Would someone know why...

harrup

Many thanks for some very informative replies, planning -officer.


I'm somewhat flummoxed about what you said about garden size and being strict on granting permission which, in turn, requires developers to curb their insatiable appetite for cramming in as many houses as possible. Are those stipulations merely contingent upon the planning officers personal discretion? Or do they have to conform to...what?

30 dwellings per hectare seems actually quite a lot. Particularly in a rural setting. Or at least with my somewhat nebulous calculations whereby a hectare is something like 2 acres. 30 houses on 2 acres won't have a decent garden. But I suppose this largely depends on one's definition of "decent". Assuming that 1/4 acre aproximates decent - well, no one would call it "large" - this then would provide 8 gardens for 8 houses. Halving that it would make it a 16th of an acre which is barely a garden. And that still leaves another 14 houses garden less! Or are my calculations moribund?hat can I say - it's late at night and who can do math at this hour......

As you said - WHO does sit on their land? And why is this permissable to do so? Why not stipulate that owners should either build on such land pronto - since that is why they allegedly bought it - or sell it on if they don't. A kind of " use it or loose it" rule. Saves people hogging land. In view that land and time are the 2 things we can't make more of......it would seem a sensible stipulation to impose.

Can Tesco et al. really have nabbed ALL of that available building land? Nah.

planning_officer wrote: »

Well, not exactly true - the minimum density for housing advocated by Government guidance is 30 dwellings per hectare (dph) - now that is perfectly ok for all houses to have decent gardens. However, developers never see it like that - we always have schemes for sometimes in excess of 100 dph being submitted - occasionally around 200 dph!! So, yes money speaks - but in my experience it is the cash tills of the developers that results in these very dense schemes always being proposed. My authority is very strict on garden sizes - we won't allow any development that does not have good sized gardens. This results in quite a few refused schemes and appeals - some which are won, some are lost. But whilst housing is obviously needed, it is so important to balance the need for housing against the living conditions for future residents - something developers don't really do.

spuds_2

Gruss Gott, Harrup. Planning officer is right about the land banking thing. Around here there are lots of large period houses which have been bought by developers. If they don't get permission to build hundreds of flats on the site, they just let the properties go derilect, expecting that eventually the council will cave in. I know planners get a lot of abuse, but if we didn't have them the UK would be covered in huge developments of flats by now.

If anything, my complaint is that they let too many applications through round here, with family housing replaced by, now empty, BTL flats.

I think the government should be able to compulsary purchase sites which have been bought for development and then deliberately left empty.

There is a whole other dodgy scam of companies buying farming land, partitioning it off, and then selling to investors who have been encouraged to believe that 'one day' they can build on it and it will be worth millions.

Conrad

harrup wrote: »

....

only 7 % of the UK is built on (!!) which is ludicrous for a county that is home to so many inhabitants. Can that be right? 7 %?

Us environuts have a very different perspective from yours.

We as the top species have a great responsibility to act as guardians of the planet, rather than mere locusts feeding off it at all costs.

I consider all life to have as much right to exist as Human life.
Just because an animal is not intelligent does not somehow confer less rights to comfort and existence.

We consider Humans to be new commers that only came to Britain in the last 20,000 years whereas wild life has existed for billions.

Humans have an immense impact on wildlife. Farmland deprives nature of space and resources just so even more selfish fatties can feed thier faces with corn chips and pies.

I consider myself merely a part of nature not separate from it.

planning_officer

harrup wrote: »

Many thanks for some very informative replies, planning -officer.

I'm somewhat flummoxed about what you said about garden size and being strict on granting permission which, in turn, requires developers to curb their insatiable appetite for cramming in as many houses as possible. Are those stipulations merely contingent upon the planning officers personal discretion? Or do they have to conform to...what?

Nope, they have to conform to the Local Plan for that area (usually a District or Borough). Each Local Plan will have a policy relating to garden sizes (or at least, most will!). New development has to comply with the relevant Local Plan Policies as it is a statutory document, unless material considerations indicate otherwise (that's the legal wording!). Our policy says that garden sizes should be a minimum depth of x metres and any developments that are proposed which do not comply with this get refused. The policy also says that in areas where the surrounding development is very spacious, with much larger gardens, then the proposed gardens should also be larger. I have to emphasise that this is only the policy for my district, other areas may have similar or different ones.

harrup wrote: »

30 dwellings per hectare seems actually quite a lot. Particularly in a rural setting. Or at least with my somewhat nebulous calculations whereby a hectare is something like 2 acres. 30 houses on 2 acres won't have a decent garden. But I suppose this largely depends on one's definition of "decent". Assuming that 1/4 acre aproximates decent - well, no one would call it "large" - this then would provide 8 gardens for 8 houses. Halving that it would make it a 16th of an acre which is barely a garden. And that still leaves another 14 houses garden less! Or are my calculations moribund?hat can I say - it's late at night and who can do math at this hour......

The 30 dph is what the Government say should be the minimum - and they advocate slightly higher densities in cities etc. However, we are very concious of the surrounding development, as, like you say, in rural areas where existing densities could be very much lower, even 30 dph sounds high. We therefore encourage lower densities in such areas, which although is not really what the Government advocate anywhere, other Government guidance is very clear in stating that higher densites should not be at the expense of the existing character of the area - which provides justification for lower densities in more rural and less dense areas.

harrup wrote: »

As you said - WHO does sit on their land? And why is this permissable to do so? Why not stipulate that owners should either build on such land pronto - since that is why they allegedly bought it - or sell it on if they don't. A kind of " use it or loose it" rule. Saves people hogging land. In view that land and time are the 2 things we can't make more of......it would seem a sensible stipulation to impose.

