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New Planning Powers Still Failing to Excite Mayor

Fri 14 Nov 2008

A frisson of excitement went round the room as Boris Johnson bounced onto the podium at the Future of London conference held in Westminster earlier this month. "I am excited about the future of London" he boomed confidently and suddenly everyone started to feel a bit more excited as well. "Rumours of the death of the London economy" he said with a glint "are somewhat exaggerated". There would certainly be a "downturn" but he admonished us to not go "all gloomy" on him.

Boris then went on to explain his vision for the future in more detail and it became clear that several topics particularly excited him; the Olympics for one, and transport for another, especially Crossrail and the Thames Tideway Tunnel. He also confirmed that the GLA and the LDA would do what they could to "jumpstart" London's stalled housing and leaked that the draft Housing Strategy, as first mentioned in his report "Planning for a Better London" issued in July (the "July Report"), is likely to be issued next month. However, it was telling that no mention was made of his new planning powers.

London has a population of over 7.5 million which is expected to increase to 8.1 million by 2016. Having one of the strongest economies in the world, despite the credit crunch, London's continued success, according to Peter Bishop of the LDA also speaking at the Conference, is getting the right strategic policies for housing, transport, the environment and climate right for a "sustainable future".

The Mayor is responsible for overseeing strategic planning in London and producing the Spatial Development Plan for London - called the London Plan. This was first published in 2004 and contains a policy framework looking ahead for the next 15-20 years. Revised once this year already, Boris confirmed that further revisions were in the process of being drafted. It is expected that there will be changes to the current model of sub-regional boundaries (more commonly known as "pizza wedges") as these are regarded as not being sufficiently "permeable", greater protection for the Green Belt, Metropolitan Open Land and green spaces, as well as polices to promote energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions - such as area-wide community heating networks. Housing policies are likely to relax the current blanket target of 50% affordable housing for new developments and allow for higher proportions of intermediate housing (the draft Housing Strategy should provide further detail).

In order to ensure that the policies within the London Plan are implemented, the Greater London Authority Act 2007 gave the Mayor new powers to call-in planning applications which have potential strategic importance ("PSI applications") and determine them in place of boroughs, as opposed to simply being able to direct refusal as was the previous case. Details for implementation of his new powers are contained within the Town and Country Planning (Mayor of London) Order 2008 which came into effect on 6 April 2008. The Regulations introduced a three stage process for referrals:

Stage 1 - The Mayor has 6 weeks from receipt of a PSI application to issue a statement confirming whether the application complies with the London Plan or whether there are no issues of strategic importance;

Stage 2 - Once a borough has made a decision about a PSI application it must notify the Mayor of its decision and the Mayor has 14 days to decide whether to allow the borough to proceed with its decision; to direct a refusal; or to decide whether to take over determination.

Stage 3 - If the Mayor decides to call-in the application, he must then duly determine it.

When coming to power in May, Boris Johnson let it be known that he would take a 'hands-off' approach to planning within boroughs and the July Report confirmed that he intended to use his powers "sparingly". True to his word, Boris has not used his new powers to determine a single PSI application despite a large number of referrals. Instead, the emphasis has shifted to providing remedies to address deficiencies within Stage 1 Compliance Reports.

In some respects, although very different to the former Mayor's microscopic approach to planning, Boris could in fact be praised for taking a step back from the minutiae to concentrate on the over-arching strategic issues affecting London. Whether he will be able to remain detached from the planning process, however, will be interesting to see, especially in respect of the delivery of the Olympics and the regeneration of East London. But in any event, although the planning process may fail to excite Boris, his enthusiasm and optimism for the Capital was warmly received by delegates at the Conference and makes a welcome change to the continuing gloomy economic forecasts.

Sara Hanrahan is a Partner in the Planning and Environment Group at Winckworth Sherwood.

This article was edited and published in Planning Magazine - 7 November 2008