Cala Homes Challenge Failure: A Conservative Perspective

Labour's central planning has for a long time stifled diversity and local initative. It has for too long prevented local individuals from having a say in the future shape of their communities and denigrated the power of the local decision-making authorities, hence making them less accountable. This is bad for democracy.

So the news that housebuilder Cala Homes has just lost a legal battle against the Government's claim that its intention to abolish regional housing targets should be considered when deciding on planning decisions is brilliant news.

In short, it is a resounding victory for the Coalition Government's localism agenda and is proof that Labour's top-down planning system is tentatively close to dying its long-awaited death. Good riddance I say.


George Saliagopoulos

Conservative Consultant

Oldham East & Saddleworth by-election result

The results are in, and it's a fairly unsurprising outcome that all but the most excitable political commentators have been predicting for weeks:

LAB - 42.1
LD - 31.9
CON - 12.8
UKIP - 5.8

No real surprises for those who felt the Liberal Democrats were never seriously in the contest, but there will be some disquiet within the third-placed party ranks as to the 'gentle' campaign run by the Conservatives.

Reaction from the party leaders below:

ED MILIBAND - Labour leader
"This is the first step in a long journey for Labour. But more importantly, I hope the government will listen to what they've said about those key issues. I think the voters have sent a very clear message. They've said to the government: 'Think again on VAT, think again on the trebling of tuition fees, think again on the police cuts that are going to affect their communities"

NICK CLEGG - Lib Dem leader and deputy prime minister
"This was a very hard-fought contest but we were not able to gain this Labour seat on this occasion. I am proud of each and every one of the hundreds of activists and volunteers who have brought the fight to Labour's front door in a way that will have confounded our critics. It was always going to be a big ask to take this seat from Labour, given the circumstances. We are undertaking some enormously difficult decisions because Labour left Britain's economy in a mess"

DAVID CAMERON - Prime minister and Conservative leader
"I think we fought a good campaign. Our candidate, Kashif Ali, was a strong candidate, I was one of the first prime ministers for many many years to campaign personally in an English by-election. I enjoyed doing that, I'm proud of the campaign we fought. But of course we started in third place, we ended in third place, and that's often the way with by-elections"

Oldham and Saddleworth by-election- A Tory Perspective

Ring the bell, its by-election time! The Oldham by-election, in the wake of the dishonest Phil Woolas’ annulled victory, is fast looming. On January 13th the voters of the Oldham and Saddleworth constituency will be granted the opportunity to punish Labour for the dirty campaign in the run up to the 2010 General Election (a campaign in which Labour won by 103 votes).

It looks like time for the Liberal Democrats to get some sweet revenge, but most wouldn’t bet on it. I certainly won’t. The Liberal Democrats have lost well over half their national support since last May after having ostensibly signed up to the Coalition’s tuition fee rises and “nasty cuts”.

Labour’s bleating over the Coalition’s “savage cuts” of 3.3 % in an attempt to deal with the £155 billion yearly deficit seems to have penetrated the thick skulls of the witless British voters. Accordingly, Labour are sitting pretty with 41% opinion poll ratings (far far above the 9% who said they would vote Lib Dem if an election were held tomorrow). If the Lib Dem candidate Elwyn Watkins wins on Thursday I’ll eat my hat.

Localism - A Conservative view

In response, and to balance out the earlier post, one of our Conservative consultants has given his views on the Localism concept below......................

Localism Bill - A Conservative view

The Localism Bill has been applauded for its emphasis on decentralisation and is seen as a first crucial step away from the top-down and inefficient system inherited from the last Labour Government. It was conceived as a way of releasing local councils from the controlling hand of the oligarchical State and enabling them increased autonomy, thus accountability and economic efficiency.

Eric Pickles today stated that:

“For too long, central government has kept local government on a tight leash, strangling the life out of councils. This has stopped councils doing anything without running to ministers first. It means that local public services are run on the whims of bureaucrats many miles away. It has stopped councils from using their creativity to improve services and from focusing on what residents want.”

