Examination of Witnesses (Questions 86-99)
1 NOVEMBER 2004
MR RICHARD
HASTILOW, MS
WENDY SHILLAM,
MS LIZ
PEACE AND
MR MIKE
HUSSEY
Q86 Chairman: Welcome to the Committee.
Could you identify yourselves, for the sake of our records, please?
Mr Hastilow: I am Richard Hastilow
from the Royal Institute of British Architects.
Ms Shillam: I am Wendy Shillam
from the Royal Institute of British Architects.
Ms Peace: I am Liz Peace and I
am Chief Executive of the British Property Federation.
Mr Hussey: I am Mike Hussey. I
am Managing Director of Land Securities' London Portfolio.
Q87 Chairman: Thank you for coming. Is
there anything you want to say by way of a brief introduction
or are you happy to go straight to questions?
Mr Hastilow: I am quite happy
to go straight to questions.
Ms Peace: We are happy to go straight
into the questions.
Q88 Chris Mole: I wonder if you might
tell us what you think has been CABE's greatest achievement in
its first five years?
Mr Hastilow: I think, driving
up the emphasis on the understanding of design quality, both from
inside Government and in the wider range of clients, be they local
authorities or other public sector or private sector clients,
and really to raise the game.
Ms Peace: I think we would second
that. We find the design review function, by and large, an extremely
useful one. I think probably we will get on to further questions
in a moment about whether perhaps in some ways it goes too far,
and I think we need to examine the issue as to its formality,
where it occurs and the actual development process and how it
can be most usefully employed. There is absolutely no doubt that
CABE has fulfilled a very useful role in terms of driving up standards.
Q89 Chris Mole: Before we get into that
pragmatic sort of stuff, how better do you think urban design
could be incorporated into the planning, design and development
processes?
Ms Peace: I think I would like
to defer to my colleague here, who actually runs a very large
portfolio, because I think it might be useful for the Committee
to hear a little bit about how design is incorporated into the
development decision process.
Mr Hussey: We are at one end of
the spectrum, in terms of being the largest property company in
the UK, but the question obviously is aimed at a much wider audience
and participants than just ourselves. We take the whole process
extremely seriously because most of our activity is fairly large-scale,
it requires a lot of investment to get through the planning process,
and therefore all of the urban design issues and the way in which
we consult and we involve others in the field are extremely important.
Right down at the other end of the scale, perhaps smaller developments,
you have a need for a little bit more structure and input in terms
of the way urban design is brought forward, and the sense of responsibility
that we feel may not be the same through the whole planning process.
I think our feeling is that it is extremely important, but the
way in which you try to frame it for a much wider audience is
the key.
Ms Shillam: Sometimes, when you
get to the point of a planning application, it is actually almost
too late really, in a lot of cases, to bring in urban design and
the decisions which get made often by default a long way behind.
That is why I think planning authorities and CABE have a really
important role in being proactive about design and urban design,
so that we have a lot of these discussions before an application
goes in, when we are thinking about the design of an area as a
whole when actually it is much easier to have these discussions
and not to make them contentious. CABE's role as an enabler is
a really important one, we think, and as important, if not more
important, is their role of reviewing designs and planning applications
as they come in, where the ability for things to change, by necessity,
is limited.
Q90 Chris Mole: Do you think that CABE
take the historic environment sufficiently into context in their
decisions?
Ms Shillam: Yes, I think they
do. Their remit is to look at design and I think they have been
relatively straightforward in looking at design. There are other
organisations and statutory organisations, like English Heritage,
whose remit is to deal with conservation and I think that balance
between CABE and English Heritage actually has worked out quite
well.
Q91 Andrew Bennett: They have been going
for five years. Ought they to be much more focused now on what
they are doing and their priorities?
Ms Peace: I think our general
perspective on that would be that, in terms of focus, we would
like to see them spending more effort on design review, and not
necessarily design review at the planning application stage but
very much, as my colleague has said, on pre-application discussions.
They spend a lot of their resource, or have done over the last
five years, in commissioning research and producing publications.
I feel we have got almost to the point of saturation, with regard
to research and publications. I think there needs to be a consolidation
of the good advice that is all sitting there and that now they
could usefully use their resource to do a greater number of advisory
discussions in the pre-application phase.
Mr Hastilow: I think the focus
is developing quite naturally, if we can recognise that the whole
programme of sustainable communities is the biggest challenge
for all of us, from wherever we are in society, over the next
15 or 20 years. Out of that, it follows that CABE can make a particular
contribution in the enabling, first of all, and then in the upskilling,
assisting there, with a clear focus on what is needed to regenerate
areas. It does that with others, like the RIBA, and universities
and schools. Then in design review and in the whole focus on the
neighbourhood side dealing with not only the quality of the housing
but also the green spaces. It seems to me there is a set of targets
there which make quite a good focus and, I would imagine, would
keep CABE pretty busy with all the resources that they can be
given over the next five or 10 years.
