There are several aspects of development activity which run throughout the planning process for strategic sites. Depending on the approach taken at different stages of the process, they can have very different impacts on successful delivery. The Toolkit addresses the following ‘central threads of activity’:
- delivery models
- masterplanning and design
- viability
- engagement and consultation
- environmental impact/mitigation
- resources and skills.
Central thread: delivery models
The way in which a strategic site is to be built out on the ground – and the ownership of land - can have a significant bearing on both the consenting and implementation process for its development.
Different delivery models have different characteristics. These in turn will influence the trajectories which can be achieved; the time it takes to achieve completions on a site; and the infrastructure contributions or in-kind implementation which a site may be able to make. The way in which a site is to be delivered will also affect:
- the structure of any local plan policy
- consent and fulfilling any s106/Community Infrastructure Levy obligations
- mitigation of environmental effects, monitoring of delivery and governance arrangements.
For example, the ‘master developer’ approach may take longer to yield initial dwellings as the delivery of upfront infrastructure and preparation of serviced sites takes precedence, but delivery will be quicker and more consistent over the medium or longer term.
It is therefore advisable to understand the ownership of a strategic site and how it is anticipated to be delivered from the outset of the allocation process. If in doubt, ask for details of land ownership plans and details of any option agreements or other covenants in place. Whilst the terms of an option agreement may remain confidential between landowning parties, their existence is a matter of record.
The table below sets out the different delivery models which are most commonly adopted on a strategic site:
Ownership Model
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Key Characteristics
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Advantages
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Challenges
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Single Landowner
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- Owns land outright (no options or charges on land)
- Landowner promotes site for development
- Landowner either acts as master developer (see below) or sells to third party housebuilder, sometimes at post-allocation; more usually with benefit of outline planning permission.
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- Increasingly common (esp. with landowners taking an active lead in promotion from a legacy perspective)
- Simplified consenting and legal process (one s106 signatory)
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- Can be inexperienced at development/delivery process
- No sharing of risk/promotion costs
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Joint Landowner & Promoter
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- Landowner owns land outright, but signs Joint venture or option agreement with promoter partner (usually land trader or housebuilder)
- Promoter takes the lead in site promotion
- Promoter either acquires some or all of land upon allocation or more usually at outline consent; or oversees disposal of land to third parties (with landowner agreement to sales).
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- Can utilise promoters’ experience to expedite allocation and delivery
- Sharing of risk (promotor pays costs of promotion)
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- Can be a ‘disconnect’ between landowner and promoter aspirations regarding expected quality, land/sales values value and infrastructure provision. May affect resolution of acceptable s106 agreement terms.
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Multiple landowner/ Consortium Promotion
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- Site owned by a number of different land interests (may include a mix of owned and optioned, also may include a mix of landowners, promoters and housebuilders)
- Come together under some sort of formal collaboration agreement or informal partnership arrangement to jointly promote the overall site
- Jointly appoint/designate a lead promoter or agent
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- Having both landowner and housebuilder involved can make for a smoother transition from consent to delivery
- Risks/costs are shared (according to the consortium terms of reference)
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- Depending on Consortium terms of reference, may submit separate applications for each part of the site
- May require partitioned or separate s106 agreements
- Disagreement over disposition of land uses, infrastructure costs and failure to tie up land equalisation arrangements can lead to delay in agreement of s106, Infrastructure Delivery Plan and delivery
- Infrastructure delivery can be complex over landownership boundaries (and can potentially lead to ransom positions being established)
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Delivery Model
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Master Developer
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- Usually a landowner developer, retains a long term interest in the site
- Secures site-wide consents
- Delivers all on-site common infrastructure (can also include building schools and community facilities)
- Delivers serviced land parcels for housebuilders to acquire then deliver
- Produces design codes/site wide strategies to guide and control development
- Usually retains responsibility for long term governance (or governs through a third party management company)
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- Long term approach to returns and cashflow
- Retains and co-ordinates control of quality and delivery of infrastructure
- Seamless move from consent to delivery through conditions and s106 tailored to their model
- Infrastructure considered at a strategic scale
- Enables bespoke site -wide management arrangements
- Once established can deliver quickly and concurrently from multiple outlets
- Ability to flex delivery timing/type of provision if circumstances change
- Benefit from future uplift in values so more inclined to require and maintain quality and placemaking
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- May not always be experienced in the role
- Needs considerable financial reserves or favourable borrowing ability to weather the mismatch in cashflowing infrastructure spend and land receipts
- Longer lead in time if upfront infrastructure needed prior to selling serviced land parcels
- Subject to appetite/ability of housebuilders to adhere to design/quality aspirations
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Land Trader
