Planning by Manifesto
This week I was in the slightly disconcerting position of agreeing with a Strategic Land Promoter (who will be here-forth known as SLP) about the deregulation of the UK planning system. Me, a card-carrying urbanist and fully paid up member of the RTPI. We met at the recording of an exciting new planning podcast (yes you heard that right) the first episode of which will hopefully be released in the coming weeks. We kept our aspirations lofty and set out, in our 57-minute record, to answer the fundamental question –is the planning system fit for purpose? We covered the findings of the National Audit Office Report , the Raynsford Review and dissected the aims of the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission . Then we moved on to the changes to Permitted Development Rights and this is where things really got interesting. For those planners who have been living under a rock, it is now possible, through Permitted Development Rights, to turn an office building into housing without ...