I had a bit of a "bad mother morning" yesterday (one school shoe mysteriously disappeared completely; key bit of games kit still in wash; a note needed for the teacher - you know the sort of thing) and, as a result, was a little late for the Hamptons International breakfast seminar, but I sure am glad I made the effort!
I learnt one helluva lot and I may be reporting on this for some days. Hats off to Hamptons for a brilliant bit of thought leadership in the housing field.
Matthew Mainwaring of Indigo Planning gave us a good canter around the changing arena for town planning and house building and was rather entertaining on the recent Cala Homes litigation, which he claimed was a "major embarrassment" for Eric Pickles (pictured).
As a result of which, he said (quite rightly) that Regional Spatial Strategies have not been revoked and "will not be abolished until the Localism Bill receives royal ascent".
So you can still rely on RSSs outside London (London being a special case because of the retention of the GLA London Plan, of course). He urged his audience of housebuilders to progress schemes that rely on RSS housing requirements before abolition of RSSs because, he said, "the window is shutting quickly".
I learnt one helluva lot and I may be reporting on this for some days. Hats off to Hamptons for a brilliant bit of thought leadership in the housing field.
Matthew Mainwaring of Indigo Planning gave us a good canter around the changing arena for town planning and house building and was rather entertaining on the recent Cala Homes litigation, which he claimed was a "major embarrassment" for Eric Pickles (pictured). As a result of which, he said (quite rightly) that Regional Spatial Strategies have not been revoked and "will not be abolished until the Localism Bill receives royal ascent".
So you can still rely on RSSs outside London (London being a special case because of the retention of the GLA London Plan, of course). He urged his audience of housebuilders to progress schemes that rely on RSS housing requirements before abolition of RSSs because, he said, "the window is shutting quickly".
Wise words, although perhaps a little unnecessary with that particular
audience, who I am sure will be like the proverbial rats up drainpipes
on this front. I think we can safely predict a rash of developers being
prepared to pay handsomely to accelerate the schemes they have that
depend on RSS data through planning with those local authorities that
are prepared to take the shilling.
Well, every cloud has a silver lining: I guess we should welcome anything that contributes to the hard-pressed coffers of the local authorities and, moreover, potentially hastens the delivery of new homes when there is such a chronic shortage.
But embarrassment? Mr Pickles? I don't think so, somehow. The only people who really got worked up by the Cala Homes ruling was Cala Homes themselves, their advisers, the property press and all of us in the industry. You will recall we all ran around like headless chickens thinking we'd got 'em banged to rights. But the government barely seemed to notice.
As one particularly sagacious ex-senior civil servant said to me at the time of the ruling: "Always ask yourself - or better still, your lawyer - what 'winning' against the secretary of state really means. All he has to do is do it again, but in the right way. Any embarrassment is temporary." Call me cynical if you like, but this has the ring of truth for me.
Well, every cloud has a silver lining: I guess we should welcome anything that contributes to the hard-pressed coffers of the local authorities and, moreover, potentially hastens the delivery of new homes when there is such a chronic shortage.
But embarrassment? Mr Pickles? I don't think so, somehow. The only people who really got worked up by the Cala Homes ruling was Cala Homes themselves, their advisers, the property press and all of us in the industry. You will recall we all ran around like headless chickens thinking we'd got 'em banged to rights. But the government barely seemed to notice.
As one particularly sagacious ex-senior civil servant said to me at the time of the ruling: "Always ask yourself - or better still, your lawyer - what 'winning' against the secretary of state really means. All he has to do is do it again, but in the right way. Any embarrassment is temporary." Call me cynical if you like, but this has the ring of truth for me.
Leave a comment
What a user pic? Get a Gravatar!