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- Promotes land on behalf of an owner, usually with a promotion agreement
- Once planning permission granted, site sold on to a housebuilder/third party
- Land trader profit is realised through percentage of uplift in land value secured through consent
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- Tried and tested model, land traders can turn a large number of sites through this process
- Favoured by landowners without delivery experience
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- Consent and s106 secured in absence of developer responsible for delivery of development
- Site sold to third party who may seek to re-negotiate consent (usually conditions and s106) to meet their own delivery model
- Less inclination to accept higher design quality requirements in outline s106/conditions as may fetter subsequent land sales
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Housebuilder
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- Housebuilder owns or options land direct from landowner
- Housebuilder leads entire process, from site promotion and outline planning applications on-site to the building of homes
- Does not retain an interest in land/community behind the final house sale
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- Seamless and swift delivery of homes once consent achieved
- Known ‘product’ so design ethos is clear from the outset
- Economies of scale can speed up construction once underway
- Can deliver different ‘product offers within same company (Persimmon/Charles Church, or Barratt/David Wilson, for example)
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- Scale of some strategic sites is more than a single housebuilder can fund or deliver on traditional housebuilder models
- Limited flexibility around cashflow and forward funding of infrastructure (each phase must ‘wash its face’)
- Limited ability to take on long term management and governance
- Delivery highly affected by fluctuations in the market and competitor sites in the same area
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Registered Provider, Small to Medium Enterprise Housebuilder, co-housing, land trust, custom-builder or plot sale to individual -builder
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- Do not generally take the lead in strategic site promotion, but can support in its promotion
- Unlikely to be found as a model in the majority of strategic sites (Graven Hill, Bicester at c.1,900 homes is the most notable exception)
- Direct sale of land or plot by landowner to those directly building homes for re-sale or to those building their own home
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- Broadens the housing offer beyond the conventional range of housing types and mix
- Capable of meeting local / specialist housing needs
- Less susceptible to the fluctuations of the general housing market and competitor sites
- Likely to be a strong advocate for the development and placemaking
- Some models can provide a ready-made governance body for wider site
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- Legal agreements for sale of a single plot are as complex and time consuming as a serviced parcel for 100s of homes
- Land values will not be what can be achieved
- Very limited expertise or ability to deliver strategic infrastructure or large number of homes of homes
- Generally slower to deliver (although Modern Methods of Construction may change this longer term?)
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Compulsory Purchase Order and or Development Corporation
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- Only found for the largest or most complex strategic sites (new settlements/ communities or regeneration sites)
- Development Corporations centrally-imposed and funded by Government
- Compulsory Purchase Order models usually put in place to resolve specific site issues (usually after delivery models have stalled or failed)
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- Funding and infrastructure delivery supported/underwritten by Government
- Land receipts recycled back in the local area through infrastructure provision
- Ability to return percentage of land value uplift back to Treasury
- Long term interest and governance model embedded
- Delivery and values less susceptible to fluctuations in the housing market
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- Limited applicability in current climate (Ebbsfleet and Olympic Legacy Development Corporation notable exceptions, and Ebbsfleet Development Corporation does not own land)
- Perceived removal of locally democratic decision making in development delivery
- Recent attempts to promote locally led Dev Corps failed at Examination (North Essex Garden Communities for example) due to inability to align long term development propositions with current National Planning Policy Framework viability requirements
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Masterplanning and design
The 2021 NPPF updates have sought to strengthen the role and importance of design within the planning process. The National Model Design Code provides some overarching design considerations for new development but there are particular design aspects to consider for strategic sites.
The White Paper proposes to enhance the role of master plans and design in local plan making. This is seen as advantageous in terms of communicating the details of a development to wider communities and fixing key parameters for a development site in local plan policy. However how definitive any strategic site master plan can be at the start of a site allocation process, without detailed site survey/EIA processes or the engagement of local communities, is still to be debated.
Design fixes
Most strategic sites are subject to some form of design guidance and/or coding. This can be done in house or by/with the promoter’s team. Design principles can be set in site policy, agreed though supplementary planning documents alongside or subsequent to the local plan. Design details can be negotiated as part of the outline or through pre-commencement conditions. Regardless of the way in which design is agreed, material should be proportionate to the stage of the process, and the mechanisms for how design elements are to be fixed should be agreed at the outset.
Plans - what and when to fix?
The way in which masterplans and design of strategic sites find their way into the planning system can vary considerably between different local planning authorities and between different developers.
For most strategic sites, a degree of ‘conceptual masterplanning’ will have taken place as part of the call for sites process – usually through a vision document or similar, prepared by the promoters to support their call for sites submission. Sometimes, this will have been subject to early engagement with you as the local planning authority, but more commonly, this will be the first time a masterplan for the site will have been shared.
