Recently in Localism Bill Category

There was an old boy on the Piccadilly line this morning sporting a canvass bag with the very distinctive logos of Lunson Mitchenall, BCSC and Westfield prominently displayed.  Made me smile.  Without wishing to be rude about the old boy on the tube, I do not think he had ever attended a BCSC Conference (from which this bag almost certainly had come) and he was not exactly the ...um ...sort of person that Lunson Mitchenall, or Westfield, or the BCSC come to that, would really have wanted to be seen toting their logo around.

I'm in love again.  What do you mean, you see I'm still a bit loose with my favours?  I only fall in love twice a month these days (after all, it used to be twice a day!) and I am a little more discerning altogether in my old age.  

No, I am hugely in love.  The new object of my affections is Martin Kingston QC, the silky smooth planning Silk from No 5 Chambers. Ooh!  He is gorgeous! A more fragrant and dapper figure you could not meet!  So very clever.  And what a mellifluous voice; a voice like Belgian chocolate!




I attended the greatest "hot ticket" event last Friday morning in "London's Living Room" (sorry, but really! "London's Living Room" is  just too fey for words! Whimsical or what? But a nice space nonetheless). 

The sun was streaming into City Hall (the Thames was twinkling), onto the great and good of the housing industry out in force. Charmaine Young of St George, in the most extraordinary feat, has corralled a massive number of industry leaders to produce the most formidable book Working Together. Delivering Growth through Localism (details can be found at www.berkeleygroup.co.uk/growth-and-localism).  And it is a most assured treatment for the enlightened house builder.  She is indeed a force to be reckoned with. And everyone was there.  

Dr Evans has a cloud of blue fog above his head as work on the findings of the UKR/EG Regeneration Commission continues; we work to digest what was being said - and, more importantly, the huge amount of tangible support that was being offered - and we come out in favour of a plan of action in time for the Build A Better Britain Conference on 6 December. 

I am seriously glad we are embarked on this course, we've all seen there was more bad news yesterday with the banner headlines on the million young people unemployed, and there isn't a moment to lose.
 
And this is the week that Greg Clark's (in my view, splendid) Localism Bill became law.  Technically, he may have given the Commission the exact tools to do its job.

We've now had the transcripts of the final hearing of the Select Committee on Regeneration last week. Needless to say we've pored over every syllable and we're very happy. Clive Betts has done an admirable job as Committee Chair, in what could have been all doom and gloom. We ended on a very upbeat note.

This is what Grant Shapps said about UKR (ooooh I am so proud): "On Friday we saw a very significant announcement from UK Regeneration of a pilot scheme of £150m, backed by Barclays Capital, which will go to help to regenerate. This is absolutely the kind of thing that we want to see. It is a very exciting development, and very timely considering the work that you are doing."
 
Well, call me a toady if you like, peeps, but gawd bless that minister! I'll touch the hem of his garment any day.  He went on to say: "UK Regeneration have a network, they help to promote the lessons learned. They publish a very good bi-weekly newsletter that you should all get hold of.  And they are saying that they have the potential to regenerate 20,000 homes by 2020."
 

Every so often (well, about half a dozen times a month) something rather terrifying happens: a Bright Young Thing comes to interview me for their university dissertation or thesis. It is seriously alarming; I am the antithesis of a theoretical person, of course (however you would characterise that), and I don't know what these people think I might know. (My strong advice to any youngster seeking a career in urban regeneration would be: run away, run away in the other direction, as quickly and as decisively as you can.) I guess it is rather flattering, but terrifying all the same.
 
Yesterday was no exception as a ferociously bright young man from Newcastle University came in to interview me on the subject of tax increment finance.  I did my best to put him off: I said I was by no means a "true believer" in TIF, tried to fob him off onto Dr Evans (who wasn't having any), pointed to the excess of negative, nay curmudgeonly, commentary on TIF that I'd made in this very blog, sent him to speak to other, more knowledgeable, folk in the industry (aka Cecily Davis of DLA Piper, back from maternity leave and sharper than ever!), said I didn't know anything, and so on and so forth.  But still he wanted to come.  He said he wanted a "dissenting voice." Well, I said, I was certainly that, alright.
 
And the Bright Young Thing was inordinately bright and very charming.  So we had a nice chat.  And I tried to be constructive.  He's doing a PhD next year on regeneration financing (going to Chicago and everything!) and I was suitably enthusiastic for him.  But I am who I am, so I told him that for his UK conclusions he should blank TIFs and LEPs and (the new) EZs (the old ones are worth a look, of course) and instead look closely at the evolving general power of competence for local authorities, and the potential spin-offs in areas such as prudential borrowing. Well I would, wouldn't I?
 

