Cabinet
4 July 2011
Agenda Item No______11______
PLANNING PERFORMANCE AGREEMENTS
Summary:
Planning Performance Agreements are mechanisms by
which large and complex development proposals can be
managed through the planning system. The District
Council has recently been asked to enter into such an
agreement in respect of a major proposal within the
district and this has given rise to the authority giving
consideration to how such agreements might be used in
the future as part of the Development Management
process. In order that there is transparency in the use
of such mechanisms in the future it is proposed that the
authority develops a draft Planning Performance
Agreement Charter which will be the subject of
consultation with local communities through Town and
Parish Councils, statutory bodies and the North Norfolk
Planning Agents Group before the Council agrees to
enter into such arrangements on a regular basis.
Alongside the consultation on the Planning Performance
Agreement Charter it is proposed to pilot the proposed
approach in respect of the initial request received to use
such a mechanism in respect of the proposed
development by TAG Aviation at the former RAF
Coltishall site.
Conclusions:
See above.
Recommendations:
1. That Cabinet agrees that the Council should
prepare as the basis for consultation with Town
and Parish Councils, statutory consultees and
the North Norfolk Planning Agents Group, a draft
Planning Performance Agreement Charter
outlining the approach the authority proposes
taking with respect to requests received for the
use of such mechanisms in supporting the
development and consideration of planning
applications for some large-scale developments.
2. That delegated authority be provided to the
Strategic Director – Community, in consultation
with the Planning Portfolio holder, to prepare a
draft Charter for consultation in late summer /
early autumn with responses to the consultation
being reported back to Cabinet at its November
meeting.
3. That alongside the consultation on the draft
Charter, Cabinet agrees to pilot the Planning
Performance Agreement arrangement in respect
of the proposed future re-use of the former RAF
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4 July 2011
Coltishall facility.
Cabinet Member(s)
Ward(s) affected
Cllr K Johnson
All
Contact Officer, telephone number and email:
Steve Blatch, Strategic Director
Tel:-01263 516232
Email:- steve.blatch@north-norfolk.gov.uk
Steve Oxenham, Head of Planning and Building Control
Tel:- 01263 516135
Email:- steve.oxenham@north-norfolk.gov.uk
1.
Introduction
1.1
A Planning Performance Agreement (PPA) is a framework agreed between a
Local Planning Authority (LPA) and an applicant for the management of
complex development proposals within the planning process.
1.2
The concept of PPAs was initially the subject of guidance from the
Government in 2008. At that time it was strongly recommended that LPAs
establish a formal process to be enshrined in a document, a PPA Charter,
which would set out the generic approach and commitment required for
dealing with complex development projects. It acknowledged that individual
PPAs could be developed without a charter, but that such documents would
give clarity and transparency to all potential stakeholders.
1.3
To date North Norfolk District Council has not entered into any PPA
arrangements in the determination of applications within the District.
However, agents acting for the Ministry of Justice have recently asked
whether the authority would be prepared to enter into a PPA (between the
Council (and possibly Broadland District Council), the Ministry of Justice and
TAG Aviation, the preferred bidder for the former RAF Coltishall site) as the
Ministry is seeking a degree of certainty concerning the proposed future use
of the site by TAG Aviation as it wishes to achieve the sale of the Coltishall
asset during the current financial year.
1.4
Officers have therefore investigated how PPAs might be operated by the
authority and are now seeking Cabinet approval with respect to the
development and introduction of a Planning Performance Agreement Charter
and agreement to pilot the approach with regards the TAG Aviation proposal
being developed on the former RAF Coltishall site.
2.
How Planning Performance Agreements Work
2.1
A PPA allows a developer and the LPA to agree a project plan / programme
in respect of the processing of a planning application for major developments
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4 July 2011
which would ensure that the LPA can make the necessary resources
available to determine the planning application to an agreed timetable.
Through a PPA developers can fund the LPA’s costs of pre-application advice
and discussions, accessing technical advice and other relevant expenditure,
on a “not-for-profit” basis. Authorities have the option to refund some or all of
these costs once the formal planning application for the proposed
development has been submitted.
2.2
PPAs have not been extensively used to date, but are considered to be a
useful mechanism in the consideration of major development applications. In
2010 the Department for Communities and Local Government and ATLAS,
(the Advisory Team for Large Applications within the Homes and
Communities Agency), commissioned a research study into the use of PPAs.
This study, undertaken by the Tribal Group, identified that PPAs had a
number of advantages / benefits in supporting major investment proposals including establishing a realistic and predictable timetable for the
consideration of proposals; providing a more efficient (planning) service which
identified key issues early on in the process; provided greater transparency
and accountability; improved partnership working; and overall resulted in the
better management of the planning application process.