Vision/concept plans
‘Concept plans’ or ‘outline development framework plans’ will give a degree of information over a number of key aspects of the development, most notably:
- development quantum (usually expressed as a range)
- indicative boundaries between where the built development areas and green infrastructure would be
- high-level disposition of land uses and indicative location of centres, schools etc
- indicative primary access and movement strategy (proposed access points; key ped/cycle or highway connections with the wider area; sustainable transport offer (such as park and ride, unlocking of off-site highway improvements, public transport strategy or similar).
This is useful information for you as local planning authority and stakeholders in helping to assess the overall acceptability of a site for inclusion in the plan (its scale, sustainability credentials and whether it could deliver other spatial and non-spatial objectives of the plan). This information is also useful in informing the drafting of a site-specific policy for a strategic site.
Including plans at this relatively early stage may be seen as overly restrictive. However, we note:
- local plans regularly restrict the plans accompanying a strategic site policy to a ‘red line’ (usually with a reference to the need to undertake a supplementary planning document or similar). Whilst this may reflect the early stage of the evolution of the site development, it is not always helpful in upholding expectations when translating the spatial local plan policy into a supplementary planning document (which is a material consideration within planning decisions, but is considered to have less weight than a development plan, which is independently examined)
- site-specific policies for strategic sites are often criteria-based and reference specific parts of the site or area. It therefore helps to include a plan as part of the policy which articulates key spatial features or requirements.
Parameter plans/development framework plan
It is increasingly common to submit a series of parameter plans – or sometimes a single development framework plan - for approval with an outline application for a strategic site. Whilst this is a reasonable approach to take, the content and specificity of such plans can vary. In some instances – and particularly where sites are subject to Environmental Impact Assessment – these show precise boundaries and areas and fix the disposition of key land uses, measurable offsets from specific features or building/storey heights, for example.
Other development framework plans are more general and may be illustrative, to be confirmed through subsequent design coding or master planning through conditions.
The route to an approved ‘master plan’ – and at what stage of the consenting process this occurs - will depend on the nature of the proposal, the attitude of the developer, your local planning authority requirements and those of local communities. For strategic sites, for any plans to be effective and not delay delivery it is important to balance the need for certainty (important for local communities) with the ability to flex details over time should circumstances change without the need to revisit the overall consent (important for local planning authorities and developers).
Section 7 below addresses the detail of parameter plans in the context of the application and consenting process.
Detailed design
The need for design coding to govern reserved matters applications will generally be set out through conditions on the outline consent, although these requirements may be referenced in policy or supplementary planning document. In drafting codes – usually in collaboration with the applicant - it is important to understand not only what you want coding to achieve, but also to ascertain that your authority has the skills and resources to apply and enforce codes. If not in-house, then you may wish to outsource or acquire additional skills/resources for this activity.
For strategic sites (or for those which may have an element of commercial as well as residential development), it can sometimes speed up delivery by agreeing the submission of a hybrid application which includes a detailed first phase. Not only does this set the quality for the development and demonstrate what the scheme will look like, it allows any design coding to be ‘tested’ against a real scheme, thereby ironing out any particular issues around consequential impact at the outset – for example, adoption of non-standard materials, maintenance implications of public realm design features etc. Equally for the reasons outlined above, in circumstances where an outline planning application has been approved but requires a design code submission at a later date, it can be helpful to allow that design code to be submitted alongside the first reserved matters application to which it relates.
The National Model Design Code, published by the Government in 2021, provides helpful guidance for local planning authorities when producing their own design codes. In examples where design codes are prepared by the developer of a site, in accordance with an outline planning permission, or for a full or hybrid planning application, the National Model Design Code provides a useful tool for local planning authorities to understand what a design code should contain. Once these design codes are in place, it is essential that local planning authorities have the skills and resources to assess planning applications against them, to ensure they are effective in delivering their objectives, and for officers to be supported in their design decisions by members.
Viability
For strategic sites, viability issues arise in relation to site deliverability, the cost of infrastructure, cashflow and access to funding, and equalisation of costs and values.
Deliverability of a site
Local planning authorities often find themselves in conflict when undertaking site selection as part of drafting their development plans. Good spatial planning should be “boundary blind” and based on good geography rather than administrative or ownership boundaries. However, local planning authorities have a duty to select “deliverable sites” in order to meet their housing requirement and soundness tests, which includes demonstrating at examination that there are no impediments to delivery which cannot be effectively resolved through the planning system.
