Red Hot Planning Chat

Sam Stafford was in London recently and whilst there caught up with friends of the podcast Hana Loftus, Mike Kiely, Nicola Gooch, Simon Ricketts and Andrew Taylor.

Hana is a Director at HAT Projects; Mike is a former Chief Planner and now an independent planning consultant working mainly in the public sector; Nicola is a Partner at Birketts; Simon is a Partner at Town Legal and Andrew is Group Planning & Sustainability Director at Vistry.

In a conversation recorded at Soho Radio Studios they chatted about some of the hot topics exercising the planning profession at the minute.

They talked about the legal challenge by some London boroughs to the Mayor’s package of time-limited emergency measures to support housebuilding. They talked about planning committees, the national scheme of delegation, statutory chief planners, the designation of LPAs for poor performance, the Nature Restoration Fund, the need for the NPPF as soon as possible, and they talked about S73B. The hottest topic of all though, given that this episode was recorded during a red extreme heat warming, was whether the addition of awnings and air conditioning units are or should be permitted development.

Some accompanying reading.

Wishful Thinking

Legal battle brews over London's affordable homes target

Why NPPFs fail #1 - planning by committee

Delegation default: power to the Chief Planner

Good Practice Note - National Scheme of Delegation

Route 62A

The draft Nature Restoration Levy Regulations are here