50 Shades of Planning

Let's play a little word association game. A bit like Mallet's Mallet (for the readers who need to realise that knowing what this is makes you almost old...). Sam's Stick. Stafford's Staff. Anyway. You get the idea. I write a word, or words, you read it, and then lodge the first word, or words, that come in to your mind. Ok. Here we go. The Premier League...   ..., ok...   What did you think? Over-paid and over-hyped? Unmissable? Too many foreigners? Great brand?   There is, of course, no right answer. Football is a game. A sport. It means lots of different things to lots of different people. Another one. The Turner Prize... ..., ok... What did you think? Cutting edge? Experimentation? Boundary-pushing? Indulgent nonsense?   There is, of course, no right answer. Art is a diverse range of human activities and the products of those activities, usually involving imaginative or technical skill (at least according to Wikipedia). It too means lots of differen

This piece by Simon Coop at NLP very nicely anticipates the publication next week of the 2012-based sub-national household projections (SNHP), which, as Simon states, are expected to demonstrate a lower level of future household change when compared to previous projections.   Given that the SNHP will project forward the demographic and household formation trends that were experienced between 2007 and 2012, this lower level of change should not surprise anybody, and Simon's piece makes the point that they should not be taken at face value.   In planning terms, the SNHP do not provide a definitive position in relation to future housing need, and the national PPG requires DCLG household projections to provide only the starting point for the assessment of housing need.   This is election season though and, whilst Simon makes the point that a lower level of change in the SNHP might 'threaten the abilities' of pro-development politicians to make good on a commitment

Would you like to guess how long it takes to get planning permission for a 50 home development? Have in mind that the target for major applications is 8 weeks, which increases to 13 weeks for EIA development.   Research undertaken in 2013 concluded that across the Barratt Group it took an average of 22 weeks to get an application approved by a Committee, with a further 20 weeks required for S106 Agreement negotiations and the satisfaction of pre-commencement conditions.   I could write a very extensive piece about the influences upon the submission and determination of an application, and would probably end up concluding that any procedural efficiencies would be offset by the diminishing number of experienced, talented planners to implement them, but will settle today for a couple of ideas that I might submit to the inevitable review that the next Government will undertake 'on speeding up the planning process'.   Planning Performance Agreements (PPAs) are often tou