Q92 Andrew Bennett: On this pre-application
appraisal, is there not a danger that the general public and the
people who might object to a scheme, or want something slightly
different, feel excluded from that part of the process? So that
you feel it is almost a fait accompli, because CABE has
discussed it with everybody and now CABE is putting its seal of
approval on it, so, tough, that is what you are going to have
to accept?
Mr Hussey: I think there is a
presumption there that there is a hurdle that everybody has to
get over with CABE, as part of the planning process. I think that
was neither the intention, specifically, nor is it how particularly
major developers see CABE. I think we feel that, as Liz said,
there is a definite preference to involve and deal with CABE and
participate in the debate at the earlier stages, just from a sense
of getting some sort of guidance as to how the scheme will evolve.
The whole process of the local community consultation, dealing
with the local planning authority in the usual way, still is part
of the process and I do not think that we would see anybody being
excluded. What it does avoid is a lot of expense and time, going
through a design process which consequently is criticised or changed
as a result of consultation by the local planning authority with
CABE, and that costs us time and money. I would encourage them,
in fact we actually foster the relationship with CABE at an early
stage and then we enter into the planning consultation in the
usual way as part of a parallel process.
Q93 Sir Paul Beresford: A large proportion
of these planning applications are basis of opinion. Is there
not a risk that CABE, which has an advisory capacity, is actually
getting to the point where the local authorities see it as spreading
the Gospel and they follow them for fear of having a contrary
opinion?
Ms Peace: I think actually that
is what I was alluding to earlier on, and, if I may, I will expand
slightly on that point. I agree that there is a danger there.
You could almost say CABE has become too successful, in that its
opinions are so valued that it is seen then as a further hurdle
in the formal planning application process. Which is why we believe
that if CABE could spread itself a little more widely at the pre-application
phase this would emphasise the consultation, the informal nature
of the discussion, in order to give these guys an idea as to whether
they are on the right track, rather than it being seen as a formal
hurdle at the planning application stage.
Q94 Sir Paul Beresford: You have emphasised
that, it is on the right track according to CABE?
Ms Peace: It is the right track
according to a group of people who have expertise in design. It
is only one factor which then is taken into account. Developers
may not choose to accept everything that CABE says. They have
to look at a broader range of aspects, they have to look at commercial
viability, at whether it is actually buildable, whether they think
they can get tenants for it after the event. CABE has an important
input into all of that, and I think developers like Land Securities
would acknowledge that but accept there is more.
Ms Shillam: CABE is treated with
huge respect by local authorities and by architects who have to
put their schemes forward to it, and that is actually credit to
the level of discernment of the group of people who do design
review. I think we must not forget that CABE's advice is just
another piece of advice and that the local authority can take
it, but they must also take into account crucially the views of
the community, of the people who are adjoining owners, there is
a whole series of others, and in some cases local authorities
do not take CABE's advice. As designers, we may not feel that
it would be good if a local authority ignored a piece of advice
from a respected body, but one should say why one is ignoring
that advice. But it is still completely open to the planning authority
to make the decision, and so it should be.
Q95 Andrew Bennett: Liz, you give a very
firm thumbs down to research. Are you really confident that actually
there is the research? I am looking for one of these big schemes,
where it has been built and someone has actually measured what
the developers said when they went for the planning application
with what actually turned out on the ground. It is very difficult
to find anyone who has analysed whether the traffic flows have
turned out as the experts had predicted, whether the jobs created
have been the number that had been claimed and whether even public
perception of the scheme is the same. Is there really all that
much research available?
Ms Peace: Perhaps I could clarify
slightly what I said earlier. You have interpreted it in a slightly
extreme way. I am not giving thumbs down to all research. I think
it is very important, when CABE is doing research, that they have
a very clear idea of what the end objective is and what they are
actually going to do with it. I have been involved with CABE on
a number of research projects where I have felt they were perhaps
a little bit too sort of up in the air and airy-fairy and I would
have liked to see greater purpose. If, as a result of a fairly
broad research project, you get a set of very sort of broad instructions
and guidelines, we have got an awful lot of those. If you look
on the CABE website, I think there are 180 publications, which
is quite a lot for the development community to wade through in
order to be sure that they are going to get it right. So when
I said I would like to see consolidation of what has been done
already, I have no problem with a well-directed piece of research
that is actually going to look at, say, a post-event analysis.
Q96 Chairman: This is to the architects.