The system of control over local government by the State has had a two-fold effect: first, it has bred complacency among local councils. They have found a convenient scape-goat on which to pass the buck. Second, it has resulted in apathy among the general public who realise that their local council is essentially powerless up against the State’s bureaucrats- resulting in declining turn-outs in local elections.

The Bill has been described as a “triumph for democracy” on two fronts. First, by increasing the powers of locally elected Councillors to set up services and to better create tailored responses to the financial challenges ahead. Second, by empowering local individuals:

• Communities can question how services - such as children's centres, care homes and transport - are being run and potentially take them over.

• Directly elected mayors in 12 cities.

• More power for local people to overrule planning decisions, decide where new homes should go and protect green spaces.

• Powers for people to approve or veto "excessive" council tax rises.

• Giving local people and organisations the right to buy community assets like shops, pubs and libraries. If a council decides to sell a property community organisations will get extra time to develop their bid.

Critics of the Bill have argued that it amounts to no more than “swingeing cuts”. In the short term these cuts will of course be felt. The logic behind the Localism Bill, however, is that by granting councils greater autonomy and, by proxy, accountability, they will rise above the simplistic mindset that you can solve problems simply by throwing money at them. As such the Localism Bill is the long-awaited shot in the arm needed to deliver the public, faced with continually rising Council Tax bills, a remedy from the disease of local government profligacy.

George Saliagopoulos, Curtin&Co Conservative consultant

Localism - A Labour view

With the Localism Bill being published this afternoon and already elements of it seeping out we asked one of our Labour consultants for his thoughts on it ............................................

"I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power." Thomas Jefferson.

The Localism Bill has been one of the most trailed and well publicised bills of recent years, but it is hard to find anyone who can truly tell you what Localism actually means. And that is the point. Simply devolving power and saying in effect ‘here you go, you do it now’ is not enough. That is the coalitions biggest mistake, because while localism is in principle right, the approach being taken is one of potential disaster not enlightenment – think of the Titanic sailing towards the ice berg, think of Local Government sailing towards 27% cuts and then overlay the Localism Bill’s proposed free-for-all.

The Government’s big idea is that the bill will enable local communities and councils to quite literally do their own thing. Therein localism truly means different things to different people and will in reality be interpreted and implemented differently all over the country.

The cry of power to the people only has resonance if it is also matched by the resources to achieve. The Achilles heel of the Localism Bill is that it is based on the largest and most swinging cuts to the budgets of local government in post war Britain. The funding cuts will in themselves change the face of service delivery to local people across England and will result in some of the hardest choices councils will have to make. Do they cut education, social services, youth services, or community safety? In reality all will be cut and hit very hard. Indeed one senior local government officer commented recently that the cuts proposed were catastrophic and the most vulnerable in society would literally be cut adrift.

The New Local Government Network has described the Localism Bill, already, as ‘a real disappointment to communities’. ‘If you are a council facing frontloaded cuts of up to 40 per cent, then greater freedom in how you spend it means little but a devolved axe.”

What the bill will do:

• Give councils a general power of competence

• Give residents the power to instigate local referendums on any local issue and the power to veto excessive council tax increases

• Grant greater financial autonomy to local government and community groups

• Return decision-making powers on housing and planning to local councils and communities

• Abolish Regional Spatial Strategies

• Give communities the right to bid to take over local state-run services

• Require public bodies to publish online the job titles of every member of staff and the salaries and expenses of senior officials

• Create Local Enterprise Partnerships (to replace Regional Development Agencies)

• Review the Housing Revenue Account

The Localism Bill will include proposals to make councillors approve and publish pay rules for their chief executives. It will also include powers to create directly elected mayors in 12 of Britain’s cities such as Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool. Of real interest is the power for people to approve or veto "excessive" council tax rises, which will impact very heavily on those councils whose revenue budgets to deliver services are dependent on council tax income.

