Examination of witnesses (Questions 240
- 259)
WEDNESDAY 5 APRIL 2000
MR MIKE
HASLAM, MR
SIMON BIRCH,
MR PETER
WILBRAHAM and MR
DAVID ROSE
Mr Benn
240. Do you have a view on the DETR report on
the case for an Environmental Court?
(Mr Rose) The concerns which emerge from the Act are
that there is one arm of government suggesting we should have
a planning system which is more certain in terms of delivery and
speedier and that potentially conflicts with another arm that
brings a rights based system. If we were to end up with an Environmental
Court approach, it might make certain elements of the planning
system appear to be more of a legalistic process than one based
on an exercise of discretionary decision making within the framework
of policy and guidance. We are not yet convinced of the case.
We are working our way through Professor Grant's very lengthy
report as we speak.
Christine Butler
241. Going back to the Human Rights Act again,
how do you feel about third party rights of appeal? You suggest
that they would constrain matters and that they are altogether
not such a good idea. Why?
(Mr Haslam) If you take it to the lowest, as it were,
if every householder was able to object to an application to extend
his or her—
242. To save time, we are not talking about
that. You can always suggest a condition, what if everyone were
to do that. I am not suggesting that at all. Of course there will
be filtering systems. Do you object to the principle of it under
any circumstances?
(Mr Haslam) We think it is inevitable and probably
for those cases that are contrary to development plans, as a threshold.
243. What thresholds would you suggest, apart
from that one?
(Mr Haslam) Peter, a moment ago, said that the whole
system needs to be reviewed. You cannot simply say, "We will
introduce third party rights." It needs to be done in a properly
considered way but there must be a threshold. Otherwise, the system
will simply clog.
244. What requirement should there be to publicise
planning appeals? There is a statutory requirement on applications
appeals. They get lost. I asked for a list of these last week.
About 500 are currently going along, some in neighbouring authorities.
In my own authority, I knew nothing. What can you do about this?
(Mr Rose) We support both greater information given
about the appeals process being public, but also about it being
more actively publicly available. The Inspectorate last week launched
a new website. One of the issues that we hoped would be included
on there or, in due course, on the Department's website, is the
ability to track all cases as to where they are in the process.
That is one aspect. The second issue is we think there should
be a specific requirement on the local authority to notify all
the parties whom they notified on the application about the lodging
and making of the appeal, not simply those who had commented at
the time.
245. That brings us back to the matter of the
Inspectorate because the Inspectorate, where it knows there has
been an objection, often would write back to the objectors, would
it not?
(Mr Rose) No. We would put the obligation on the local
authority to notify all the people whom they notified at the original
application.
246. Whether they objected or not?
(Mr Rose) Yes.
247. Would that then relieve the Planning Inspectorate
of a job, do you think?
(Mr Haslam) They do not do it now.
248. In my experience, we have something going
along currently where the objectors have been written to. That
might have been from the Government Office. I beg your pardon.
Of course, you would not want the duplication. If it all went
back to the planning authority, that would be the best thing to
do?
(Mr Haslam) Yes.
(Mr Rose) And to notify everybody, not merely those
who objected to the original application.
249. Planning Aid exists through voluntary effort
of people who are members of the Royal Town Planning Institute
and government gives a little bit of money towards it. Do you
think they should give much more? Do you think we have a network
of volunteers which can help third parties all over the country?
(Mr Rose) We believe that Planning Aid is a vital
and important part of the process. The local authority has a role
in the process of explaining to people how the system works, but
the local authority is not sufficiently independent to give advice
to third parties about how to make their personal case. Not all
third parties are in the situation that they have such financial
interests at stake and they can afford to engage their own consultants
to do the work. We feel very strongly that Planning Aid needs
to be taken much further forward and should not have to depend
almost wholly on the voluntary time of our members and a very
small amount of public funding for providing some administrative
help. The case must exist that the transfer of a very small sum
from the money spent on legal aid across the country could be
very well spent on Planning Aid.
250. Have you evidence to show where Planning
Aid has been contacted by third parties, ordinary residents around
an area that are concerned, that they have achieved more success
by so doing?
(Mr Rose) The people involved in Planning Aid themselves
would think that and we can certainly send you further information
from our volunteers. I have a report which I can pass through
to you afterwards.
251. Are usually Planning Aid willing to go
to inquiries to represent those third parties?
(Mr Rose) Planning Aid see their first task as to
help the parties understand and participate in the system. Where
there is the possibility of the time being available to do it,
they will attend at inquiries, but the main constraint on Planning
Aid at the moment depends on people being able to give the advice
in their spare time, out of working hours.
252. Are there any other routes, besides Planning
Aid, that you might suggest would be helpful to ordinary people?
(Mr Rose) Planning Aid works very closely with organisations
such as Citizens' Advice Bureaux, so it is not as if they are
working in isolation. We also have members of the Institute in
private practice who, apart from doing the work for which they
are paid, will do work for private individuals on a much reduced
fee basis, quite independently of Planning Aid.
253. Have you a figure that the government might
help out here with?
(Mr Rose) A financial figure?
254. Yes.
(Mr Rose) We will happily work out a financial figure
internally. In the last year we have complete figures through
our regional networks, that our volunteers dealt with 3,200 cases
in 1998.
Mrs Ellman
255. What are the reasons for the delays when
the Government Office gets involved?
(Mr Haslam) There are two reasons, it seems to me.
One is resources and another one is expertise. There is evidence
that the Government Offices are very stretched. Some of them have
great difficulty in maintaining a dialogue because of the sheer
pressure of work. There is also evidence that, in terms of expertise,
the older hands have moved on and those who have moved into the
Government Offices do not have the experience. Certainly, when
we are dealing with some of the complex appeals we were talking
about a few moments ago, they are often very detailed, very complicated
and we are not totally certain that the people dealing with them
in the regional offices have that necessary level of expertise.
I think this problem is going to be exacerbated with the new direction
that was announced in PPG3 of referring to the Government Office
all planning applications involving 150 houses. That is going
to be a potentially significant additional workload in an already
overstretched system.
Chairman
256. How is the government going to see that
its strategy for going on to brown fields rather than green fields
is enforced through the planning system, given that an awful lot
of structure plans and other things like that were drawn up before
the government made that announcement?
(Mr Haslam) This is one of the great problems. If
you have—
257. We do not want the problem; we want the
solution.
(Mr Haslam) The problem initially is resources into
the regional offices. There is considerable evidence that they
do not have enough.
258. You would be happy with a referral if they
had more staff to deal with it?
(Mr Haslam) In part, but if the referral results in
a call in on something that is allocated in a statutory development
plan and section 54A applies, the decision should be taken in
accordance with the development plan and the material consideration
to balance is the latest PPG. I can see that ending up in lots
of cases in judicial review in the High Court.
(Mr Birch) There is a lot of confusion at the moment
over why things are being called in. Certainly I get a lot of
complaints from developers and applicants that there is total
misunderstanding of the process and they do not understand why
the minister has got involved or why things are being dealt with
through the Government Office. A second problem is the regional
planning guidance which has given so much work to the Government
Offices. My own experience in the south east is that nearly all
the staff at the Government Office, south east, have been dealing
with that. A lot of the call in applications and inquiries have
been on the back burner for several months now.
Mrs Ellman
259. Could you give any indication of which
regional offices are better than others?
(Mr Haslam) I would not like to be that particular.
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