Scrupulous followers of this blog (and yes, there are some - nearly 3,000 of you, I understand from my NBF at EG) will have seen that Alex Kendall has written to say that there is a bit of a barney breaking out (yet again) in the planning community, with the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) and the Council for Protection for Rural England (CPRE), among others, up in arms about changes to s70 of the 1990 Town and Country Planning Act where she says "it seems that 'cash for sprawl' is the driving dynamic for the British Planning system".

She follows this up with a somewhat - uh - intemperate statement: "There is another name for selling favours for money!" This makes me smile. Gawd love her, since she always makes me look shy and retiring.  And she's been trying to bring this to my attention for some time.
 
And, indeed, it is widely reported that the RTPI  is "appalled" (another strong word) at the idea of a "cash for permissions measure" that could arise as, apparently, communities secretary Eric Pickles has taken the "controversial" step of tabling an amendment to the Localism Bill that would allow councils to accept government money for saying "yes" to development.   

So, the election results show the coalition government creaking a little, one year on. But its most serious point of coalescence seems to be around the cuts and, of course, the other side of that coin, the devolving of power to real people; the necessary shrinking of "big government" through localism. You can't have one without the other, you see. There must be some reward for the pain. And regular readers of this blog will know I am a firm supporter of localism. But, sadly, the road to radical reform was never an easy path...

For some time (months now) I have been warning that localism will not apply in London. What is sauce for the goose, I've been saying, will not be sauce for the gander. And the brave, bold experiment of the coalition government (to be grown up enough to trust its population) will only pertain outside the M25, where, sadly, the Treasury still secretly believes nothing much matters anyway.

Now we have solid evidence to support my suspicions: Inside Housing last week reported that Stephen Greenhalgh, the larger-than-life Conservative leader of Hammersmith and Fulham council has asked ministers "to water down proposals to give tenants the right to take over the ownership of their estates, so that a major redevelopment project can go ahead".

IH is, of course, talking about CapCo's Earls Court project which would involve the demolition of the Gibbs Green and West Kensington estates unless, that is, residents groups are able to make use of that proposed right to take ownership by way of a stock transfer under Section 34A of the 1985 Housing Act. I've reported on this sorry tale before (blog 17 January 2011). And now it has also been picked up by the ever vigilant Dave Hill in the Guardian.

Section 34A was introduced by the previous administration, but did not come into force because the necessary accompanying regulations were not put in place. But the present government has stated its firm intention to complete the job, in line with its localism agenda.

Now a response to an FOI request from Inside Housing reveals that Stephen Greenhalgh e-mailed CLG ministers Greg Clark and Grant Shapps back in January to ask that "tests" be applied before tenant-led transfers are approved in "regeneration areas". The e-mail reads: "We believe it is wrong to allow regulations on stock transfer to apply without these wider benefit tests in these 'opportunity areas' as an unintended consequence could be to impede regeneration in those very areas already defined as needing major economic growths, jobs and homes."

Young Nick Whitten from the EG news desk was running around at the end of last week looking for comments from leading folk in the industry on the demise of the barmy third-party right of appeal notion following his simply splendid interview with decentralisation minister Greg Clark regarding the second reading of the localism bill. As our Nick so amusingly put it: "It is good news - property industry: 1, nimbys: 0!"  
 
Of course, this had also come up in the Hamptons International breakfast seminar last Thursday, where the point was usefully made that it was not just that third-party rights of appeal had been dropped (hurrah!) but also that the "presumption in favour of sustainable development" was being downplayed. This latter is significant, I think, and I intend to return to this theme (just as soon as Nick Cuff has told me what I think about it).
 
In response to Mr Whitten though, I rather pompously declared: "It is in everybody's interest that planning decisions are quick - whichever way they go - and arrived at by the simplest process possible. Localism means trusting the people we elect to deal with such matters in our area - if you do not like what they do, then vote them out." Not an inspired view, but sound enough I thought. 

But thank goodness third-party rights of appeal are gone for good, never to return. It really would make no sense in a localist system - everyone should get their say and then abide by the decision. In fact, in his interview the minister openly admits it would have been paradoxical to include this clause in the same bill which tries to ask people what they want: it could be the self-same people who could say they wanted something and then object against it. And you know very well our English eccentric faction would rise to the occasion, with alacrity and no sense of shame. 

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".