Therefore, prior to confirming a strategic site allocation, as a local planning authority you should satisfy that you have as full a knowledge of ownership constraints as possible, including requesting from the promoters information relating to any potential risks relating to overall delivery (such as ‘ransom positions’ or third party land).
Deliverability considerations
Key questions to explore with promoters when considering the deliverability of a strategic site include:
- Is the land is owned outright or are there options/covenants in place which may affect the terms on which land is made available for development?
- What is the basis upon which the promotion of the land is structured (at what point in the planning process does the landowner/investor/promoter seek or expect a return on their investment)?
- How is land to be transferred and built out (wholesale land sale to a third party with outline consent (and with obligations to deliver future infrastructure), or sale of co-ordinated serviced land parcels to a multiplicity of housebuilders once the primary developer has funded and built the common infrastructure)?
- Is the promoter adopting a ‘patient capital’ approach (where long-term value uplift is more important than short term returns), or does the promoter need to secure a certain level of return year on year from day one and cashflow will need to be managed accordingly)?
- Does the landowner/promoter need or have access to third party funding and preferential borrowing to forward fund infrastructure?
It is worth engaging early in the process to work with promoters of strategic sites to understand the basis upon which their deliverability case is predicated, and what the risks might be to deliverability at each stage of the planning process. For strategic sites, changes in market context/external factors or the land ownership position could affect delivery which are not foreseeable, so continued dialogue is important throughout the delivery process.
Viability considerations
A critical aspect of the delivery of a strategic site is viability. A developer’s attitude to viability and cashflow has a material influence over how a site is designed, phased and its infrastructure is delivered.
Viability will be a key consideration at the plan making and at the decision-taking stage. Many local planning authorities are now well versed in preparing local plan viability evidence, using consultants as necessary to provide specialist expertise, and there is a plethora of guidance and best practice available to guide methodologies. This Toolkit does not replicate this guidance but provides some pointers to navigating viability aspects of a large site through the planning process.
In general terms, viability should be approached on an open book basis wherever possible. This enables local planning authorities, an Inspector and the public to understand the infrastructure costs of a development, how viability has been approached when negotiating s106 agreements, and how infrastructure will be delivered or funded as development receipts are received.
In most cases, both the local planning authority and site promoter will have engaged a suitably qualified viability specialist who is required to undertake an independent review of viability and, if a chartered surveyor, to do so within the terms of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors code of conduct.
Viability at plan making stage
Viability at the plan making stage generally relies on a ‘typology approach’ using average value and cost assumptions based on site characteristic groupings – for example, greenfield or brownfield, size and use. Landowners, developers, affordable housing providers and other stakeholders should engage with local planning authorities early in the planning process and seek to agree a common approach to undertaking viability in this context.
The basis upon which viability appraisals are undertaken for strategic sites can differ from the standard local plan viability assessments. Current government and the 2012 RICS guidance on viability appraisal and the standard ‘residual land value’ approach to calculating viability for residential development does not provide direct advice in considering strategic site viability.
By their nature viability appraisals are a ‘snapshot in time’ and can only give a view of viability against the prevailing economic circumstances. Viability assessments can be more reliable for smaller sites where significant changes are less likely over the life of the delivery period. But for larger sites with longer build out rates, changes in the cost of borrowing, infrastructure, residential land values and building regulations can have a materially significant impact on the viability of a development (although such changes can be positive as well as negative). Viability is also susceptible to external factors such as changes in the tax regime, availability of skills and labour, and the wider economy and property cycles.
In this context, we suggest that the following approach is helpful:
- wherever possible, standard local plan viability assumptions should be the starting point for a strategic site viability appraisal.
- where it is then necessary to adjust or make a different assumption, or take a different approach to the appraisal, then this should be made clear together with the reasons for doing so.
- where any difference in appraisal approach between the parties does arise, the common ground between parties should be set out as part of a statement of common ground and presented to an examination at the plan-making stage, so that the matters of debate can be tightly defined.
The question of scheme viability was a material consideration in the local plan examination into the North Essex Garden Communities (GCs). As a result of the way in which the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) requires viability to be considered (largely aimed at smaller scale developments), and due to the uncertainties around the factors which influence viability when considering development over decades rather than years, only one of the three GCs was found to be viable. The Inspector recommended the removal of the two GC sites which were more ‘standalone’ in nature and reliant on significant public transport infrastructure investment to deliver on their sustainability objectives, on the grounds of a lack of soundness in relation to demonstrable viability.
Viability at planning application stage
At the decision taking stage applications will be measured against the viability assessment which informed the local plan and will be required to comply with adopted policies by utilising standardised appraisal inputs, as defined in the Planning Practice Guidance. However, site-specific inputs, such as abnormal development costs, are often unknown at plan-making stage. For strategic sites some assumptions will have been made regarding infrastructure costs and known ‘abnormals’ but these will have been high-level. As such, value and cost assumptions will inevitably fluctuate and may need to be adjusted.