2.3
However, the Tribal report also identified a number of barriers / concerns
regarding PPAs, which had possibly limited take-up, and these included
concerns over probity, deployment of limited resources, the binding nature of
a PPA and the complexity of guidance.
2.4
Subsequently, in December 2010, ATLAS developed a practice note for
PPAs entitled “Making a PPA work for your project” which can be viewed on
the
ATLAS
website
by
following
link
–
http://www.atlasplanning.com/lib/liDownload/566/101210%20%20PPA%20Pr
actice%20Note%20(final).pdf?CFID=5372085&CFTOKEN=81042839
3.
Issues for North Norfolk District Council
3.1
To date, the District Council has not entered into any PPA arrangements in
respect of major developments within the District, but has sought to work with
applicants and agents for major developments through offering a
Development Team approach where appropriate. For allocations of land
made through the Site Specific Proposals Plan the authority has also
established a Major Applications Team to work with landowners and
developers of allocated sites to prepare Development Briefs and offer preapplications advice in respect of emerging proposals. These approaches are
more informal arrangements than a PPA with less rigid structures in place
particularly with respect to agreeing a timeframe over which an application
might be considered. Arguably whilst the Council has sought through the
Development Team approach to provide early and detailed pre-application
advice to promoters of large applications, the Council’s engagement has
largely been responsive to advice and information requested by applicants,
rather than establishing more formal project management principles to which
both the Council and applicants sign up in advance and which attempts to
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quantify the resources which the authority would need to make available to
support the development of a proposal within an agreed timeframe.
3.2
Notwithstanding the recent request made by the Ministry of Justice for a PPA
with respect to the proposed future use of the former RAF Coltishall site, the
recent adoption of the LDF Site Specific Proposals (Allocations) Development
Plan Document means that it is timely for the authority to give detailed
consideration to the future use of PPAs in support of major development
proposals in the district. In order that the Council’s future approach to the use
of such agreements is widely understood by the development industry, local
communities and statutory consultees, it is suggested that the authority
should prepare and publish a Planning Performance Agreement Charter
document, which itself should be the subject of consultation, before formal
adoption by the authority.
3.3
It is therefore proposed that, following consideration of the benefits and risks
of Planning Performance Agreements for the District Council as outlined
below, a draft Planning Performance Agreement Charter be prepared for
consultation with local stakeholders. In the meantime, it is recommended that
the authority pilot the proposed approach with the TAG Aviation proposal at
the former RAF Coltishall site and that the consultation process and
evaluation of the pilot be brought back to the November meeting of Cabinet,
with the objective of agreeing the Council’s formal position with respect to the
use of PPAs from early in 2012.
3.4
The possible benefits of PPAs (in addition to those outlined at para 2.2
above) in supporting development proposals in North Norfolk are considered
to be:-
3.5
•
A PPA would identify key issues, need for technical / specialist
surveys / reports early in the development process
•
A PPA can identify lead or key officer resource within the Council
who would support the development of the proposal for subsequent
submission to and consideration by the local planning authority
•
PPA’s could support the corporate objective of accommodating new
job-creating investment in the District through providing a degree of
certainty to applicants over the time period in which their proposal
will be determined (although not guaranteeing an outcome), subject
to the timely submission of information, resolution of key issues by
both the applicant and local planning authority, based on the
principles of collaborative working.
The possible risks of PPAs, particularly to the Council as Local Planning
Authority, are considered to be:•
That the bureaucracy involved in establishing and servicing the PPA
could be seen as disproportionate to the benefit gained for the
community or the income received by the Council.
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4 July 2011
•
That if a PPA is in place, disproportionate emphasis could be given
to such proposals / applications at the expense of other work.
Alternatively, there is a risk that staff might be unable to deliver on
the PPA because of the pressure of other work.
•
That the resources generated through the PPA are not used to
compensate the Planning Service for the additional commitments
taken on in order to meet the requirements of the PPA and that
other work suffers from lack of attention / resource.
•
That statutory and other consultees are not signed up to the PPA
process or, more particularly, that the timescales set out in the PPA
between the principal parties are too ambitious for consultees to
engage with / meet, thus jeopardising its successful implementation.
•
That there may still be perceived to be a lack of probity by objectors
to a development proposal on the basis that the developer has paid
for a preferential service from the Planning Authority and that the
decision has not been on based purely on planning issues.
