By Neil Turner, Director, Howarth Litchfield.
As we move into the new year having had time to re charge my batteries over Christmas, I looked at the list of exciting projects in the practice, ranging from schools and medical centres to churches, offices and factories.
The one thing they all seen to have in common – is the need to gain permission through the planning system. There are many risks and challenges on a project, but planning seems to be getting trickier and more complex, not simpler. We keep hearing that central government wants to simply speed up the planning process and encourage more development and investment for the health of the economy, but this is not yet happening.
Over the years the planning process has become elongated, more demanding and very expensive. The initial ‘risk’ investment in money and stress has grown for clients.
I can’t help feeling (and wish) for a more responsive process that feels less obstructive and confrontational. I don’t mean that the local authority planning officers are confrontational – far from it – but the process and extensive need for reports has created a long, hard and difficult system to navigate.
The whole planning process can feel like walking through treacle. Certainly, the role and skills of planning consultants have expanded as we wade through the endless list of deliverables and specialist reports required for applications.
However surely the answer is not less scrutiny, but a simpler, refined system, not weighed down by BNG, ecology, transport, visual assessments, light studies, drainage studies, sustainability, flood risk reports…I could keep going.
We should look to place ‘need’, justification and design at its centre rather than a bureaucratic process of endless technical reports. Now I would say that – I hear you cry – but it does feel that the actual client need for buildings – whether a factory, a house or a school – is secondary to the roost of a bat or a tree count.
Design needs to be central to the quality argument. For example, if I were applying to build St Paul’s Cathedral today, would I get permission? Probably not – suggesting a large stone Baroque building, with a dome, largely Italian in inspiration, not at all built in the English style and set amongst two-storey timber houses!
Closer to home would I get permission to build Dobson’s majestic Victorian Newcastle railway station today in the centre of the town, dominant in its position?
Of course, we want buildings to fit into their surrounding and use local vernacular materials but also, we want contrast and new ideas, which represent modern society. All these help create the richness of this country’s architecture and the variation in our architectural heritage.
Planning needs policing, so that the right building developments occur and to the right standard of design. I would advocate that architects should be submitting all applications, as other major European countries insist. This would help increase the chance of design being given due consideration in the process.
In the meantime, we will work to the best of our abilities to achieve permissions, working alongside planning consultants and overworked planning officers, to get quality buildings passed and ready for construction. The overall economy would be greatly helped by advocating simplicity in the planning system to shorten the timelines and risks.
Neil Turner, Director, Howarth Litchfield can be contacted on 0191 384 9470 or email n.turner@hlpuk.com
www.howarthlitchfield.com