Where any changes in the viability of a scheme are advanced by the developer, then it is legitimate for a new assessment to be undertaken, and appropriate for local planning authorities to ask for evidence to justify any change in viability position. It is, however, up to the decision maker how much weight they give to this evidence. There is no obligation for this to be taken into account at (or post) the application stage, as set out in the NPPF.
It is worth considering viability over time when drafting conditions and s106 agreements for strategic sites. Government guidance states that “Review mechanisms are not a tool to protect a return to the developer, but to strengthen local authorities’ ability to seek compliance with relevant policies over the lifetime of the project” (Planning Practice Guidance paragraph 009 Ref ID: 10-009-20190509), therefore it may be beneficial to both sides to introduce a review mechanism which facilitates flex or adjustments over the life of a delivery timetable to maximise the ability to deliver an overall policy compliant development once completed.
A review mechanism triggered for example by a certain percentage change in the relationship between costs and values, rates of borrowing or cost of infrastructure could also provide a workable solution for both sides. Improved viability could trigger increased levels of affordable housing on site, or early warning of a reduction in viability may allow the local planning authority and developer to work together to seek grant or loan funding for key infrastructure, or to revisit its phasing relative to land sales.
Infrastructure delivery planning
Delivery plans are a common component of outline planning applications for strategic sites. They set out what infrastructure will be provided by the development, and when it will be provided (usually expressed as a ‘trigger point’ in the development). These infrastructure items are costed, and thus are intrinsically linked to the viability of the development proposed.
Infrastructure delivery plans are also required at the plan making stage, either as part of the allocation, or as part of any supplementary planning documents (see section 4 of this toolkit). This infrastructure delivery plan should clearly set out what infrastructure is expected to be delivered by the development, and when this is expected to be delivered.
It is important to consider ‘whole site’ infrastructure delivery for strategic sites. This is especially critical for sites with multiple landowners which will either be subject to equalisation or collaboration agreements to deliver common infrastructure or will be delivered in multiple standalone planning applications (either outline applications or full planning applications), each with their own infrastructure bill.
Equalisation and collaboration agreements
On sites with multiple land ownerships, it is particularly important to understand whether, and what sort of, development agreements are in place between the different parties.
In terms of delivering ‘common infrastructure’ across a site – those land uses or services which are located on one part of the site but serve the whole site (schools, playing fields, sustainable urban drainage systems and community facilities are frequent examples) - complications can arise unless there is a signed agreement to ‘equalise’ the land and delivery costs between the parties.
For example, if one landowner has a school on his land (a ‘nil value’ land use for viability purposes), then he will need to be compensated (financially or ‘in kind’ by the transfer of land) from the other landowners who rely upon this infrastructure for their development, but do not have to provide land for it. The way in which this is calculated can be very complex. Unless agreed up front it can delay the consenting of development/s106 agreement. The absence of a collaboration of equalisation agreement can also frustrate the effective ‘whole-site’ master planning earlier in the planning process as developers debate what land uses are to be placed on what part of the site, or whether land uses ‘straddle’ two land ownerships.
Similarly, with roads and services which cross the site to serve all landowners, unless legal requirements are put in place to secure the timing of this provision to avoid disadvantaging one party or delaying the bringing forward of one part of the site through lack of ability to connect to key infrastructure/utilities, this can also impact delivery.
There are a number of options for resolving landownership constraints for strategic sites. The local planning authority can request but not insist upon a legally binding equalisation agreement through the planning process. Similarly, collaboration agreements are usually undertaken voluntarily between landowners, again outside the planning process.
Therefore, to minimise the adverse impact of land ownership constraints at the consenting or implementation phase, it is worth securing the following at the relevant points in time:
- A requirement in local plan policy for a single outline application for the whole site.
- A comprehensive ‘ownership blind’ master plan to be agreed in the local plan policy or through supplementary planning documents prior to the submissions of applications.
- Clearly setting out the site and wider infrastructure requirements in local plan policy and indicating how these will be funded or on what basis (% land/dwelling numbers/floorspace?) such contributions are made.
- Conditioning different outline planning applications within a strategic site on the basis of a common suite of approved plans, or considering whether there is a need to structure the conditions of an overall outline planning application with more than one applicant to be partially discharged so each application/landholding can progress independently of the others to a common consent.
- Adopting a ‘per dwelling’ tariff-type s106 agreement where each landowner makes contributions to infrastructure costs, apportioned taking into account the mix of ‘in kind and financial contributions’ to be made on each landholding.
