The problem with “Investment Zones”

Gulp. Blink and you miss it. Since my last blog post on the promised end of Stalinist housing targets:

• We’ve a new Prime Minister, who suggested in 2019 building a million homes on the Green Belt around London near railway stations. A big idea. A controversial idea. An idea with some serious academic firepower behind it. But isn’t it odd - ever since she started running for the top job, Liz doesn’t seem to have mentioned mass Green Belt releases. Not even once.

• We’ve a new Secretary of State for DHLUC, Simon Clarke, who wrote a detailed and impressive paper in 2018 which called for (you guessed it) releasing Green Belt land for development within a half-mile radius of train stations, to create enough land supply for at least 1.5 million new homes. Again, so weird. You’d have thought taking over as Secretary of State would give him the perfect opportunity to put that thesis into action. But he’s not mentioned the idea again since taking office either. Still, no doubt we’ll be coming back to it. Once we sort out the daily economic… ahem… issues.

• LURB - remember that? - is apparently going to get gutted [Another wasted blog post, Ed.] Well. Time will tell.

• And we have yet another proposal to re-write important bits of the planning system. Yes. Another one. Never have so many proposals to radically reform something been made by so many successive ministers with so few things actually being changed.

So what’s on offer now? Are you sitting comfortably?

Investment zones. Reach for the stars, friends. We’re dusting off the deregulatory toolkit that Maggie Thatcher and Michael Heseltine opened up in the 1980s. The toolkit which gave us Canary Wharf.

For a wonderful account of the transformation of London’s docklands, do have a read here. A cracking piece which helps tell the story of how we move from the 1st picture looking out over to the Isle of Dogs from Greenwich Park taken in 1980 to the 2nd version in 2019. Spot the difference. There’s an investment zone for you.

Well, it’s back to the future. Liz and Kwasi - the dream team - want more Canary Wharfs to spring up all over England. How are they going to pull it off (assuming they’re still in office by Christmas)? What do we know about how planning will actually work in these new investment zones?

Short answer: nada. Niente. Zip-a-dee-doo-dah.

Longer answer: let’s start with the source material.

• Here’s the Treasury’s Growth Plan which sets the ball rolling - you know, the plan which has gone down so smoothly with global markets and the IMF this week.

• Here’s the investment zones fact-sheet.

• Here’s the more detailed explanation of “the policy offer” for investment zones in England.

Health warning: some suggestions for investment zones go well above the paygrade of a humble planning law and policy blog like this one. There are ideas for tax incentives of many flavours, including relief from business rates and stamp duty. All very interesting. But if you’re hunting for tax advice, traveller, I’m sorry. You’re in the wrong place.

On the other hand, assuming you’re in the market for some #planalysis, come on in. Because a big part of the investment zone “offer” is about planning reform. The deregulation train is coming into the station, friends. All aboard.

The general picture is (to put it charitably) vague:

• The Growth Plan tells us that DHLUC will “shortly” set out details on what is called “the planning offer” which is going to include “detail on the level of deregulation and the streamlined mechanism for securing planning permission”. So, in short: TBD.

• The “fact-sheet” is light on facts. It lists 38 local authorities already “in discussions” to create investment zones - and it’s a wide range. Rural authorities like Cornwall and Somerset. Big hitting urban authorities like London and Manchester. And many places in between. It says that “we will set out further detail on the liberalised planning offer for Investment Zones in due course”. In due course. Ah, yes. Our favourite unit of time in the planning world. A term with even less bite than other classics like “at some point in the Autumn”, or “over the coming months”. Translation: “whenever”. Some of you will be old enough to remember the Government’s promise to respond to the Planning for the Future Consultation in due course (over 2 years ago). And that NPPF prospectus on (among other things) the scope of the all-important national development management policies. That was coming in due course too. Let’s hope it still is.

Annnnyway. When this new “planning offer” comes along, what’ll be in it?

Here are 3 pointers:

Point 1: Scaled back planning applications.

Within investment zones, we’re told that “the need for planning applications will be minimised and where planning applications remain necessary, they will be radically streamlined.”

Sound good to you? I mean, come on. Who needs tired old “applications” for things anyway, right? They don’t sound nearly radical enough.

