Will Boris turn the planning system upside down?

I made a startling discovery the other day. Walking up my street, I found myself taking a fresh look at my very first self build, completed some 20-odd years ago.

You’d think that after all this time, not to mention the two years of building that preceded it, I’d be familiar with every square inch. And I am. Every aspect is steeped in memories – but not always good ones. 

It seemed that every stage of the project – from planning permission to foundations to mains sewer connections – opened a fresh controversy, with neighbours, local planners or Building Control. Not that the problems weren’t solved eventually, but, as tyro selfbuilders, my wife and I were baffled, and occasionally infuriated, by the constant difficulties and the apparent strength of local opposition.

After all, weren’t we trying to improve the neighbourhood – at our own effort and expense? A rather nondescript ex-local council semi was being extended on one side by the equivalent of a narrow three-storey townhouse. To balance the facade of the extension, a metre-deep span of concrete flat roof covering the porch and the entrance to an integral garage was built upwards into a gabled bay. 

Did the neighbours really prefer the eight-feet high brambles which had previously occupied our side plot? 

But then came the other day. You need to understand that the street was originally filled with large Victorian and Edwardian properties with even larger gardens. Over the years many were either converted into flats or replaced by multiple smaller homes, including my own. But, more recently, the replacements have been even bigger, boundary-spanning properties, often with attic accommodation and basements to maximise floor space. As a result I find myself living in a street of ever enlarging buildings. 

And the discovery I made? My original home and its townhouse extension seemed to fit right in.

Sadly, this is not because of their size. It’s because they’re sited near the top of a hill, half masked by a conveniently big tree. All anyone sees approaching from below are two rendered facades – one three-storey, the other two. It looks like one substantial house.

In fact, it’s now two separate properties. But the thought struck me. If they manage to seem so much bigger than they really are today, what impact would they have had 20 years ago?

Suddenly my neighbours’ objections don’t seem quite so obtuse. That doesn’t mean I entirely forgive them, of course. But it does reveal how easy it is to become locked into one’s own carefully thought-out perspective. And the more carefully thought out it is, the less likely you are to consider the perspectives of others, who naturally won’t have thought out theirs quite as carefully as you.

This thought arises this month because Britain seems on the cusp of big changes in the planning regulations. Boris has announced ‘Project Speed’ to ‘build back better, build back greener, build back faster’, promising ‘the most radical reforms to our planning system since the Second World War’.

It would be hard to deny reform is needed. As selfbuilders quickly discover, the UK’s planning regulations are complex, sometimes contradictory with decisions often made by elected councillors who are more skilled in local politics than they are in design or construction. Worse, planning departments have suffered dramatic cuts over the past decade, shedding hundreds of experienced staff. All this has made life easier for NIMBYs and planning success even more of a lottery. 

At the time of writing details on the government’s reforms are scant. There will apparently be greater freedom for developers to convert vacant or unused buildings, including shops, into residences without the need for planning permission. Two extra storeys can also be added to existing blocks of flats. High standards and current regulations will still have to be followed, ‘just without the unnecessary red tape’.

But similar planning-free conversions of offices and commercial buildings into flats have been allowed since 2013. A recent independent report, however, found that one in five didn’t meet the government’s own minimum space standards. Some were as small as 13 sqm. Others had no windows – though the new reforms will demand minimum standards of natural light.

But perhaps the most promising part of the government’s proposed reforms isn’t in their recent announcement – it’s in a recent appointment. Boris’s new housing and planning advisor is Jack Airey, co-author of a report from the Policy Exchange think tank called Rethinking the Planning System for the 21st Century. 

The report’s big idea is zoning. This designates all land either as development or non-development land. Any proposed development has to follow a simple set of rules, designated in a Local Plan. As long as the development complies with the rules – and follows the Building Regulations – it’s acceptable. Local authorities will no longer sit in judgement over every application.

The idea has echoes of the Graven Hill development in Oxfordshire where plots come with pre-approved outline planning permission, or Almere in the Netherlands where each plot is sold with a ‘passport’ outlining the basic requirements for each build. Typically this consists of the maximum height of the property, its distance from its neighbours and building lines for front and rear. Beyond that, you’re free to build what you want.

Would a system like this have made a difference with my neighbours of 20 years ago? At least I could have claimed to have followed the rules from the start, rather than spend 18 months discovering they were only vague ideas in the minds of planning officers and councillors, which might change at any moment. That has to be an improvement.

September 2020