Planning Law Notes

Planning Law Notes

What is planning?

Hall and Tewdwr-Jones (2011) make it clear that planning is about a series of processes more than it is about vague images of maps and the like.

• “[P]lanning as a general activity is the making of an orderly sequence of actions that will lead to the achievement of a state goal or goals.”

How has planning law evolved?

The roots of planning law in England lie in the 19^th century and the problems which came about as the result of the industrialisation.

• Hall (2014) has said that the problem was “the giant city itself” where concentration caused many issues – thousands of the rich and millions of the middle classes were brought into close contact with millions of the poor and the very poor

  • This led to the creation of a new set of social relationships which needed managing

    • As a result of these different types of people all being in the same small space, the focus was on planning for all, rather than focusing on poor housing or poor health conditions.

This concentration ultimately had two consequences:

1. Social Movements Seeking to Replan Cities

Pinder (2005) argued that these social movements emphasised spatial concerns.

• They proposed ‘restorative Utopias’ in so far as they responded to the upheaval of the modern city by projecting a new spatial form that was intended to restore values about urban settlement, community, order and harmony

  • Such an approach was not anti-urban, it simply had a different vision of what urban living should look like

    • It posited that expansion could take place without the disorder that came about as a result of industrialism.

2. Legislative Intervention

Responding to the above concerns, mist planning legislation in the latter part of the nineteenth century was focused on public health and improving the sanitary conditions of housing.

The first Planning Act was passed in 1909.

• This gave local governments the power to develop planning schemes, albeit the focus still being on sanitary conditions

• Similarly, it gave powers to local authorities to close down houses which were unfit for human consumption.

This power to close down houses which were unfit for human habitation gave rise to the seminal Administrative Law case of Local Government Board v Arlidge

• Local Government v Arlidge

  • Facts: Pursuant to s17 of the 1909 Act, Hampstead Borough Council made an order prohibiting a house, which Mr Arlidge was the assignee of a lease on, from being used for human habitation until it was fit for purpose

    • Mr Arlidge appealed to the Local Government Board, which held a public inquiry and confirmed the order

      • Mr Arlidge sought a quashing of that order for breach of natural justice

  • Held: The House of Lords held that the Board was under no obligation to observe the order

    • “Such a body as the Local Government Board has the duty of enforcing obligations on the individual which are imposed in the interests of the community. Its character is that of an organisation with executive functions. In this it resembles other great departments of the State. When, therefore, Parliament entrusts it with judicial duties, Parliament must be taken, in the absence of any declaration to the contrary, to have intended it to follow the procedure which is its own, and is necessary if it is capable of doing its work efficiently”

      • New administrative institutions were emerging to deal with collective issues such as housing and planning, and these were understood to operate differently from a court.

Town and Country Planning Act 1947

The 1909 Act was ultimately insufficient, which was obvious by the 1940s – Cullingworth (2015) notes that much of England was not actually subject to any kind if planning restrictions.

As a result of this insufficiency, the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 brought almost all development under control by making it subject to planning permission.

• This forms the current blueprint for our contemporary planning system and its key features – the requirement that any ‘development’ requires planning permission, the co-ordinating role of the central government, and the role of local development plans – can be seen in the contemporary planning system

One of the great successes of the 1947 legislation is that it has not remained static.

• It has been subject to ongoing legislative amendment, with consultations in 1962, 1971 nad most recently in 1990 (although most immediately it was subject to amendment in the Planning and Compensation Act 1991)

This reform has continued through the addition of other legislative measures

• The Planning Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 overhauled the system for the creation of local plans by introducing ‘local development frameworks’

• The Planning Act 2008 introduced a new framework for dealing with ‘nationally significant infrastructure projects’, which requires the creation of national policy statements concerning infrastructure development

  • The act aims to provide a more coherent approval system for major projects and to incorporate debate and consultation in to the process earlier on.

    • s14 sets out the list of ‘nationally significant infrastructure projects’ which the Secretary of State has the power to amend

• The Localism Act 2011 as introduced as an important commitment to localism

The ongoing reform and amendments to the planning framework represent b range of competing interests involved in the process of planning – we must remember that there is more to planning law that just the environments.

• Layard (2002) notes that the current flashpoints of planning concerns are disparate with agitated commentators often at loggerheads with one another.

  • The following competing interests all lead to different conceptions as to the suitability of the current planning framework:

    • Businesses – are concerned with the delays and bureaucracy that planning applications entail

      • The mammoth public inquiry for Heathrow’s Terminal 5, taking 524 days over four years is oft cited as an...

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