Hard on the heels of opening up the processing of planning applications to the private sector comes the ‘opportunity’ for private water companies to now deliver and be responsible for flood defences. Water minister Rory […]
Lords call for government rethink on the built environment
The National Policy for the Built Environment Committee has recently asserted the importance of delivering a better built environment and is concerned about; the quality of new developments and the risk of housing delivery being […]
Lords issue critical report on government housing policies
Peers have added their voice to those criticising current government policies as unlikely to meet demand for either the quantity or quality of new homes needed. The Lords Select Committee on National Policy for the […]
‘Enabling development’ – How much is too much?
The English Heritage (now Historic England) criteria used to assess the acceptability of enabling development require that only the minimum necessary (development) is consented to secure the future of the asset. An economic assessment is […]
Heritage assets – the art of ‘enabling development’
The term ‘enabling development’ is not a statutory one. It generally refers to a state of affairs in which development that would otherwise be considered harmful is considered acceptable because it would facilitate (or ‘enable’) […]
Privatising planning by the back door
The Government has fired the starting gun on the privatisation of the planning system. Thinly veiled to speed up the planning process, developers in a few pilot areas will be able to choose who processes […]