- The local planning authority taking a more proactive role as infrastructure provider on site, using preferential borrowing to build common infrastructure itself, ‘reimbursed’ by the receipts from ‘per dwelling’ developer contributions.
Engagement
Community and stakeholder engagement and consultation is an essential part in delivering strategic scale sites. Consideration must be given to both wider community engagement and direct political engagement with elected members, as both of these elements will critically affect the selection, allocation and delivery of strategic sites.
Throughout the allocation and delivery process the relationship between local planning authority and developer is critical to success; but is also under close scrutiny. As a general rule, wherever possible transparency is key - in dialogue between the local planning authority, developers, stakeholders and the wider public.
Whilst clearly not all elements of the process will be able to be publicly available (commercial viability considerations or s106 negotiations for example), effective communication and updates, especially around key stages within the process (allocation, outline planning applications, detailed design work, detailed planning applications etc) will often go a long way in ensuring trust in the process is maintained. Each stage of the process should be accompanied by explicit opportunities to shape outcomes where possible, but should set clear parameters for the role and remit of each stakeholder, and make explicit the central role the professional planner has in balancing competing interests.
Direct and effective community engagement
Effective engagement and understanding what stakeholders and the public really want or expect from the delivery of a site can go a long way to ensuring a smooth(er) process from site inception to delivery and formation of a new community.
Whilst there are many statutory instruments which require consultation and engagement (Regulation 18 consultation in local plan making or statutory consultation on a planning application submission, for example), going above and beyond these statutory processes for strategic sites can be an effective way of generating positive outcomes, and generating greater trust in the process.
Engagement at Plan Making Stage
However, the initial stages of consultation are often ‘remote’, with the developer submitting development proposals to the call for sites process which the local planning authority and others ‘receive’ and review in isolation. This is often when action groups are formed in opposition to large scale development as a reaction to the perceived ‘threat’ of development. The need to provide an objective evidence base, and for the local planning authority to be seen to be impartial, can often mean that local planning authorities are reluctant or prevented from early engagement with site promoters, especially before a draft plan is published.
Once positions become entrenched, this can have a detrimental impact on the successful allocation and delivery of a large site. Very often developers are keen to undertake early engagement to seek initial local views to shape emerging proposals. If you as the local planning authority can facilitate early direct dialogue between the developer and local communities – even if this is on a ‘without prejudice’ basis - then this helps greatly in establishing a dialogue and getting to a common understanding of what is proposed and how it can be shaped by local input.
Engagement at SPD/Planning Application Stage
In our experience, when councils push hard for early and continual ‘three way’ engagement with the developer, local planning authorities and local stakeholder groups in the same room, the outcomes are much better.
Where the local planning authority has to ‘keep the two sides separate’, then getting to a commonly-understood position, and agreeing what is technically possible, preferable and deliverable on a site takes much longer and can be fraught with confusion and ‘mixed messages’. The local planning authority can end up having to resource twice as many meetings – once with the development team, then again with local stakeholders.
Similarly, an local planning authority trying to mediate between the two sides ‘after the event’ - making changes to plans or proposals to respond to local concerns, but without the detailed site knowledge that developer’s team has; or trying to communicate specific site constraints to local people without the developer’s technical team present - can result in less than satisfactory outcomes which both delay and erode confidence in the process from all sides.
In worst-case situations, and increasingly in recent years, intransigent local objectors can slow down progress or stop delivery on a planned site through lodging judicial review or challenges to the process.
Conversely, working alongside and co-ordinated with developers to create innovative methods of engagement which strive to seek input from all local stakeholders including under-represented groups (and avoiding over-representation by a narrow or single-issue demographic), can foster a sense of collective endeavour and establish effective working relationships.
Ongoing engagement
A common issue with strategic development is the feeling that ‘promises are not being kept’ as sites move through the promotion and consenting process to when they begin to deliver on the ground.
Effective updates - through newsletters, public exhibitions or other mechanisms - can ensure that stakeholders and new occupiers feel informed and understand where and how to engage with ongoing development processes.
In the best-case examples we have come across, the way in which dialogue is established through the planning application process is continued by the developer once on site, and the establishment of ongoing focus or stakeholder groups regularly meeting with the on-site development team can be very helpful in sharing information and concerns, as well as given local communities a sense of ownership and pride in their new surroundings.
