by Martin White
On October 11 1989, Chris Patten, the newly appointed Environment Secretary, announced that he had decided not to proceed with proposals to relax planning controls on development in the countryside. Two months later he published a new draft guidance note (The countryside and the rural economy), which puts into reverse a number of the rural planning policies introduced by his more development-minded predecessor Nicholas Ridley — further evidence of a U-turn, or at least a marked bend in Government thinking, since the greening of Mrs Thatcher!
Major changes in Government policy are frequently concealed behind subtle changes of emphasis or wording. Such is the case in the new guidance note. Whereas Nicholas Ridley’s note “PPG7” (The rural enterprise and development) placed emphasis on the need to promote growth and the diversification of the rural economy in ways which would enhance quality of life and conserve the heritage of the countryside, Chris Patten’s emphasis is upon enhancing the quality of life by conserving the countryside heritage and sustaining the rural economy (my italics).
PPG7 stated that “the best protection for the countryside is a healthy rural economy where enterprise and initiative are permitted and encouraged to thrive”. The new note deletes the last 10 words. It is on the basis of such changes that planning appeals are won and lost!
With regard specifically to housing development in rural areas, both the old and new guidance notes see new housing as a means of securing the health of the rural economy and the viability of smaller communities, but the new note talks only of “small-scale” or “modest” housing development and stresses the need for the pattern of development to be determined through the development plan process. PPG7 contained no such reference to the development plan process, and has been used by developers as an argument to overcome restrictive development plan housing targets.
An influx of commuters or retired people into rural areas can cause a housing shortage which is most adverse to locals on modest incomes. The new note addresses this problem by suggesting that planning authorities should grant consent for small-scale low-cost housing where it can be reserved for “local needs” by planning agreement or covenant. Such consents would be granted as an exception to normal policies of restraint and would be a permitted addition to development plan housing targets. Paradoxically, therefore, the Government seems to be opening up the way for all development plan housing targets to be taken up by top-end-of-the-market development and for “local needs” housing not even to enter into the equation of how much housing is appropriate for a particular rural area.
So far as housing in the open countryside (as opposed to villages) is concerned, Chris Patten has returned to the wording of earlier circulars with regard to this being “strictly controlled”, whereas Nicholas Ridley’s note talked of “careful control”.
An exception to both “strict” and “careful” control has always been recognised where dwellings have been proved to be required for agricultrual or forestry workers who need to live “on the spot”. However, the criteria for assessing whether consent for such development should be granted have been tightened up by the new guidance note. In future, applicants will first have to prove that a new dwelling is a “functional” requirement of the agricultural unit. If it is, the planning authority will then have to be satisfied that the requirement cannot be met from existing facilities.
If the case is not conclusively made out then the authority must examine the intentions of the applicant to decide whether there is a likelihood that the dwelling will be built and will be occupied for agricultural purposes — the objective being to avoid granting consent for agricultural dwellings which, after a couple of years, are claimed not to be required for agricultural purposes and are then argued to be appropriate for general housing use.
The Government regards this ploy as an abuse of the agricultural occupancy exception to the general embargo on development in the open countryside.
The prevention of abuse is also behind the Government’s rewriting of those parts of PPG7 concerned with the re-use and adaptation of existing rural buildings. PPG7 advised that existing buildings could be used other than for agricultural purposes in the interests of encouraging new enterprise and providing employment. It encouraged the restoration even of derelict buildings to be used in this way.
Obviously, however, too many people have been rebuilding tumbledown shacks to provide deluxe housing, because the new note expressly excludes derelict buildings from the class of buildings which should now be re-used or adapted.
The new note also aims to prevent farmers and others from erecting agricultural buildings with no intention of using them for agricultural purposes in the long run, and then applying to have them converted to other use after a couple of years.
The note states that it is not normally necessary to prove that a building is redundant in order to justify its use for a non-agricultural purpose, but if the planning authority thinks that a building has been erected with the intention of an early conversion to another use “it will be appropriate to investigate the history of the building to establish whether it was ever used for the purpose for which it was claimed to have been built”.
The note does not say what happens then, but one assumes that consent for conversion will be refused, in which case the local authority is effectively being asked to punish the developer for “improper motives” rather than assess what is the best use of the building under consideration — a somewhat regrettable extension of the planning authority’s brief.
The wording of the new guidance note in so far as it relates to development of agricultural land generally, not just for housing purposes, is similar to that of PPG7. A significant difference, however, is that whereas both PPG7 and the new note state that simply because land is not in the “best and most versatile” agricultural land classifications, it should not automatically be assumed that it is freed for development: the new note goes on to reiterate the Government’s commitment to policies for the protection of “all areas of the countryside”. PPG7 had merely stressed commitment to protect specially designated areas, for example national parks and green belts.
Finally, the new note says that although the Government has “no present plans to extend planning controls to all farming activities, it is ready to introduce new closely targeted controls where it is necessary to deal with specific problems”. It goes on to give advice on the criteria for livestock units and central grain stores in a way which does not add substantively to existing policies, and to state that all farm buildings should be designed to blend with neighbouring buildings and with the surrounding countryside.
However, given the freedom farmers enjoy under the General Development Order, it is difficult to see how such blandishments can be enforced.
The Government obviously feels that it has offended farmers enough for the time being.