The Bill will create a "community right to buy" which will give local community groups and parish councils a legal right to name assets like shops, libraries and community centres as critical to their neighbourhoods and if they are put up for sale, local people will be given time to prepare a business plan and raise the funds they need to bid for it.

There will also be a "community right to challenge" - whereby community groups and parish councils will have the power to challenge and take over a local service. This could include running children's centres, social care services and local transport links. Councils would be forced to publish the reasons why the service could not be run by local groups, the onus being placed on the principle that they should be run by the community.

This is paternalism writ large and is essentially a ‘do gooders charter’. Every religious, community and neighbourhood group will be coming out of the woodwork to potentially take over services that until now have been professionally run by local government civil servants in the interests of the whole community and those most vulnerable. Without that professionalism local groups will likely choose who is deserving and who is not – can you imagine the impact that will have on those in most need. It has Dickensian overtones of the poorhouse running throughout the idea. Consider a local children’s social services department which could be run by a community group? The bill while well meaning will open a Pandora’s Box of paradox’s to be unravelled sometime after the initial damage is done.

The result of the bill will be confusion, much introspection amongst local government mandarins as the implications are slowly understood. The landscape of local government will be changed that is certain, not many people have yet realised just how radical these reforms are, and in terms of ambition set against available resources to deliver the bill the reality is that while it may read well and look good on paper, its implementation is another story all together.

Dr. Paul Harvey, Curtin&Co consultant and Labour councillor

Localism Bill will be introduced on Monday 13th December

After several weeks of 'will they won't they' and various dates flying around, the government have finally announced that the Localism Bill will be out on Monday 13th December. The news was first announced by Eric Pickles via Twitter in a post that read, "Localism Bill will be introduced next Monday. Lots of power to to Councils".

Stay tuned for more information and analysis..

http://www.planningresource.co.uk/bulletins/Planning-Resource-Daily-Bulletin/News/1046146/Localism-Bill-on-Monday/?DCMP=EMC-DailyBulletin

Local Government Landscape Set To Change

Well the Tories all knew that this would happen, but even by our own very pessimistic forecasts the results of recent local council by-elections has been quite staggering. In one election this week the Conservatives lost a previously impervious council seat on Sandwell MBC in the West Midlands with a huge 45% swing to Labour. Of course local factors would doubtless be in play, and this local authority was hit hard by the cancellation of the Building Schools for the Future programme. But even taking this into account that result really does stand out.

This result follows a pretty predictable pattern of local government strength increasing for parties in opposition. Immediately prior to 1997 the Conservatives suffered a meltdown in their local councillor base. In one night in 1994 over 1,500 councillors were wiped out. Whole swathes of the UK became Tory-free zones. As John Major shuffled out of Downing Street on that gloriously sunny day in May 1997 the Conservatives were in an absolutely awful state.

Over the next 13 years there was not a single year where the blues didn't make significant new gains. Voters are far more likely to vote against the government. It is human nature to be motivated against something than to be for it. In the coming years it is entirely likely that previous Labour strongholds seized by the Conservatives and Lib Dems when Gordon Brown and Tony Blair occupied Number 10 will return to the fold.

The political landscape in local government is really set to change.

Antony Calvert
Conservative Consultant, Curtin&Co

PINS response to CALA Homes: Analysis

Following the Cala Homes decision in the High Court most local council’s haven’t really known which way to jump in recent days. They have reacted quite understandably like rabbits caught in the glare of headlights.

The advice from the Planning Inspectorate then is not surprising but it is important. The advice is aimed at settling the minds of both developers and Council’s but when we take a closer look it is nothing more than a fudge to hold the line.

The new Localism Bill will in very simple terms state that the Regional Strategies are revoked and therein the housing targets derived of them are gone as well.

