dozen dwellings each of which would potentially need to be provided with water from a bowser in perpetuity due to the increasingly large concrete foundations that are needed to support the increasingly large proposed turbines. It would basically render their houses unsellable. Probably has made it effectively the case for the last decade already.

Given the developers can't realistically know what will happen until it is too late, and given it's not a particularly good wind resource anyway, it strikes me that they are only persisting because they can, and that this will be one of many sites where repeat planning applications are submitted and that the economics of getting enough through make the misery of the local people at each site irrelevant.

I think these are slightly different issues than creeping expansion of a town along a railway, for example.

rjsterry

First.Aspect said:

rjsterry said:

First.Aspect said:

Pross said:

First.Aspect said:

Pross said:

^Sums the system up nicely. You’ll get all sorts of bollox spread by pressure groups that others latch on to and regularly see hundreds of objection letters that are identical other than the details of the objector It does work the other way sometimes, I worked on one job that got refused planning several times and on a fresh application the developer was pushing their consultants to write letters of support. I refused as I lived 50 miles away so shouldn’t comment and told them I wouldn’t ask colleagues to as it was unprofessional.

You can probably understand objections to something like a waste to energy plant or heavy industrial but I’ve worked on several schools developments where there has been highly organised objection at planning, threats of a judicial review that they backed down from as they knew they had no chance of success then all sorts of hassle during construction. They are usually Rick’s boomers and just don’t want anything built in their area.

I don't know much about the system in England, but as far as I'm aware in Scotland only the planning applicant has the right to seek judicial review. It is an inherently lopsided system in that regard.

Moving back to some of the comments from you and rjst, respectfully you are coming at this from the perspective that your livelihoods directly or indirectly rely on planning permission being granted. And there is some whataboutery when it comes to your perspectives on silly people objecting to things in silly ways. You aren't coming up with any examples of ill conceived plans that draw widespread objections or that are refused, or worse still go through regardless of local sentiment and good reasons to the contrary. Even when I pointed one out to rsjt, the presumption was of people objecting after the fact, when this wasn't the case at all. Even where this is the case, one tends to find that "public consultation" is via creaking planning portals, with hundreds of documents and no indication whatsoever which are the salient ones. At best one might get a public consultation in a village hall for a week or so during working hours. At least around here.

You guys seem to have lost track that whilst you can do this stuff in detail during working hours, or know what to look for in planning submissions for large scale development, some other people are otherwise occupied.

I've address how upsetting it can be for people when there is a material loss of amenity in their area, and I don't know that you can empathise with this until it happens to you. But I do think you are dismissing it too easily as nimbyism because you have a vested interest in the other result.

Similarly, the supposedly spurious objections using template letters will possibly pull in a few objections that would not otherwise be raised, but are often genuine objections by people taking an active interest in the process. Communities do get together and try to speak with a common voice. There is a real incompatibility between criticising silly emotional objectors on the one hand, and then also criticising people who make an effort to object in a way that community councils and the like tell them are the salient issues from a planning perspective.

I get paid whether a site gets consent or not and we make far more on sites that don’t get through at the first time of asking. Of course I can empathise, my parents had a beautiful view across open fields from their back garden to the mountains in the distance and it now has a large estate being built on it. It’s not great but ultimately it wouldn’t have been great for previous residents when their estate was built. The fact is we need more housing and it has to go somewhere.

My frustration comes from when you make applications that tick all the boxes required under various complex planning policies introduced by various elected Parliaments and Local Authorities, the planning officer agrees everything is OK and then a bunch of untrained Councillors overrule their own officers and policies purely to keep a bunch of vocal voters happy. These Councils literally take years allocating land for various types of development, agree how many houses are needed in each area and then refuse applications to build them.

Do the public have a say? If they do, it seems not unreasonable for local councillors, who are elected to represent the public, to make decisions based on feedback they receive from the electorate; regardless of whether it is compliant with the local development plan or not. Imo developers should face a very high bar because you can't undevelop something if it turns out to be dreadful.

Repeat applications are an interesting one. Seems to me that the system is routinely abused as a means of making non-fundamental changes to get something through by sheer endurance. The public loses interest, the planning officers get beaten down.

There are farms near here with tenants on them, and home owners with private water supplies at material risk who have been living with the threat of one particular development for a decade now, that has been dressed up as a series of "new" applications with a different shade of lipstick.

Eventually, the developer is bound to win.

What does the Local Plan (or Scottish equivalent) say about the use of that land?

Not sure, it's across a council border and although I'd be able to see it I don't feel that justifies my time or gives me a sufficiently valid opinion.

Right now it's a mix of upland grazing and forestry.

The multiple planning applications are for wind turbines. The changes are to tweak where they are sited and make them larger with one or two fewer each time.