Stage
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Proformas
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Questionnaires
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Presentations / Public Meetings
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Workshops
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Focus Groups
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Written Responses (Letters)
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Public Exhibitions
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Newsletters
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Call for Sites
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x
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x
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x
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Site Selection/
Consideration
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x
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x
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x
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x
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x
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Issues and Options
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x
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x
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|
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x
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x
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Examination and Allocation
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x
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x
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x
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x
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x
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x
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SPD and Outline Planning Applications
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|
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x
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x
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x
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x
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x
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x
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Detailed Planning Applications
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|
|
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x
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x
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x
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x
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x
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Monitoring and Delivery
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x
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|
|
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x
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x
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x
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Proformas
Can be sent out either physically or digitally, and useful for quickly gathering basic data. Rely on physical completion by user and require fact checking by local planning authority.
Questionnaires
Often accompany proformas, enable opinions to be shared. Can be either ‘open’ questions or ‘multiple choice’. Open questions more informative, but more time consuming to complete/collate responses.
Presentations/public meetings
Useful for dissemination of information to large groups. Can be recorded and uploaded online. Difficult to effectively gather responses; more of a tool to ‘inform’ or update.
Workshops
Enable discussion in an informal setting. Useful for explaining complex points and gathering multifaceted or complex opinions. Use of exercises in workshop can be useful for response gathering and analysis. Opportunity to use physical or digital tools to explore solutions (eg charettes, digital mapping etc). Difficult to undertake successfully with large groups. Can record views and preferred options, but not a decision-making forum.
Focus groups
Not dissimilar in format to workshops but enable more focused challenge of issues. Used to test ideas rather than formulate them. Useful to understand views of a particular demographic or group (although shouldn’t be relied upon in isolation). Can also take format of a ‘roundtable’ discussion, with a wider remit and more open discussion of options.
Written responses (letters)
Exceptionally common, and essential part in fulfilling statutory roles in both plan-making and decision taking. Can be used in combination with ‘in-person’ methods to document views/comments more formally. Easily uploaded online, although detailed analysis/processing difficult due to complexity of responses.
Public exhibitions
Useful to inform and can be used in a variety of settings (village halls, market stalls, streets, shopping centres etc.). Where manned, can enable one to one discussion of issues. Can also be adapted to be used digitally and disseminated through social media. Can be combined with forms or questionnaires to gather opinions.
Newsletters/website updates
Useful to provide regular update concurrently to large numbers of people. Can be coupled with questionnaires or other methods to gather specific responses.
Whilst these consultation methods are well known and widely recognised, often many of them are underemployed, or employed in a manner which does not reach under-represented groups, which is particularly important when considering strategic sites serving a community not yet present.
Local planning authorities should look to set out clear consultation requirements through pre-application discussions, through supplementary planning documents or local plan policy, setting out expectations regarding the statement of community involvement submitted with planning applications.
Digital engagement techniques
As access to the internet and computers becomes more prevalent in society, the opportunity for digital engagement grows exponentially. Digital engagement can be effective in ensuring those who many have less opportunity to physically engage are able to do so (eg those unable to travel, those without time etc). Many of the consultation techniques set out in the table above can be undertaken both in a physical and digital format.
However, care must be taken to ensure that digital methods do not solely replace physical consultation methods, as people can feel ostracised without an ability to physically participate.
Effective political engagement
Getting political buy-in as well as senior officer support is critical to strategic site delivery. However, because of the scale of development proposed – and the length of time strategic sites take to build out – political opposition to large scale growth is often quite significant. This is not helped by development projects which are promoted as deliverable to secure an allocation or SPD through the development plan process, but then when planning consents are negotiated and s106s drafted, viability issues or technical constraints are unveiled which affect delivery. This all undermines confidence in strategic sites as a development model to meet year-on-year housing need, which can cause other problems, as often these sites are essential to meet five-year supply or housing delivery test requirements.
Similarly, local planning authorities can be viewed by local communities of being ‘overly influenced’ by developers if a site is drawn to reflect ownership boundaries; and yet, if a strategic site comprises ownership which is fragmented or has multiple owners with very different views about if/what should be developed, then its delivery can be compromised at a relatively early stage. Given this, it is critically important to understand land ownership at an early stage, and that this ownership is transparent where it affects development decisions.
In areas where political control commonly shifts at elections, cross party relationships are key to ensuring that political changes do not affect the delivery of strategic sites, which will be delivered over multiple political terms. Establishing these relationships can be challenging, but are helped by ensuring members of both parties are involved in key decision making processes, or at least aware of them, and the reasoning behind decisions, at an early stage. Again, establishing direct and open dialogue with developers is important: once a site is consented the developed and local planning authority have the same primary objective: to successfully deliver homes and infrastructure on site.
Environmental impact and mitigation
The testing of environmental impact is a necessary and robust process but can sometimes be seen as cutting across other considerations of plan making and development delivery.