Developers sit on their land banks so they always have a plentiful supply of land - otherwise if they built on everything as soon as they got permission for it, they would have times of very low activity. This way they can have a constant supply of land and subsequent income from new developments, which they buidl when they want to. Also, they control the market, so the sceptical in me would say that they can control the amount of new houses coming onto the market at any one time in a particular area, thus keeping the prices high due to more demand for less new houses. It's a question of supply and demand.

Also, there's no legislation which can force the developers to build - the Government is currently investigating the possibilities for something along these lines, but nothing as yet!

lynzpower

I think the government should be able to compulsary purchase sites which have been bought for development and then deliberately left empty.

The government itself has scores of vacant property, both commercial and residential. that they ( ie we) cant afford to develop.

Where do you think the treasury would find the money for this?

harrup

Conrad wrote: »

I consider all life to have as much right to exist as Human life.
Just because an animal is not intelligent does not somehow confer less rights to comfort and existence.

We consider Humans to be new commers that only came to Britain in the last 20,000 years whereas wild life has existed for billions.

Humans have an immense impact on wildlife. Farmland deprives nature of space and resources just so even more selfish fatties can feed thier faces with corn chips and pies.

I consider myself merely a part of nature not separate from it.

Erm...thanks.

Not sure the whole reply is entirely au sequiteur to the question posed, though.

Yeah, wild life has to live somewhere APPROPRIATE for the species and conducive to their welfare.

So do people.

I refuse to believe that safeguarding the requirements of one precludes addressing the needs of the other. Mate, I don't want to live in a shoebox for the rest of my life just so that a bee can flutter around lustily! No offense to the bee an' all.......

harrup

planning_officer wrote: »

Developers sit on their land banks so they always have a plentiful supply of land - otherwise if they built on everything as soon as they got permission for it, they would have times of very low activity. This way they can have a constant supply of land and subsequent income from new developments, which they buidl when they want to. Also, they control the market, so the sceptical in me would say that they can control the amount of new houses coming onto the market at any one time in a particular area, thus keeping the prices high due to more demand for less new houses. It's a question of supply and demand.

Also, there's no legislation which can force the developers to build - the Government is currently investigating the possibilities for something along these lines, but nothing as yet!

So...all in all, the situation is as follows if I understood you correctly:

Those who may want to tell some of their land ( farmers) are precluded from doing so as the buyer wouldn't obtain a planning permission for a residence.

Others owning vacant land WITH planning permission ( developers, government, supermarkets) have no incentive to sell their land since....why would they? Particularly vexing, they don't have to make any imminent or even long term use of that land either.

Hmm, my chances of building a house aren't rosy, are they?

But....HOW is that practice not discriminating against the good tax paying annd wannabe house owning folks of the UK? Why should all of them be condemmned ad infinitum to live in and with the original builder's conception of a house? Not everybody wants to live in an old ramshackle house. Or a new box house. Or even a house designed and built by someone else and to someone elses taste. No one would expect a new owner to meekly accept the previous owner's taste of interior decor. So why should it extend to the exterior?

If house prices weren't as silly as they are - not much of a problem. Solution: Level the old house ( unless protected) and build a new one to one's taste ( and to the approval of the planning offer, of course!;) ). or restore the ramshackle one. But since they ARE what they are its a conundrum.

Boohoohoo.....no fair

planning_officer

It's pretty easy to get permission to demolish a house and build a replacement one (unless, as you say, it's protected), so the question of exterior taste is easily solved. Even in the Green Belt, there's no objection in principle to demolishing a house and building a new one if someone really dislikes it that much - but the new one can't be materially larger than the one to be demolished, otherwise it makes a mockery of the more restrictive planning policies in Green Belts towards completely new dwellings.

I agree with your points about green field land being hard to develop, yet there is brown field land with current planning permission to build, yet no building activity taking place. That's why the Government are investigating ways to encourage or even force developers etc to build on such land. One idea is some kind of land value tax - I copied this quote of another website which explains it briefly:

"Where a development site exists, with Planning Consent for houses or commercial development, Land Value Tax can be calculated on the basis of the value as if developed which would stop land hoarding and reduce the bottle neck of available housing with the inflated prices implied due to the developer bringing forward their project for which society has granted them permission and with it an increase in value to them which should be shared."

planning_officer

I would also add, in general terms, that in the Green Belt, national planning guidance (in PPG2) states that existing settlements can be designated as such in Local Plans and development is more permissible in these areas. In a defined Green Belt settlement infilling is allowed subject to certain criteria - i.e. new dwellings.

Also, there are Rural Exception Sites allocated in Local Plans in the Green Belt, which allow for new residential development - but only for affordable housing to meet identifed village needs - which allows rural villages to survive and provide the much needed mix of housing and keep young people in the locality, rather than resulting in them migrating elsewhere due to high house prices.

So development is allowed in Green Belts - even new dwellings, but it is very strictly controlled, in order to provide the balance of protecting the environment and providing housing.