CONTRASTING TALES, CONTINUED FROM LAST TIME
(May 2016)
The Local Government Ombudsman rejected our complaint that SBC had acted improperly in determining the application for 39 Gresham Road.
The illegal extensions to 78 Thames Side are being removed, under the watchful eye of SBC Enforcement Officers.
AS IF THINGS AREN’T BAD ENOUGH . . .
The Department for Communities and Local Government is ‘consulting’ on various changes to planning law, almost all of them damaging to the rights and interests of local residents. They include:
- Allowing the building of starter homes in the Green Belt, where starter home is weirdly defined as one costing up to £250K sold to a first-time buyer under 40 years old.
- Automatic planning permission for high-rise development round any bus or railway station
- Letting people buy houses at a large discount then sell them at full price, which effectively removes affordable housing from the market.
- Granting ‘planning permission in principle’ for large schemes, which could be automatic if the site has been identified in the Local Plan. A detailed application would then follow, but the principle of development could not be disputed even if the details turned out to be unworkable.
- Ruling that planning officers’ reports on planning applications must include details of financial benefits such as the Community Infrastructure Levy and the New Homes bonus, presumably to intimidate councillors tempted to refuse unsuitable development.
- Permitted development rights for new schools taking over local authority land.
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