You mentioned that you are concerned that CABE are beginning to
spread themselves a bit too thinly and you were getting on to
these informal assessments to do with the fact that they could
not do a more detailed formal review of every scheme. Do you express
some concerns about that, that perhaps without the amount of time
and input in everyone was going to be as thorough, but they may
be treated potentially as thorough with the same degree of weight
as a formal assessment?
Mr Hastilow: Yes. I would say
that is a modest level of concern, because we recognise, for the
reasons which colleagues have already put forward, the value that
there is in getting this job done and getting it done right. Sometimes
it has been beyond the resources of CABE to do as much as they
would have liked and as the client, the local authority or private
client, would have liked. We think there are some ways of developing
the design review service with sufficient funding, and we are
not talking of lots more money, with a little bit more cash, that
can overcome those problems on those occasions. I think that is
a development path rather than a major concern.
Ms Shillam: Also to strengthen
local authorities' own internal design abilities, which in a lot
of planning authorities is very low at the moment, so that CABE
does not always have to be called in for every single design issue
because the local authority does not have its own capacities of
discernment.
Q97 Christine Russell: Can I move on,
and I think you have answered this question partially but I do
not think we have heard from the property developers. How much
weight do you think the local authority should give to the views
of CABE? You sort of said that it would be helpful if they did
but you understand that they do not always. What is the perspective
of the property developers?
Mr Hussey: That is an almost unfair
question, I suspect, from a developer's point of view. I think
you need to look at the issues that are being debated on each
individual application, and that is not an attempt to evade the
general question but they are so radically different on virtually
every single major application that CABE would consider. I think
also you need to look at the make-up of the design review panel
itself and there is a real cross-section of expertise across the
review panel. I have heard criticisms, and on one or two occasions
would suspect that they are reasonably levied, that there are
not necessarily enough architects on the design review panel.
If you are talking about a design shortfall in a local authority,
maybe a slightly higher percentage of architects may be the answer
you are looking for, in which case, maybe we should take a greater
consensus view on where the panel are coming from. It has been
set up as an advisory panel and I think they take their responsibilities
very seriously. Therefore, I would imagine that any local authority
would consider whatever they have as a very fundamental part of
the process, but design is one part of it and there are other
elements of policy which come into consideration when reviewing
a planning application. We would not be naíve enough to
think that if we had got a tick in a box with CABE then we get
a planning consent, and I do not think the planners are treating
it that way either.
Q98 Christine Russell: It is interesting,
what you have just told us about the composition of the panels,
because if you had been in the room earlier you would have heard
the representatives of various amenity groups saying they would
like to see most of the panel members sacked, or replaced, or
whatever.
Mr Hussey: Occasionally, I think
that too.
Q99 Christine Russell: To be replaced
by people who have some perhaps greater depth of experience of
historic buildings, historic environments, conservation. Is that
a valid criticism, in your view?
Mr Hussey: I think it does depend
enormously on the application or the design or plan being considered.
I think there is a very small element of that. I think, if you
have got a team, there may be a quantity surveyor on the panel
reviewing a historic building context or a World Heritage Site,
or whatever, then you could argue that might not be appropriate.
The people who are put forward by CABE to represent their interests
are extremely experienced and very knowledgeable people in their
field and they have covered virtually every aspect of development
through their own eyes. I would say it is probably an extreme
view that is being held but maybe that is part of the process
you need to go through. I think that most people take that responsibility
very seriously and, whatever discipline they come from, they would
proffer a view only if they felt it was within their professional
ability to do so. I suspect the view from CABE is fairly well
directed to the people who are capable of asking the question.
I do not think anybody would answer a question on behalf of a
historic buildings expert if they were not involved in some way
in their career anyway. I feel quite confident that the advice
they give is appropriate for the experience that they have got.
Ms Peace: Just to reinforce the
point Mike made earlier, I do think that it is absolutely essential
that this design advice is taken in the broader context of what
the planning authority should be looking at when it considers
a planning application. As Mike said, design is not the only facet,
there are many other aspects. Design is not the only facet also
for the developer, who has to look at a broader range of issues.
I think it is being sure that it gets the proper holistic view
at the planning authority consideration stage which is vitally
important.
Mr Hastilow: We think that there
is a pretty good balance on that team so far, and of course it
is backed up by an expert staff. On the historic buildings side,
of course, the Chairman of the Review Committee is also a Commissioner
of English Heritage, and we feel that there is a very good pool
of experts, not just architects but other experts for the Committee
to draw upon. If, in the light of this inquiry and the challenges,
and so on, the CABE Commissioners felt they needed more on the
historic side, I am sure there are plenty of good people they
can draw upon to bring in there.
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