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Planning manifesto unveiled

Sainsbury’s planning chief Sue Willcox will today unveil the BPF's Planning Manifesto, with a host of measures to improve the system without the need for more time consuming and costly legislation.

The BPF will say that developers should be encouraged to contribute resources to help local authorities deal with planning applications. Councils are already allowed to do this but unnecessary fears over issues of probity are restricting its use.

Councillors should receive formal planning training to help them take more informed decisions. Currently, there is no mandatory training and the industry believes councillors could benefit from a better understanding of how the property market works.

Smaller applications like loft-extensions should be dealt with by planning ‘technicians’, leaving qualified planners free to tackle major schemes that have a big affect on communities.

Councils should also be encouraged to outsource work to private consultants, or form partnerships, using the freed staff for higher level work; a move currently being pioneered by Salford City Council and supported by the Audit Commission.

The Planning Manifesto is designed to make the best of the system we have, rather than rewrite it again.

These improvements will be vital to the delivery of new homes and other large projects, with delays and uncertainty costing business and public bodies tens of millions of pounds a year.

Liz Peace, chief executive of the BPF, said:

“Our recommendations are designed to make the best use of what we have, mostly without the need for legislation or substantial extra local authority funding. We must ensure local politicians and officers understand how development operates and encourage developers to contribute towards more efficient processing of applications.

“The BPF has fully supported government planning reforms but we feel there are still a lot of obvious and relatively simple changes that could be made. This manifesto is a direct response to the government’s call for the industry to support their aspirations for improvement and provides them with a blueprint for real action.”

Sue Willcox, chair of the BPF’s planning committee and head of town planning at J Sainsbury, said:

“We need to make a real effort to ensure the communities we create are a gift to future generations. The potential for private-public partnerships is huge, enabling students, trainees and others to have experience working in the private sector. It’s something we already champion at Sainsbury’s.

“But we need to reform the way we work. We’ve seen examples of developers having to resubmit entire applications simply because of very minor changes. Councils’ demand far too much information out of fear of judicial review of decisions; this is something the government needs to amend. Ultimately, we need to stop trying to rewrite the system and concentrate on improving what we have.”

Francis Salway, president of the BPF and chief executive of Land Securities, said:

“The desire of major developers to improve planning shows just how high up the agenda this issue is for us. Improving planning is central to regional economic growth.

“We are committed to making best practice case studies available to both the public and private sectors in conjunction with the National Planning Forum, ensuring that the culture change in planning is disseminated across the planning community. Developers are also prepared to take a more proactive role in helping train planners and councillors with a regular programme of secondments.”

Adrian Penfold, head of planning and environment at British Land, said:

“These are self-help recommendations that are intended to promote a better trained and resourced planning regime. Now is the time to step up to the mark to free up resources to focus on important plan making and major planning application work, share skills, and bring about efficiencies and benefits for hard pressed local authorities and the communities which they represent.”

Gary Forster, planning consultant with Turley Associates, said:

“Obesity and terrorism should not be concerns for the planning system; instead we need to focus upon cutting out unnecessary layers to ensure quicker decisions and the economic growth that follows, which is particularly critical in the current economic climate.

“Resources are finite and need to be targeted where it matters and where the outcomes warrant it. This certainly needs better training for officers and councillors in some areas such as economics of development but using up these resources on minor applications for TV aerials is ridiculous. To have minor domestic alterations in the same system as major developments is simply disproportionate to what the outcome will be.”


Richard Ford, head of planning at international law firm, Pinsent Masons, said:

"The BPF proposals rightly identify the need to improve what we've got rather than mess around any further with the planning system. Recommendations to improve planning officer and councillor training and increase cross authority working are welcome. Improving recruitment and retention of planners, as well as removing minor applications from planners' workloads, are also very sensible.

“Another key area identified for improvement is speeding up statutory consultee responses which can be truly woeful - there should be penalties for late responses. Finally, the suggestion to require planning appeals to concentrate on the reasons for refusal looks a good one, as does using tax increment financing to fund infrastructure - the BPF have usefully raised some key points of debate here."


The Planning Manifesto will be launched by Ms. Willcox, Ms. Peace and Mr Salway and attended by a host of notables from the private and public sector. It takes place at:

Eversheds LLP, 1 Wood Street, London, EC2V 7WS
8:00am to 10.00am, Tuesday 16 September

Planning Manifesto recommendations:

1. Improve recruitment and retention of planners

2. Let planners get on with planning, removing minor applications

3. Encourage Councils to outsource mainstream planning functions

4. Encourage councils to accept property industry funding for planning resources

5. Make councillor training mandatory

6. Pool resources across local authorities

7. Incentivise local authorities to promote development

8. Use tax increment financing to fund infrastructure

9. Reduce information required to support planning applications

10. Speed up the contribution from statutory consultees

11. Improve and incentivise pre-application discussions

12. Require planning appeals to concentrate on the reasons for refusal

Speaking at the manifesto’s launch, Caroline Green, the LGA senior policy consultant for housing, planning and transport, said: "There is a lot of good stuff here and a lot we would agree with.

"I think it shows that the private sector understands that they have got a lot to offer and help local authorities in term of approving the application process."

Richard McCarthy, director general of planning for Department of Communities and Local Government, welcomed the report, which he said would feed into ministers’ response to the Killian Pretty review of the planning system, which is due to report next month.


For more information please call Andrew Teacher at the BPF on 07968 124545 / ateacher@bpf.org.uk, or Maddie Williams on 020 7802 0113 / mwilliams@bpf.org.uk.