Coventry Disputes ‘Duty to Cooperate’ Failure – Was the Inspector Correct?
Interesting Quotes from BBC West Mids
…it’s “a mess”.
[Coventry] blames the Planning Inspectorate which turned down the city’s proposed plan on the grounds that it had not secured adequate agreements from neighbouring local authorities, an interpretation which Mr Mutton hotly disputes.
“The government introduced the Localism Bill which is supposed to be about local councils making decisions based on local knowledge and then we have a planning inspector who not only ignores our local knowledge but also interprets the legislation in a way no one expected.
“The ‘duty to cooperate’ suddenly becomes the ‘duty to agree’. Well that may never happen between authorities.”
You bet. The penultimate sentence is adapted from me. Well of course quite a few people did predict it. We did on this blog and of course Birmingham and Nuneaton & Bedworth did to and the inspector upheld that view.
The reference seems to be to the one line of the finding.
The evidence does not show that cooperation between Coventry and its neighbouring councils has been constructive, as required by the 2004 Act, or effective as is expected by paragraph 181 of the Framework.
The inspector did not need to add the text in bold it confuses the legal and soundness issues however reading the decision as a whole it is clear that it is made solely on legal grounds with relation to engaging constructively and effectively – the section 33A requirement as added after RTPI lobbying. This does not mean you have to agree on housing distribution ( a soundness issue), but you do have to engage constructively on determining what the objective level of need is, which Coventry deliberately declined to do, like North Somerset of course, and look where that led.
It is difficult then to see any successful outcome if Coventry do JR as the additional text added to section 33A was added expressly to deal with recalcitrant cases such as this.
And on locals making local decision we have had the recent Tewksbury case confirming the legal view that planning is just as centrally driven as it ever was, when you don’t have an up to date plan.
Perhaps the big issue and greatest conundrum is what is the political ‘out’ for councils that hit this wall. This has no easy answer, some authorities have bravely got their heads down, some hold out, others are petrified it will happen to them soon, what a mess yes.
Posted on March 14, 2013, in urban planning. Bookmark the permalink. 3 Comments.
Another timely piece which begs the question as to why St Albans appears to have to dodged this particular bullet.
http://www.pcs.planningportal.gov.uk/pcsportal/fscdav/READONLY?OBJ=COO.2036.300.12.5206217&NAME=/Decision%20letter.pdf
In this Decision, published two days ago, Inspector Elizabeth Fieldhouse has given St Albans Council the green light to retain the annual housing target set by the East of England Plan, even though, as you know, this was the first RS to be revoked by Eric Pickles on 3rd Jan.
You’ve written in the past that St Albans shelved its draft SLP last year and will be a few years off having a Local Plan. This is because the Full Council rejected the Cabinet’s draft SLP in November and is forcing them to carry out a GB Review and a housing needs study.
However, as soon as the RS was revoked in January, the Cabinet agreed amongst themselves to re-adopt the RS figure as an interim target instead of one which would reflect the full objectively assessed housing need. (Unlike the Draft SLP, the Cabinet didn’t put this issue to a Vote at Full Council.) They have no agreement through the Duty To Cooperate to export the unmet need to the likes of Dacorum or Hertsmere.
And as you will see, the Inspector agreed. She concluded that they should indeed be allowed to reintroduce the annual housing target of 360 dwellings which was set by the EEP Panel. (see paragraphs 22-30)
As a result, St Albans and presumably other similar Districts will no doubt want to use this Decision to avoid meeting their full housing needs and to rely instead on much lower Regional Strategy housing targets set by the previous Government.
You’ll note that in favouring the RS number over the use of the 2008 DCLG household projection, the Inspector appears to make no reference whatsoever to the Duty To Cooperate.
As you and others rightly say, “it’ a mess”.
Any ideas of what word Pickles might use when this Decision lands on his desk?
Surely a big, bullying, well-resourced local authority A could force the requirement to fulfil its own housing need on to a smaller, less well-resourced, perhaps less able neighbouring authority B if it so wished – this could be seen by inspectors as co-operation when in fact it is intimidation and the exact opposite of the duty to co-operate.
I understand the difference between the duty to co-operate and the duty to agree – why don’t inspectors?
AL is wrong about North Somerset though as this pre-dated the mandatory requirement (plan Examination was Nov 2011). Bristol already had had its plan found sound and, as its claim that its immediate housing growth needs could be accommodated witin the City area, the urban extension into Green Belt in N Somerset wasn’t required for this iteration of the plan. The recent High Court judgement also makes an interesting read in regard to the one point where the judge ruled in favour of the appellant as she commits the error that she accusing the Inspector of. There’s no going back though and there now has to be a repeat exam. for the housing requirement. Daft I call it.