Good Practice Guide

Making Successful Planning Applications

Colin Haylock

• Publisher: RIBA Publishing
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781859469200
• eBook ISBN: 9781000217162
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture Design

How do you obtain permission? How can you satisfactorily tackle objections? How can you convince planning officers of the value of your work? Drawing on substantial experience from both applicant and local planning authority perspectives, this book provides tactics and practical steps to help architects secure early validation of applications and successful outcomes. It's a practical guide to understanding the planning system and maximizing the potential for successful outcomes. Readers will develop a greater understanding of the principles that are vital in the preparation and negotiation of applications against the very complex detail of regulatory arrangements.

1
Design and the planning system

This opening chapter outlines the shape of the planning system and key aspects of its operation with a particular focus on the areas where the process involved in the design of development, and the architect’s role in its delivery, are most likely to interface with it.

The basic planning framework

In contrast to the zoning- and coding-based planning systems operating in many other countries, the UK has a highly discretionary planning system. The fundamental basis of this system is the primacy of the development plan.

Reduced to its simplest form, the discretionary system requires local planning authorities (LPAs) to prepare local development plans which follow and apply national planning policy in response to local contexts and their planning needs and to determine applications for planning permission in accordance with the development plan.

The process of preparing local plans requires extensive local consultation and is generally subject to government oversight through the conduct of an examination or inquiry, which will test the alignment of the plan’s proposals with government policy and their suitability in terms of addressing local needs and circumstances.

For architects and others involved, the importance of the local development plan flows from its central role in the determination of planning applications – a role which has persisted through many detailed changes to the planning system. The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) sets it out very clearly:

Planning law requires that applications for planning permission be determined in accordance with the development plan, unless material considerations indicate otherwise.¹

Every LPA has a development plan. Some are clear in their content and produced recently, while others are more dated and may be an assemblage of ‘saved policies’ from previous plans, which can be confusing in situations where local authorities have been merged and a new plan for the merged area is yet to be completed.

Both the preparation of local plans and the operation of decision-making on planning applications are shaped by government planning policy, set out in the NPPF.

While recently adopted local plans are likely to be fully in accordance with the current NPPF, older plans may incorporate policies which have moved from being in full accord with government policy by subsequent policy changes. Where this is the case, it is current government policy, as set out in the current NPPF, which has primacy in the consideration of development proposals. This is an area examined in more detail in Chapter 3, where the guidance focuses on being clear about the planning policies and guidelines that proposals will be evaluated against.

Most LPAs have additional planning frameworks in the form of supplementary planning documents (SPDs), which can either be thematic or area specific in their coverage, and various forms of guidelines or site-specific guidance. Very often, for architects, it is this level of detail that provides the material which most closely guides the design approaches adopted for particular sites.

All these additional frameworks are intended to provide further detail on how the policies in the development plan should be interpreted and applied and cannot be used to add or change policy coverage.

In addition to the LPA’s development plan, you may find yourself encountering a neighbourhood plan covering the area in which you are working. Locally prepared by a parish council or a Neighbourhood Planning Forum, these plans, once successfully passed through a local referendum, have to be adopted by the LPA – at which point they become a part of their local plan coverage of the specific area involved.

One of the most difficult areas for anyone working within this system stems from the section of guidance on the determination of planning applications that stipulates they must be determined in accordance with the development plan ‘unless material considerations indicate otherwise’, which prompts a series of questions:

• Which considerations might indicate that a determination should differ from accordance with the development plan?
• Are there ‘material considerations’ (i.e. considerations which are relevant to planning) in a given case? Sometimes it is easier to determine this aspect by reflecting on issues which are not seen as relevant to planning, such as local trade competition.
• How important are these ‘material considerations’ in the context of the development plan and the proposals contained in the planning application? The greater their importance, the more weight can be given to them in the determination process.

Reducing this complex system to its simplest terms – the older a plan is, the more likely it is to no longer accurately reflect current government planning policy. Therefore, the more likely it is that departures from its policies can be justified in planning terms.

Design within the framework

Most material in the planning framework relates to the ‘what’ and ‘where’ of planning. While architects may be involved in working with and advising on these aspects of planning, the majority of architectural activity will be focused on the ‘how’ dimensions (i.e. the elements of the planning framework for the area which seek to shape/guide appropriate design responses to development). The ‘how’ dimensions feature at all levels of the planning system from national to local.

At the national level, guidance on design is provided through the NPPF, which includes sections on ‘achieving well-designed places’ and ‘conserving and enhancing the historic environment’, which are particularly relevant to design. Each of these areas is supported by elements of related online National Planning Practice Guidance (NPPG), which focuses on the practical interpretation and application of national policy.

The NPPF is structured around the two distinct aspects of planning activity:

• plan-making – the making of planning policy, and
• decision-taking – the determination of planning applications by reference to policy.

In their plan-making activity, LPAs are required to follow and reflect government policy as expressed in the NPPF. Local plan-making activity is subject to extensive consultation requirements, which gives the public generous opportunities for input into the process, allowing them to help shape the direction and detail of the plan. The final chapter of this guide focuses on exploiting the opportunities presented by these and other aspects of local planning policy and guidance making and operation.

