By Neil Turner, Director, Howarth Litchfield
Earlier in the year I wrote an article on the upcoming election and possible elements that could help the construction industry. We now have a new government and there has already been commentary on green belts, housing and onshore wind farms.
So, what can we see for the whole country and the North East in particular? Whatever your political view is now irrelevant as we consider what might be the direction of travel for the next five years.
One of the major areas of contention will be development in the green belt, which seems to polarise views and emotions. In our region the Tyne and Wear green belt area stretches from Durham in the south to Hexham in the west and north to Longhorsley and across to the coast in Whitburn. So, any change to green belt status will have a significant impact in our region.
Nobody is advocating opening the flood gates to development everywhere, but we need to look at what is important to preserve and what can be developed in a structured and sensible manner.
I know what it’s like to be frustrated by development applications in the green belt across different authorities and the impact this has on our economy.
The first step should be to look at re defining the green belt. I think we need a layered approach including green, brown and grey areas – (brown land is previously developed land suitable for housing and building development while grey land is defined as poor quality land and ‘ugly’ areas) – and if you examine the boundary in our region there are logical areas where new housing could be built without affecting the basis of protection of open countryside.
Developing former built areas seems logical but even this is not so under the current rules. Building and developing close or adjacent to towns, and cities has to be the way forward. So why is planning so subjective and feels like buying a lottery ticket?
Current planning is complicated, time consuming and expensive for developers, clients and individuals. I have several clients awaiting planning decisions on major development projects which delay investment and the creation of jobs to feed our regional economy.
So, I will watch with interest to see how the new government will help speed up the planning system. My complaint is not against the hard-working planners working in the local authority but the rules and the regulations they have to work with (or against). We need to have rules and checks on all applications, but we also need a faster, quality-based system that encourages and welcomes proposals, not an adversarial system.
So, if it’s new housing estates, one-off innovative housing, new industries or conversion proposals for old shops on our high streets, then give our local planners the ability to pass these applications and create new buildings. The presumption should be a ‘yes’ not a ‘no’ or worse still no answer and delay.
The problem no doubt will be the lack of resource available as we can’t ‘magic’ new planners out of fresh air, but that is one for government, RTPI, universities and local authorities to solve.
Neil Turner, Director, Howarth Litchfield can be contacted on 0191 3849470 or email n.turner@hlpuk.com
www.howarthlitchfield.com