It happens at three points in the process, but in very different ways:
- At the plan making stage, through the sustainability appraisal (and also though local plan modelling work on specific elements such as transport and net biodiversity gain, for example). This is high level analysis and, in the case of sustainability appraisal in particular, is to a degree subjective.
- At the consenting stage (both outline planning application and reserved matters), through the formal Environmental Impact Assessment process required for the vast majority of strategic sites. Comprises detailed survey and analysis, usually based on a specific development proposal or key development parameters, and identifies significant impact and the ways in which it can be mitigated.
- At the monitoring stage of construction or occupation, where previously agreed mitigation measures are reviewed to ensure environmental requirements and objectives are being undertaken or met.
Planners often find themselves at the fulcrum of decision making in this regard. In communicating the process to the wider community as well as members, therefore, it is helpful to restate that planners should be supported in their decision-making to balance a range of potentially conflicting around what is acceptable in planning terms, and to recognise that this may well be a balance between environmental and other social, economic and community factors.
Delay can occur when planners are not supported in their professional view and as ‘mediators’ between competing and single-issue views. Instead, case officers can become ‘post boxes’, simply passing on the received views of statutory consultations to the applicant without offering a view as to the appropriateness of the comments or whether they conflict with those of other respondents. The applicant is then simply expected to address all the issues raised, and to make decisions themselves between competing interests. Case officers should be supported by colleagues to undertake the mediator role and respected by statutory agencies in the role they have to perform in coming to an overall balanced view.
Resources and skills
Ensuring that the right resources and skills are available at the right stage of the process is an important, and often challenging, aspect of both delivering and supporting the delivery of strategic scale development.
Planning application fees for strategic development are a useful tool to fund officer resources, however they are not received until relatively late in the process (once a planning application is made). Also, with complex sites, these fees can often be insufficient to fully cover the costs of officer input into the process.
Agreeing a planning performance agreement (PPA) with a developer, landowner or promoter is an effective way to secure funds earlier in the process, which can be used to ensure effective pre-application engagement and to ensure sufficient resource is available during application determination. However, there are skills and resource implications associated with the PPA route for strategic sites, and PPAs have broken down due to insufficient time, consistency or quality of officer input.
As site delivery begins, it is likely that significant local planning authority resource is required not only for monitoring the development, but for dealing with the likely influx of planning applications related to housing, infrastructure or other forms of development (schools, retail, commercial etc). When negotiating a s106 agreement, whilst a contribution toward a monitoring officer is common, consideration should be given to whether a contribution to an implementation officer is also appropriate. This can be used to effectively ‘buy’ a dedicated planning officer (or officers) for the lifetime of a project, to deal with the applications once submitted in a consistent and knowledgeable manner.
It is important that, where possible, continuity of officer from the outset is maintained when dealing with a site. This is particularly important in strategic sites, where issues are often complex, can take a long time to reach a solution, and can re-occur throughout the process. Whilst clearly planning policy and development management officers will need to be involved throughout the process, if a continuity of officer can be maintained for these two disciplines, it enables an easier handover between the two as needed. Major projects teams – which include cross-disciplines within a Council– have been effective in this regard, and this can be helped by the PPA process especially if several strategic sites are in place, as it allows consistency of funding and approach.
This continuity can also be equally important in a political sense, as different members or political parties might have different aspirations for an area or site at different points in its progression, leading to changes in decision making processes or decisions themselves which can undermine delivery. Whilst practically unworkable to enforce through the planning process, issues can be minimised by maintaining officer consistency and effective project recording, and through effective communication between parties (officers and members, but also where appropriate, with developers also).
Consistency of resource and having the correct skills are not only important within planning teams dealing with strategic sites, but also within wider disciplines which have key inputs to planning decision making (highways authority, lead local flood authority, ecologists, heritage, regeneration, housing etc). Whilst some of these disciplines may not be within the control of a local planning authority (especially in non-unitary authorities), encouragement to keep resources as consistent as possible in these matters is important for project continuity, and to enable issues (especially those which are complex and time consuming) which arise to be dealt with consistently.
Other sources of funding, such as government grants (eg. Garden Communities/Eco-Towns funding etc), can also be used for either officer resources or to bring in specialist resources, including Homes England, which may not be available in-house.
Key consideration
The delivery of strategic sites is complex and invokes the need for a wide and varying skills set. Whilst many of these skills are transferable in different contexts, they will be ever evolving and honed over time. Therefore, it is often beneficial to retain officers in certain positions, to enable them to use skills developed again and again (eg by forming a major sites team, or having a dedicated major sites officer). This can speed up processes in locations with multiple strategic scale sites, in cross border locations, or if further strategic sites are required as part of a later development strategy.