As a public process conducted in a democratic context, all these elements are made publicly accessible and are typically available online through Government and LPAs’ websites. The difficulty lies in knowing where to look in order to understand what may, or may not, be in play in terms of policy and guidance locally beyond the local development plan.

A good starting point is to search for the LPA’s Development Plan Scheme. Every LPA will have one and this will list not just the position in respect to any emerging local plan but also any SPDs that have either been prepared or are scheduled for preparation.

It is worth being aware that the Government will review and update both the NPPF and the NPPG from time to time. Since both are available online, it is advisable to check that you are referring to the current versions of each document.

The most recent additions to the stock of national guidance on design are the National Design Guide, based on ten defined characteristics of design, and the National Model Design Code. Both form part of the NPPG and provides general design guidance on government expectations to steer both LPA plan-making and decision-making and in the preparation of any local design guidance or codes which they chose to prepare. They are also there to help developers and their agents prepare proposals that are likely to be received positively in terms of their approach to design.

This approach to guidance on design in planning means that it is vital to establish whether the LPA has its own relatively recently produced local design guidance in your working area. If not, be aware of and respond to the content of the National Model Design Code, which will be the Government’s default guidance in this context.

Many planning policies in the area of design refer to a need to respond to ‘local character’ and a further source of guidance in the ‘how’ of development will lie in any adopted statements of character in areas in which you are working. The presence of character statements is far from universal. In fact, in many LPAs they only exist for conservation areas where they are a requirement of designation but, even then, may not be in place for conservation areas that were designated before the requirement came into effect.

Chapter 3 on ‘Principles for approaching the planning system’ and Chapter 6 on ‘Design Statement as a design process tool’ provide extended coverage on the inclusion of definitions of character as a component of site assessments forming part of Design Statements in support of applications.

Managing the interface between design and planning

In operating the planning process, planning officers tend to start with national policy and guidance, working through the local plan and its policies, followed by any SPDs and local guidelines. This tends to follow a line of thinking from the ‘what’ and ‘where’ to the ‘how’ of the development process, which is not dissimilar to the design process that architects and the development/design team are likely to follow. The process flows from consideration of whether or not the selected site is broadly suitable for the development, through potential approaches to its development, to increasing levels of detail in the design and operation of the proposal.

In ideal terms, an application and pre-application process should be modelled on this journey from the testing of suitability to consideration of increasing levels of detail. It may be achieved through an approach which passes through an application for outline planning consent and the subsequent submission of reserved matters, or through pre-application discussions which, for more complex projects, can move in stages from broad principles to layers and levels of detail.

No party is served well by investment in an application which is insensitive to the planning context and is developed in great detail before submission.

The following chapters seek to explore the journey from development principles to detailed design and examine potential planning concerns about the construction and subsequent operation of developments, aimed at helping design and development teams address issues that are likely to arise at the stage in the process when they can be most effectively resolved.

2
Do I need planning consent or any other planning-related consents?

This chapter outlines the definition of ‘development’ and the related need for planning permission and other forms of consent under planning laws and regulations. It explains the concept of ‘permitted development’ (PD) and offers insight into the constantly changing definition of its scope.

Planning law and regulation

The planning system has a clear legal basis in civil caw, which strays into criminal law in the case of listed buildings and scheduled monuments. The difference reflects the relative seriousness with which breaches of the law in relation to the protection of listed buildings and scheduled monuments are viewed.

Architects will rarely, if ever, need to refer directly to the guiding law, which is both extensive and complex. Planners in their everyday practice will rarely, if ever, do this either, and will mainly rely on an operating familiarity with a few key areas, even when dealing with complex appeals.

Substantially originating in the Town and Country Planning Act of 1947, the legal basis of planning has frequently been revised, with changes consolidated occasionally in a new Act. The most recent consolidation was the 1990 Act, which was repealed in parts by the Planning and Compensation Act 1991 and is now also complemented by the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004.

The most fundamental principles are the need for ‘development’ to secure planning consent under the legislation and related regulations and the availability of enforcement powers to address issues where development has taken place that needed planning consent but does not have it.

The key questions for most architects flowing from this are:

• Is the work ‘development’?
• Is it ‘permitted development’ (i.e. development that is deemed to have planning permission under the General Permitted Development Order (GPDO))?
• If...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• About the author
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Design and the planning system
• 2 Do I need planning consent or any other planning‑related consents?
• 3 Principles for approaching the planning system
• 4 Strategic definition at project inception
• 5 Applications and consents
• 6 Design Statement as a design process tool
• 7 Conditions
• 8 Viability, developer obligations and agreements
• 9 Appeals, enforcement and using specialist support
• 10 Proactive engagement with the shaping and operation of the planning system
• Appendix A: Heritage, Design and Access Statement example
• Appendix B: RIBA Plan of Work 2020
• Glossary
• Endnotes
• Index
• Image credits