The Planning Guidance is careful to offer weight to both the Government’s view that it is intent on revoking the RSSs and the High Court decision that states until legislation is formally adopted the 2004 Act establishing RSSs applies, and any evidence or analysis using the policies of the RSS has relevance as a consequence.

There is no way that local councils can escape the conundrum this places them in – developers will now be able to cite the RSS policy framework as a material consideration that inspectors will have to give weight to.

In essence the judgements that will be made by inspectors will be a balance of fairness. If the application of RSS can be adjudged as unreasonable set against the prospect of the new legislation then an Inspector can give that perspective weight. The problem is that until the legislation is made law the existing statute is of greater importance than a Government’s announced intent.

Those sites that are subject to appeals that have fallen after Eric Pickles July announcement and the reinstatement of the RSSs under the Court ruling will have to be carefully assessed against the relevance and fairness test. Again, this is highly subjective and is likely to lead to some fairly complex legal wrangling.

The following approach has been developed by the Planning Inspectorate to assist in determining which cases may merit reopening, which may be dealt with by a reference back to parties for comment and which cases may not need any additional action:

(a) where RSS policy has no material relevance because the decision is of limited (local only) scale and impact and the decision-maker can rely on local statutory development plan policy alone as would have been the case before 6 July 2010, no further action is required;

(b) where it appears to an Inspector that RSS policy may be material as a consequence of the significant (greater than local) scale or impact of the proposal, but the cases put by the parties make no reference to RSS, the Inspector must refer to the parties, seeking a view as to the materiality and weight of RSS policies. Chart should be informed.

(c) where a decision relies on both local policy and RSS policy on the same issue, it is possible that the local statutory development plan policy can be relied upon if by applying less weight to the RSS policy the outcome does not change;

(d) where both local policy and RSS policy are relied upon on the same issue, but the RSS is relied on to a greater extent and if as a result of applying reduced weight to the RS the outcome is less certain or could change, then the parties’ views should be canvassed (Chart should then be advised); and

(e) where the parties’ cases rely primarily on the RSS, then the parties should be canvassed.
(f) If there is a reference to the parties or a re-opening, the Inspector should consider whether the case can be completed following consideration of issues raised by the parties or whether a postponement or adjournment is warranted.

None of this is straightforward and each developer with a case will have to test the water on a site by site basis, authority by authority. The position of those Councils who ripped up their Local Plans with great glee since July is of most note, they are vulnerable to appeals.

It appears as if the authorities are carefully acknowledging that they cannot ignore the court ruling, but that they are aware of the Localism Bill hitting the ground very shortly. Therein this debate becomes a matter of timing and process, how quickly can developers get their sites reconsidered using the RSSs before Pickles gets the Localism Bill adopted as an Act.

Dr Paul Harvey
Consultant, Curtin&Co

Planning Inspectorate confirm RS numbers form part of all development plans "on an ongoing basis"

The Planning Inspectorate has issued guidance following thte CALA homes decision - effectively confirming that the 'former' RSS numbers will still apply in planning decisions until the abolition is ratified in legislation following the Localism Bill's passage through parliament.

This effectively leaves developers with an open window for applications and appeals on the basis of RSS numbers until this point in time (estimated as November 2012).

The Planning Inspectorate's key line as far as the development community is concerned reads as follows:

"Until any further announcement is made and/or legislation to formally repeal or revoke RS is implemented, the Cala decision means that RS is part of the development plan on an ongoing basis."

Updates on the situation will follow as they are made public.

A "victory for Localism" as Manchester becomes the first city-region authority outside of the capital

Manchester's super-council was signed off by Ministers today to become the first city-region authority outside of London.

The council will hold responsibility for housing, job creation, transport and economic development, and will formalise the Manchester region LEP approved by the DCLG and BIS last month.

Centre for Cities think tank analyst Keiran Larkin has hailed the move "a victory for localism" - watch out for further developments in city-region LEPs across the country over the coming months.......