Plan-it Law

Evidence base for LDF plans

There is a useful article in a recent Planning Inspectorate newsletter on preparing your evidence base for an LDF plan. As well as following the regulations and PPS12, the article makes clear that a lot of this is common sense and thinking ahead. Time invested in planning what you are going to need, before you compile the evidence, and then checking back to make sure you can justify every policy, is likely to be time well spent. Click here for the article

Is it time to flex those CPO muscles?

At a couple of our recent CIL lunches, guests made the point that CIL could cause development to slow down because if the burden in effect falls on the landowner (through a drop in value to reflect CIL), then some landowners will simply hold onto their land until values increase sufficiently to make disposal attractive. In a number of cases, this could mean that carefully constructed local development frameworks would fail to deliver. So, if a site is important to the growth plans in a particular area, then the local planning authority may need to use its CPO powers and then sell for development. Indeed that may be a step to consider sooner rather than later - there may be some low values now, but will they last?