Planners just have to follow the rules
I read with some concern your article on the Shell Centre, SE1, (p50, 11 July) which focused on my recent court case regarding the site.
It was unfortunate that Estates Gazette chose not to publish any comment from me with the article, despite having asked for my input and it being provided. Instead, the article quotes a number of commentators who are obviously unfamiliar with the detail of the case, and as a consequence the reader is left with a misleading account of what happened.
I would welcome the opportunity to set the record straight.
I am sure that every one of your readers would agree that planning permission should be granted in accordance with the law. The entire purpose of review by the courts is to establish whether that has happened.
In the Shell Centre case the developer’s legal team had requested that the planning inspector dispense with mandatory inquiry rules (which are set out in legislation) and the inspector agreed to this without any authority to do so. The law was manifestly not followed. As was accepted by Mr Justice Collins in the High Court, that fact alone meant that there was a case to answer, before we came to consider any of the other issues the case raised.
If the developers of the Shell Centre were frustrated by the delay the case caused, they only have themselves to blame.
In the end, the courts came to the view that although objectors had been put at a disadvantage during the inquiry the prejudice suffered was not great enough to pass the legal test required to overturn the decision. That is a conclusion which I obviously disagree with, but it is a question that could only have been answered by the courts.
Developers who demand even greater profit to mitigate against legal risks are entirely missing the point. They could greatly reduce, even eliminate, their exposure by simply following the rules, and by proposing new developments that are in line with the statutory development plan. That is all that I and many of the other campaigners fighting similar campaigns have ever asked for.
The rules are there to benefit everyone. They help communities to understand what they should expect from new development and developers to understand how to meet the needs of communities and cities.
The law is stacked in the favour of developers, including a legal duty on councils to approve proposals that meet the development plan.
If they do that their applications should sail though the system and developers will just have to deal with the lower, risk-adjusted returns that implies.
George Turner
Ask the right questions
On 15 August you had an article on page 51 (Putting your hands up to the CMA for infringement). Do you ever read this far back in your hallowed organ?
The thing which worried me was not that Europe’s foot is pressing harder and harder on our necks, but that there was zero editorial comment questioning it.
Do you now just print government press releases without comment? Do you have any journalistic independence left to enable you to question this madness and examine its democratic mandate?
On the opposite page (Renewing with MEES, p50) is a dotty green measure which is impractical, unfair, unasked-for and probably unenforceable, besides being desperately counter-productive for, say, listed buildings. Just a printed story with no journalistic input from you at all. Was it a press release you copied out?
Would it not make a better magazine to spend less time boring people rigid about diversity (you know in your soul nobody is buying this nonsense!) and ask if we have unwittingly signed up to a Soviet dictatorship we never asked for and don’t want now?
Simon Bridbury
Considering best practice
The articles Putting MEES first (p48, 8 August) and Renewing with MEES (p50, 15 August) highlighted some important implications that need to be considered in relation to the upcoming MEES compliance. Worryingly though, these are only a fraction of the compliance issues to be considered.
Plans to simplify and improve the effectiveness of business energy tax regimes, including the climate change levy, CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme and climate change agreements, have been long argued for. However, the government consultation set for the autumn has created a lack of clarity.
The industry cannot sit back and wait to see what happens. Companies remain accountable under all schemes that they currently qualify for, whether or not they may be scrapped. Instead of worrying about whether or not to engage with current schemes, businesses should consider implementation as best practice.
David Cadwallader, associate, Malcolm Hollis
Adapting to changing times
I was thrilled to read your article about Doherty Baines (Celebrating independence, p68, 25 July), and how it evolved into a major player.
The only factor perhaps overlooked is how quickly niche firms can react to changing market conditions.
In the boom times, we at The Lorenz Consultancy, over and above our agency department, specialise in the rent review, lease renewal and lease restructuring market. If times turn, we switch to tenant rep, dealing with restructuring leases where many of them could not pay the rent, and acting for landlords to make sure that tenant approaches were justified.
We did as well in the recession as we do today.
Anthony Lorenz, managing director, The Lorenz Consultancy
Agree or disagree with these views? Have your say @estatesgazette or comment@estatesgazette.com
