A few years ago I took it upon myself to submit a supporting comment on Transport for London’s plans to build new homes on the car park at Cockfosters station. Although it’s just across the borough boundary in Enfield, it’s only a few hundred metres from where I live in New Barnet, and the application was worthy of support. Then Chipping Barnet MP, Theresa Villiers, was running an active campaign against the plans, which was as a good a reason as any to add my name to the list of those in favour.
I’d not thought much about it before then, but having found the application reference (handily provided on one of the many anti-development leaflets that dropped through my door), and registered on Enfield’s website, I found myself presented with a long list of checkboxes setting out the reasons why I might want to object to the proposals. This included a veritable NIMBingo card of objections; yet missing was anything that could be considered a positive justification for the development.
Many weren’t even valid planning objections at all: included on the list was “general dislike of proposal”, but nothing about the desperate need for new homes. “Noise nuisance” made an appearance, but missing was a checkbox acknowledging a positive contribution to the local area.
If you found yourself wanting to object to a planning application but you weren’t sure why, this provided you with a perfect “to do” list of reasons. It’s difficult to imagine anyone sufficiently enraged by the idea of new housing that they’d be selective about what they were ticking and why. “I just don’t like the look of it, but yeah – the land is probably contaminated too!”
To Enfield’s credit, when I raised this with the head of planning, he acknowledged that this list was unnecessarily biased, and it was duly revised to include an equal balance of positive and negative sentiments. Alongside “development too high” appeared “improves the quality of the area”; “loss of parking” was countered by “makes sustainable use of land”, and so on. Simply ticking every box from top to bottom was now counter-productive: those wishing to object, or support, an application were now forced to carefully consider each option.
This got me thinking about the inherent bias in the planning system in favour of those railing against development. I spend a lot of my life raking through planning applications and am familiar with many of the terms used, but for someone who’s engaging with the system for the first time this can be an intimidating and confusing experience.
You just need to look at the front page of many council homepages to see this bias at first hand. The screen grab below is from the front page of Barking & Dagenham’s website (I’m not picking on LBBD here: it just happens to come first in the alphabet), and demonstrates a tacit assumption that nobody would, in their right mind, actually write in favour of development:
Clicking through to the planning portal itself, it gets worse.
The impenetrable nature of Idox is for another day, but even once you’ve managed to locate the reference of the application you want to comment on, you are required to complete a long and complicated registration form to do so.
I suppose that, unlike me, most people will be commenting mostly on applications which immediately affect them and will only every need to go through this procedure once, but you can see how someone without much time on their hands, who moves home regularly as a consequence of precarious circumstances, or is unfamiliar with engaging with the authorities, might be put off by this step.
I’m in two minds about the need to register to make a comment: on one hand I can see how it might limit spurious or trivial comments that take up officer time; on the other, I can also see that it might be off-putting for those more likely to support new development (older, established residents are, I suspect, more likely to have the capacity to spend time grappling with user-unfriendly web portals). But, on balance, I’m not sure that requiring commenters to register is a good thing.
Some planning authorities—my home borough of Barnet included—have removed this list entirely, so it’s up to respondents to decide for themselves whether they believe a particular scheme meets local planning policy. The bias against supporters is apparent elsewhere on the site, however.
It’s well known that public consultation is a bit of a nonsense anyway as every application needs to be assessed on its own merits, and officers are perfectly capable of determining whether a proposal for development is broadly compliant with policy (and if the planning committee disagrees, the Planning Inspectorate certainly is). The only purpose served by the commenting process is to apply pressure on elected officials to resist development.
Islington Council’s website is entirely neutral in its language, offering visitors the opportunity simply to “view or comment” planning applications; although the ability to find anything without the specific planning reference is impossible. Not to have an interactive web map displaying all current planning applications cannot surely be acceptable in a planning website that was only updated this year.
Richmond-upon-Thames’ website is marginally better: searching for applications is painful (another borough without an interactive map), nowhere does the site refer to “objecting”, and there’s no need to register in advance. Sensibly, personal details are limited to a name and email address.
All in all, the general state of London’s planning portal is woeful. A lack of online mapping, anachronistic interfaces and dysfunctional search facilities abound. Given the importance of housing in London, surely we deserve better than this? It’s no wonder people, including those for and against new development, feel disengaged from the planning process when it’s so hard to register an opinion. Perhaps the new government might want to invest in a unified platform, provided freely to local planning authorities, to speed up the planning process.
As it happens, despite Theresa Villiers’ intervention and a vigorous local campaign, the Cockfosters application was narrowly approved by Enfield’s planning committee—albeit in a meeting that went on into the early hours. The application was later stalled by an intervention from then Minister of Transport Grant Shapps, and when this was overturned, by issues around financial viability. In total, Enfield received 2,852 formal objections, with just 15 in support. That the committee voted in favour of the scheme is a credit to elected members. But it does suggest, at least to me, that the system is rigged and it’s time to do something about it.
If you’re interested in knowing more about the planning system works, and how you can help support planning applications for new homes in your area (or anywhere else, for that matter), I wrote a handy guide which you can download here.
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