But hang on. I don’t need to tell you, but we’ve already - and very recently - had a long, cold, hard look at an idea which has a lot in common with this one. Cast your minds back. Way, way back. To late 2020. Remember growth zones? Where falling within a designated area was supposed to confer “automatic" planning permission. No application for planning permission required. Well. That policy was a cornerstone of the vision of a simplified, pared-back, sped-up system painted by the 2020 Planning White Paper: more on that here.

And do you remember what happened to those growth zones? Here’s a clue - look around where you’re reading this from. Look hard. Look far and wide. Any growth zones? Nope. That’s because the policy was very controversial. Growth zones ended up being partly credited with knocking the Tories back in the Chesham and Amersham by-election. They were - in the end - unceremoniously ditched by their original proponent Robert Jenrick (and not revived by his successor Michael Gove) because of (in particular) arguments from Tory back-benchers that local objectors need to be able to object to things happening not only when land is allocated for growth, but also when particular development proposals are brought forward on that land.

Even those who were in principle supportive of growth zones (for some of the key consultation responses at the time, see here) made points about the enormous front-loading that will be required onto the shoulders of an already-creaking plan-making system to ensure all the many development management issues are worked out before the allocations / designations take effect.

So what will be different this time? Why will the many voices (in particular, many voices within the Conservative party) who objected to growth zones last time be seduced by investment zones this time?

I’ve no idea.

But I’m sure Liz has a plan.

Point 2: Scaling back of “key policy requirements”?

Again, we don’t know much:

• “Burdensome EU requirements” are for the chop within investement zones. We can assume we’re talking about environmental impact assessment and habitats regimes. No news there. Reforming those assessments was already part of the LURB package. Still, we have no detail on what these scaled down requirements will actually look like. So… TBD. In due course.

• Planning obligations will be focussed on “essential infrastructure requirements” - which, again, we can assume means the end of funding affordable housing through s.106 obligations in investment areas. Simon Clarke’s 2018 paper talked very convincingly about a severe crisis brought on by a “nationwide shortage of affordable housing”. So. OK. If not through 106 obligations, where is funding for or delivery of affordable housing in investment zones going to come from?

• Consultation periods will be “reduced” - to what? We don’t know.

But here’s the kicker: “key national and local policy requirements” are going to be “relaxed”.

Sound good to you? What kind of regulation-hungry monster would be against “relaxing”. It’s such a friendly word. But what does it mean? Does “relaxed” mean “disapplied”? Does it mean “ditched”? And what are these “key” policy requirements? I’ve no earthly idea. Because………… [see point 3]

Point 3: No scaling back of key policy requirements.

Having said “key” policies (whichever they are) will be “relaxed” (whatever that means), we’re then told:

“Key planning policies to ensure developments are well designed, maintain national policy on the Green Belt, protect our heritage, and address flood risk, highway and other public safety matters - along with building regulations - will continue to apply.”

There we have it. For my money: the game being given away.

Words are cheap. Even cheaper is putting words like “not” into a bold typeface (“in [Investment] Zones, the planning system will not stand in the way of investment and development”). Wow. Punchy. You tell ‘em, Kwasi!

But you know what’s harder: coming clean with us on which policy requirements that currently restrict development the Government is going to shelve in investment zones.

And that’s the problem with investment zones. At least as they’re currently formulated. There’s a tension here the size of a double-decker bus: you cannot on the one hand say that planning won’t “stand in the way” of anything, whilst on the other saying that we’ll be continuing to apply within investement zones policies which by their very nature stand in the way of things e.g.:

• A policy that generally presumes against new buildings in the Green Belt absent very special circumstances. Which is, as I’ve been banging on about for years , the single greatest obstacle to sensible development solutions around many of England’s major cities.

• Law and policy that strongly presumes against development which harms the significance of listed buildings or conservation areas.

• Recently minted design policies which tell us to plan for beauty (more of which here), and that “development that is not well designed should be refused”.

Which is it, team? Are we “relaxing” everything to make sure that the planning system will not “stand in the way”? Or are we continuing to apply the system’s most powerful policies of constraint? Can’t be both. Can it? Are we putting more planning power into the hands of local people, or are we skipping over the ability of those people to be consulted on planning applications for major new developments in and around our biggest towns and cities?

More detail “in due course”. Of course.

Meanwhile, I hope you’re well #planoraks. And that you’ve gotten out and about in this week’s glimmers of crisp and cold early Autumn sun. Try not to keep refreshing the news about interest rates (😬). And through all of these various disasters, as always, stay cool, and - whatever else you do - #keeponplanning.