Your officers have considered these risks and have made the following
observations and comments:•
The costs associated with PPAs are unknown and would vary
between different proposals, dependent upon their nature, scale and
the complexity of issues to be considered, need for technical reports
etc. It is therefore suggested that costs would have to be estimated,
based perhaps on the number of meetings proposed and the costs
of considering the technical issues involved.
•
Through the planned allocation of staff resources, it should be
possible to avoid commitments to PPA proposals impacting
negatively on the management of other caseload. However, this is
dependent upon there being sufficient resources available to carry
out the additional work involved in supporting PPA proposals and
members attention is drawn to the current high caseload volumes
being handled by the Development Management team, meaning
that there is little, if any, spare capacity within the service to trial the
PPA approach without some impact upon existing caseload, where
processing times are already falling.
•
The principle of the Council charging developers / applicants for
services delivered under a PPA could be detailed within a PPA
Charter with income received being held within the Planning Service
to meet the costs of any additional resources required to backfill
resource made available to support the drawing up and
implementation of a PPA.
•
This risk concerning the engagement of statutory consultees could
be mitigated through prior negotiation with key consultees and the
possible negotiation of a payment to these parties to support timely
responses. This could be further detailed within the draft PPA
Charter around which the Council would seek to have discussions
with statutory consultees, whose support for the PPA would be
important.
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4 July 2011
•
The risks of objectors questioning the probity of decisions relating to
applications submitted through a PPA process would be
considerably reduced if the Council develops and consults upon a
draft PPA Charter before formal agreement to use such
mechanisms moving forward and thereafter publishes the Charter
on the Council’s website etc.. It is suggested that any PPA Charter
should state what type of applications would be considered
appropriate for consideration through a PPA arrangement and
officers would advise that the risks of challenge could be minimised
if such arrangements were to be employed only in respect of sites
where the development sought complies with adopted Site
Allocations policies or at least where the Authority has an
established publicly-stated position – eg through indicating support
for some form of masterplan of development brief process, as is the
case with the former RAF Coltishall site. Where either of these
situations does not apply it is suggested that a PPA should not be
considered.
4.
Financial Implications and Risks
4.1
It would be open to the Council to decide whether it would wish to levy any
charge on developers proposing a PPA, and if so at what level, and whether it
would be minded to refund or deduct any payment from the planning fee
when a planning application is submitted. This is a sensitive issue as the
Council should not seek to “profit” from the delivery of the planning service
and whilst planning fees are only a very small element of the total costs of
large-scale development proposals, any fee levied should not seek to
undermine proposed investment in the District.
4.2
Clearly however the principle behind PPAs is to provide clarity and a degree
of certainty to developers and their agents around the planning process,
particularly the timeframe over which proposals would be considered by the
LPA, which should deliver cost certainty / savings to applicants in the
development of proposals. In this respect, applicants using the PPA
mechanism will arguably be receiving a higher or preferential standard of
service than other applicants and a case could therefore be presented that
applicants requesting PPA arrangements should be prepared to “pay” for the
certainty of the programming of their application. In providing such certainty
the Council will need to identify / allocate specific staff resources to support
the development and consideration of proposals subject to PPA
arrangements and there might be costs associated with such resource
deployment / prioritisation of workload, particularly for applications involving
detailed technical analysis, preparation of draft legal agreements etc. It is
also anticipated that some statutory consultees might wish to receive some
form of payment if they are to give priority to some consultation responses
within defined time periods and therefore it is believed that there is a
legitimate basis upon which fees could be levied by the Council for
applications developed and considered through a PPA arrangement.
4.3
At the present time the District Council does not charge for pre-application
advice and it was intended to consider this issue further in the context of the
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Government proposing that local planning authorities could consider full cost
recovery of the planning service through the local setting of fees. Detailed
Government guidance is anticipated shortly on this new charging regime.
Members of Cabinet are therefore asked to provide officers with a steer on
this issue for incorporation within any draft PPA Charter prepared as the
basis of consultation. Alternatively, further consideration could be given to
the issue of charging for pre-application advice, including PPAs, as part of
any future consideration of planning fees following the issue of further
guidance by the Government.
5.
Sustainability
5.1
This report does not raise any issues directly relating to sustainable
development. Issues of sustainable development will be considered in future
as part of assessing individual development proposals.
6.
Equality and Diversity
6.1
The report does not raise any equality and diversity issues at the present
time. Equality and diversity issues will be considered in future as part of
assessing individual development proposals.
7.
Section 17 Crime and Disorder considerations
7.1
The report does not raise any issues which relate directly to the Council’s
responsibilities under Section 17 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. Crime
and disorder issues will be considered in future as part of assessing individual
development proposals.