Planner

Why would you need a Planner?

Firstly all the schemes produced by us as architects benefit from the input of a professional planner so that your scheme stands the best chance of receiving approval. All our schemes are prepared for appeal from the outset so that, should it be rejected by the Local Authority, we can move straight to appeal to the Sec. of State.

You should realize that planning, at the moment, is in an unholy mess.

New Government proposals for making planning simpler have had exactly the reverse effect. Lots of things have not been clearly defined and even the explanations offered by the officials are misleading.

Local Planning departments are often hijacked for political ends and good planning practice is bypassed. Unsustainable policies pop up on a whim without any public discussion or prior knowledge. A vocal neighbour with undue influence with the council should not negate good planning practice but so often this happens.

There is often a conflict between central government policies and local government policies. It is clear that housing provision for the younger generation or the provision of sustainable energy sources are vital to the good of all of us but so often a vocal minority want to preserve their garden or their view and have the political clout locally to halt these works that would benefit society.

Businesses suffer because they have no political input into the Local Authority in which their business is located. Local Residents concerns are addressed whilst Businesses are ignored. Nowhere is this more evident than Residents Parking which has a devastating effect on local businesses. The Local Authority closes down businesses and then wonder why there is so high an unemployment rate locally and kids with nothing to do.

As an education in democracy everyone should, at least once, attend a Planning Committee meeting. Some are great and add to a better environment for us all, others should not be allowed to exist.

Pre-Application Discussions

The idea in government, is that you start the planning application process long before you submit your application. This weighs heavily in your favour if you need to go to appeal, it also helps with the application. Many Local Planning Authorities now charge for letting you know which of their policies they will be seeing as applicable to your proposal. The advice is non binding on the Council’s final decision and is normally couched with so many “get out of jail free” clauses as to be of dubious merit. However, handled correctly, it can be a very important weapon in your armory. It is important that you have someone on your side during the process so that you come out with something of value.

Appeals

We handle written appeals and hearings where we represent your case against the Local Planning Authorities rejection. Before undertaking any work we will give you our costs and what we think are the chances of success so that you can assess its value to you. Our current rate of success is 73%.

Not only do we represent those developing but also those affected by development. We will make your case to the Local Planning Authority, publicly if necessary. Similarly we will represent you at an Appeal.

It is often the case now that planning is so complicated and expensive that developers just build without any permissions or get permission and build something much larger and detrimental the their neighbours. Local Planning Authorities either do not know what has happened until it is too late or when alerted seem to be less than willing to take action because of the possible legal bills, leaving those neighbours at a loss. We can help lobby councilors and officials into taking action. The case below illustrates the point where a few rich individuals in Kingston can ignore the law.