The issues as I understand them are that there are about a dozen dwellings each of which would potentially need to be provided with water from a bowser in perpetuity due to the increasingly large concrete foundations that are needed to support the increasingly large proposed turbines. It would basically render their houses unsellable. Probably has made it effectively the case for the last decade already.

Given the developers can't realistically know what will happen until it is too late, and given it's not a particularly good wind resource anyway, it strikes me that they are only persisting because they can, and that this will be one of many sites where repeat planning applications are submitted and that the economics of getting enough through make the misery of the local people at each site irrelevant.

I think these are slightly different issues than creeping expansion of a town along a railway, for example.

If they have applied and been refused multiple times, what more do you want? You seem to have the idea that there's no or minimal cost in submitting an application. For something on this scale it is likely to be a 5 figure sum for each application.

First.Aspect

rjsterry said:

First.Aspect said:

rjsterry said:

First.Aspect said:

Pross said:

First.Aspect said:

Pross said:

^Sums the system up nicely. You’ll get all sorts of bollox spread by pressure groups that others latch on to and regularly see hundreds of objection letters that are identical other than the details of the objector It does work the other way sometimes, I worked on one job that got refused planning several times and on a fresh application the developer was pushing their consultants to write letters of support. I refused as I lived 50 miles away so shouldn’t comment and told them I wouldn’t ask colleagues to as it was unprofessional.

You can probably understand objections to something like a waste to energy plant or heavy industrial but I’ve worked on several schools developments where there has been highly organised objection at planning, threats of a judicial review that they backed down from as they knew they had no chance of success then all sorts of hassle during construction. They are usually Rick’s boomers and just don’t want anything built in their area.

I don't know much about the system in England, but as far as I'm aware in Scotland only the planning applicant has the right to seek judicial review. It is an inherently lopsided system in that regard.

Moving back to some of the comments from you and rjst, respectfully you are coming at this from the perspective that your livelihoods directly or indirectly rely on planning permission being granted. And there is some whataboutery when it comes to your perspectives on silly people objecting to things in silly ways. You aren't coming up with any examples of ill conceived plans that draw widespread objections or that are refused, or worse still go through regardless of local sentiment and good reasons to the contrary. Even when I pointed one out to rsjt, the presumption was of people objecting after the fact, when this wasn't the case at all. Even where this is the case, one tends to find that "public consultation" is via creaking planning portals, with hundreds of documents and no indication whatsoever which are the salient ones. At best one might get a public consultation in a village hall for a week or so during working hours. At least around here.

You guys seem to have lost track that whilst you can do this stuff in detail during working hours, or know what to look for in planning submissions for large scale development, some other people are otherwise occupied.

I've address how upsetting it can be for people when there is a material loss of amenity in their area, and I don't know that you can empathise with this until it happens to you. But I do think you are dismissing it too easily as nimbyism because you have a vested interest in the other result.

Similarly, the supposedly spurious objections using template letters will possibly pull in a few objections that would not otherwise be raised, but are often genuine objections by people taking an active interest in the process. Communities do get together and try to speak with a common voice. There is a real incompatibility between criticising silly emotional objectors on the one hand, and then also criticising people who make an effort to object in a way that community councils and the like tell them are the salient issues from a planning perspective.

I get paid whether a site gets consent or not and we make far more on sites that don’t get through at the first time of asking. Of course I can empathise, my parents had a beautiful view across open fields from their back garden to the mountains in the distance and it now has a large estate being built on it. It’s not great but ultimately it wouldn’t have been great for previous residents when their estate was built. The fact is we need more housing and it has to go somewhere.

My frustration comes from when you make applications that tick all the boxes required under various complex planning policies introduced by various elected Parliaments and Local Authorities, the planning officer agrees everything is OK and then a bunch of untrained Councillors overrule their own officers and policies purely to keep a bunch of vocal voters happy. These Councils literally take years allocating land for various types of development, agree how many houses are needed in each area and then refuse applications to build them.

Do the public have a say? If they do, it seems not unreasonable for local councillors, who are elected to represent the public, to make decisions based on feedback they receive from the electorate; regardless of whether it is compliant with the local development plan or not. Imo developers should face a very high bar because you can't undevelop something if it turns out to be dreadful.

Repeat applications are an interesting one. Seems to me that the system is routinely abused as a means of making non-fundamental changes to get something through by sheer endurance. The public loses interest, the planning officers get beaten down.

There are farms near here with tenants on them, and home owners with private water supplies at material risk who have been living with the threat of one particular development for a decade now, that has been dressed up as a series of "new" applications with a different shade of lipstick.

Eventually, the developer is bound to win.

What does the Local Plan (or Scottish equivalent) say about the use of that land?

Not sure, it's across a council border and although I'd be able to see it I don't feel that justifies my time or gives me a sufficiently valid opinion.

Right now it's a mix of upland grazing and forestry.

