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PAS Bulletin: November 2020

Moving seamlessly from the White Paper consultation into a second lockdown, planners should be much better prepared for what lies ahead. All of that hard work in March and April, to make sure that the planning system continued to run, will now be business as usual. We are looking to provide a virtual committee review now that all of the kinks have been ironed out. This should be an opportunity to celebrate good practice and show where lessons have been learnt.

We are also concerned about local plans - nothing new there. We worry that there may be a tendency to put the brakes on, to pause whilst we wait for the new Planning Bill. As with all changes to our system, however, we have to push on through. We would like to help you so please get in touch if your plan needs a little help to keep it moving.

PAS will be operating virtually throughout the lockdown. Please contact us at pas@local.gov.uk if you need our help.

Anna Rose

Head of PAS

"Return to Work - Planning": final call for applications

Do you know someone who would like to get back to work in a job in town planning? Perhaps they left the profession to take care of someone and have suffered employment loss this year because of COVID-19? If you do know someone please encourage them to apply for the Return to Work - Planning programme which closes for applications on 11 November 2020. Return to Work - Planning is one of four Return to Work programmes developed by the LGA and the Government Equalities Office. The programme is designed to help people with experience in town planning to return to work after a career break and join local government.

The programme is endorsed by the Royal Town Planning Institute and is designed to encourage town planners to restart their careers. We will be working with the LGA to provide the training and support for candidates who join the programme and with councils to link them to candidates to help with recruitment. If you are a council who would like to sign up to the programme, it will give you the chance to connect with experienced professionals who are eager to join local government. Please get in touch at pas@local.gov.uk .

Blog - Planning for the Future consultation events: what we saw and heard

This blog is written in thanks and reflection to all the officers who attended our recent consultation events with the Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government on the Planning for the Future White Paper. Rachael reflects on the new “norm” of holding virtual workshops and acknowledges the value of the input that you delivered at these sessions. We have also uploaded a copy of the presentation materials from these events, along with a summary of what we saw and heard.

Infrastructure Funding Statement (IFS) event materials

We have published all the materials we used during our IFS events to explain how the new requirements land for all authorities collecting Community Infrastructure Levy and Section 106 contributions. There is a delayed guide to the IFS in the works, but until it is ready the presentations are the best source for a quick checklist of what your statement must contain and some thoughts about what it might contain. There is also a slightly "hardcore" technical guide to populating and publishing the detailed transaction level detail on CSV tables.

KHub

Is anyone using part 2 of the Brownfield register?

Curtilage conundrum 1: What is garden land without a house?

Curtilage conundrum 2: Sub dividing planning units and CIL