Hi Ruth
Interesting report (and more than a little concerning albeit expected). What are those LA's with no CLO resource and not using consultants doing?
Having identified that an increasing number of LA's are losing their CLO resource, the recommendation about raising funding for "planning staff resources" in interesting. Are they suggesting that maybe in the future the CLO resource sits within the planning department? Not sure how many Council's have the CLO within Planning (I just assume - maybe incorrectly - they generally reside in Environmental Health?) Would this be good or bad?
Standard planning conditions are great. Until they're not (if that makes sense). There are always cases where the wording of a condition needs tweaking to fit a particular situation. The danger with standard conditions is that when the CLO (or whoever) tweaks the condition, the planning officer misses that and applies the "standard" condition regardless.
The upshot for me personally is I have a set of "standard condition", the wording of which is agreed with the planners. Planners then cut and paste my condition (including any tweaks). If the tweak completely changes the condition wording then I'll check with the planner.
I'm lucky that the planners here are pretty good in this respect.
Fines for those not complying? Not sure it's worth fining them any more if, as suggested in the report, no one is going out checking on them!
I'm relatively new to this (still). Where do NHBC fit into this? Are they not the backstop? If they won't guarantee a new build then it will be harder (if not impossible) to sell. This has to be where the pressure is put. If developers can't shift property without doing the remediation work properly, they will more than likely do it properly!
Phil Mason MSc (Dist), MIEnvSc, MCIEH, AMIOA
Environmental Consultant (Air Quality, Noise, Contaminated Land) – Infrastructure
Urban Vision Partnership Ltd
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