The multiple planning applications are for wind turbines. The changes are to tweak where they are sited and make them larger with one or two fewer each time.

The issues as I understand them are that there are about a dozen dwellings each of which would potentially need to be provided with water from a bowser in perpetuity due to the increasingly large concrete foundations that are needed to support the increasingly large proposed turbines. It would basically render their houses unsellable. Probably has made it effectively the case for the last decade already.

Given the developers can't realistically know what will happen until it is too late, and given it's not a particularly good wind resource anyway, it strikes me that they are only persisting because they can, and that this will be one of many sites where repeat planning applications are submitted and that the economics of getting enough through make the misery of the local people at each site irrelevant.

I think these are slightly different issues than creeping expansion of a town along a railway, for example.

If they have applied and been refused multiple times, what more do you want? You seem to have the idea that there's no or minimal cost in submitting an application. For something on this scale it is likely to be a 5 figure sum for each application.

What more do I want? I don't know, a limit to the number of times the same applicant can apply for the same thing in the same place maybe?

First.Aspect

Sorry. 5 figure sum? It is absolute peanuts to the applicants for this sort of development. What sort of a hurdle is that for either an estate owner or a national power company?

rjsterry

Maximum application fee is £300k in E&W, + professional fees, which would usually be greater. Difficult to gauge the scale of what you are describing but fee is based on land area. If they are throwing more money than that at it, it would pretty quickly become cheaper to either buy the neighbours out or offer some form of mitigation. I'm still not entirely clear how the foundations of a wind turbine affect what is presumably some sort of aquifer.

It does go back to the Local Plan, though. If that land has been designated as suitable for a wind farm, then that's why the applicant keeps trying.

First.Aspect

It is basically peatland with various natural spring sources and it seems not to be possible for anyone to definitively figure out where the water will drain once they've dried out the parts they need to in order to develop, and crushed the hell out if the rest with the machinery needed to get to where they will defelop. Sounds like a plausible concern for the home owners to me.

I don't know that there is a specific designation for land suitable for wind. Other than "Scotland". I do know that around here the local plan landscape assessment says 50m is about the maximum allowable, and this doesn't stop applications for 150-180m turbines being submitted and resubmitted and resubmitted again, appealed and then taken to government level for final decision.

rjsterry

We seem to be getting bogged down in details in only tangentially related cases again.

Should someone's need to get their water from a spring (rather than some other source) trump the need for more renewable generation? I'm not sure it should.

I do think we need to get over the idea that we can all have what we want without compromise and without any changes to the wider environment. That ship has sailed.

First.Aspect

rjsterry said:

We seem to be getting bogged down in details in only tangentially related cases again.

Should someone's need to get their water from a spring (rather than some other source) trump the need for more renewable generation? I'm not sure it should.

I do think we need to get over the idea that we can all have what we want without compromise and without any changes to the wider environment. That ship has sailed.

Should someone lose their home in order to site a wind turbine that could equally go somewhere else? I don't think they should.

What I don't get from you is much acknowledgement that where there are objections to planning, this might be a result of there better alternatives being obviously available. The presumption - I accept most likely from being ground down over time - is that all applications are always objected to by the public.

I actually think people are generally slightly more balanced. There has been a huge amount of housing development both here in Midlothian and across in East Lothian in the last few years and whilst I'm sure there are objectors, the developments aren't as far as I can tell controversial overall.

I can't say the same for some of the partially submerged developments that are consistently proposed down in Devon where our family lives. There seems to be more of a tendency to throw shit at the wall to see what will stick in that region, and a bit more incredulity an local opposition at some of the proposed sites.

Perhaps I'm wrong. It is largely anecdotal after all.

Dorset_Boy

rjsterry said:

We seem to be getting bogged down in details in only tangentially related cases again.

Should someone's need to get their water from a spring (rather than some other source) trump the need for more renewable generation? I'm not sure it should.

I do think we need to get over the idea that we can all have what we want without compromise and without any changes to the wider environment. That ship has sailed.

If it means that the person who lived there the planning application was submitted, and the proposal makes their home uninhabitable, then yes, it should. It has to be up to the developer to find an acceptable and realistic solution to enable the individual to continue to live in THEIR HOME..

briantrumpet

Dorset_Boy said:

rjsterry said:

We seem to be getting bogged down in details in only tangentially related cases again.

Should someone's need to get their water from a spring (rather than some other source) trump the need for more renewable generation? I'm not sure it should.

I do think we need to get over the idea that we can all have what we want without compromise and without any changes to the wider environment. That ship has sailed.

If it means that the person who lived there the planning application was submitted, and the proposal makes their home uninhabitable, then yes, it should. It has to be up to the developer to find an acceptable and realistic solution to enable the individual to continue to live in THEIR HOME..

Though that isn't an absolute right, as compulsory purchase orders illustrate.