Is the planning system corrupt?

Boadicea

When I lived in Hastings public consultations were supposedly still going on regarding the building of the Jerwood Gallery when the signs "To the Jerwood Gallery" were erected!

Many large old buildings are left empty - former schools, hospitals etc. Developers buy them and apply for pp to demolish and build houses/flats.
When this is refused the buildings stand empty for a while then mysteriously catch fire and have to be demolished "for safety reasons" - so then developers reapply and invariably get their way.

Yes, strange isn't it, the number of buildings which 'catch fire' after planning permission has been refused then mysteriously the developers get permission to carry out their plans.

Greyduster

^My particular beef is with developers who blithely promise to incorporate a percentage of affordable homes into their plans in order to persuade a local authority to rubber stamp planning permission, and then - lo and behold - when the development is completed there isn't a single affordable property to be seen!^
This happened recently when an extension of 200+ houses was added to our estate. Also promised were cycle lanes and an extension to the public transport system. Has any of this happened? No. Most of the houses were sold off plan and none of them were “affordable”. The other concern is that builders still appear to be building on lands which are flood plains. This is happening where my son and also a friend of mine live in York and there are public concerns about where all that water is going to be drained off to. Appeals to the council fall on deaf ears.

Over the past 10 or so years we have had huge developements around where I live.

Developers have to have a certain % of social housing and 'affordable homes' starting price £350K for 2 bed house. BUT, all the social housing developements were sold to London councils, we live in Kent. So there is no chance of locals getting local social housing or even getting on the housing ladder.

‘Affordable’ is 80% of the average house price. In a nearby, really wealthy town, that would make a property £900:000.

kjmpde

I do think that planning rules are peculiar. I once attended a planning meeting where a woman wanted to rebuild her house which had burnt down. the fire brigade had confirmed that the fire had spread very quickly due to the thatched roof and also burnt down the adjacent buildings. the lady wanted a tile/slate roof on her house. the local councillors were more concerned about how "pretty " thatches were and not the recommendations to have a less roof which burnt down so quickly. The same with applications to remove trees - the risk to human safety goes out of the window when the tree officer likes a particular variety of tree.
I know of one developer that bought several houses in our village and then built extra houses in the gardens. There is also the old trick of getting planning permission for a garage and then it is so easy to get permission to convert into an extra room.

Any thatched house is going to be listed and strict controls on replacing like with like and very little leeway.
Extra houses in gardens is very normal infill and as long as it’s a similar style will usually get passed
Converting a garage, maybe into a “granny flat” is allowed, as ancillary to the main house as a single dwelling, and cannot be later sold off.
Empty property, pubs are often left empty if they are not going to be economic, but it takes 3 yrs to get change of use. Several in this area have been changed to residential, 2 with little car parking into starter homes, one larger site into 2 detached and 2 semis, very successfully.

Okdokey08

Thought this was “Gransnet”?

What do you mean?

Thought this was “Gransnet”?

When I lived in Hastings public consultations were supposedly still going on regarding the building of the Jerwood Gallery when the signs "To the Jerwood Gallery" were erected!

Many large old buildings are left empty - former schools, hospitals etc. Developers buy them and apply for pp to demolish and build houses/flats.
When this is refused the buildings stand empty for a while then mysteriously catch fire and have to be demolished "for safety reasons" - so then developers reapply and invariably get their way.

JaneJudge

Where I live, the land owners have the same surname as most of the local councillors and as it's not a common name I suspect it's all related

Hmmm........same surname? Sounds like a spot of Local Government inbreeding going on there. Handy for manipulating planning committees.

There are stranger things in this strange world, but I'd have to go a long way to find anything much stranger than the workings of Local Government.

I’ve come to the sad conclusion that the whole bloomin’ lot are corrupt- councils, governments, you name it. They might start off with good intentions but it doesn’t seem to last.

In my area it is an understood thing that planning applications from individuals will automatically be refused. It gives extra work to the planning department and extra income for the council. There are 2 stupid refusals I know of. One was for repairs to a house which had had a fire. The other one was in an old house which had 7 different window styles, installed over a number of years. The owner wanted to install a unified style but was told to replace like with like, The house was not in a conservation area. It seems to be the old saying “ It’s not what you know it is who you know”

I do think that planning rules are peculiar. I once attended a planning meeting where a woman wanted to rebuild her house which had burnt down. the fire brigade had confirmed that the fire had spread very quickly due to the thatched roof and also burnt down the adjacent buildings. the lady wanted a tile/slate roof on her house. the local councillors were more concerned about how "pretty " thatches were and not the recommendations to have a less roof which burnt down so quickly. The same with applications to remove trees - the risk to human safety goes out of the window when the tree officer likes a particular variety of tree.
I know of one developer that bought several houses in our village and then built extra houses in the gardens. There is also the old trick of getting planning permission for a garage and then it is so easy to get permission to convert into an extra room.

Developers probably give backhanders LOL.

... and outline planning applications allow fraudulent developers to manipulate their plans behind the veil of secrecy, brown envelopes and outright lies and inviting objections on the public access website just plays into a corrupt system.

PoliticsNerd

I don't think turning an existing building into 30+ apartments is unreasonable. We have a new village ov 3,000 houses being built in the lovely countryside near us and most accept it the issues are more with the services.

I would be interested to know what the council's reply was regarding the HMO though.

I agree, a Victorian hospital is not fit for it's original use any more and realistically, it's not going to be purchased for a single-family home. Turning it into flats seems the best possible option for the building; the alternative would be razing it and building a small estate of yet more "executive homes".

That is against the law I'm told. Each development has to have a ratio of affordable houses according to size of the development.

🙄

Maybe the answer is to stand for the local council and try to stop these cowboys rather than to complain and grumble about corruption.

It's the politicians who make planning decisions. They take advice from the planners who are the experts but do not have the power to force the councils or Government to follow their advice.

If the local councils are told they must allow development on Greenbelt land for example, their job is to find some to meet the latest targets.

So don't blame the planners. Blame the system but think about how you can influence the decision makers.

The two men who chopped down the Sycamore Gap were given four years in prison. Councils chop down trees up and down the country every day despite protests of local people and get away with it.

It's corrupt - like more than we imagine

It’s not always the council’s fault - near us a development of 350 houses on two sides of a country lane was refused twice by the council, the developer appealed and it went to a public inquiry. Despite the inspector actually saying that the council’s objections were reasonable, the appeal was allowed “because the country needs more houses” Our area’s yearly target of new houses has been increased by 75% by the new government, and if developers can claim this is not being met, they are likely to win any appeals. What they do is get planning permission for less desirable sites and then don’t build the houses, so when they want to build on sites that will sell better, they can claim that the targets have not been met.

A farmer friend requested permission to build two houses on some land he owned near a main road. Refused. He sold the land shortly after, it changed hands overnight, and now, a few years later, there is a massive and still growing development, almost a new town.

I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that planning officials are bribed.

homefarm

There are no such things as affordable homes. The minute they are sold the price goes up and they become part of the housing stock. The only way to reinstate affordable housing is to have council owned housing that CAN NOT be sold. We have major issues with this in rural areas

This is so true. Affordable homes were built by a housing association behind our house and a lot of trouble was taken to make sure that they used appropriate materials and built in a style which suited the village. Sure enough, as soon as the required time had elapsed, the residents started to sell them.
A small number of really nice four bedroomed homes were built for large families on the edge of a council estate locally and within 5 years they'd all been sold on.

I cost £5 million

The car park is hardly used except by skateboarders