News and Resources

Article 4 directions are a small but essential cog in the complicated machine that is the English planning system. With the more widespread reliance by Government on permitted development rights, it falls to local planning authorities to make article 4 directions to disapply, where appropriate, those rights in relation to specific types of developments and/or …

Well here’s an interesting R number: regional planning for the Oxford-Cambridge Arc. Last week MHCLG published Planning for sustainable growth in the Oxford- Cambridge Arc: An introduction to the Oxford-Cambridge Arc Spatial Framework (18 February 2021). “Spatial framework” is a regional plan by any other name. The document is only a precursor to the plan …

My team has proved capable of losing 9-0 in any conditions but, because it is another angle on what I was going to write this morning, I was still interested to see this piece yesterday: Premier League’s home edge has gone in pandemic era: The impact of fan-less games in England and Europe (ESPN, 12 …

“Tilt” in pinball is an example of a good rule: in order to discourage an unwanted outcome (cheating), transgression (sloping the table) leads to a predictable penalty (game over). The purposes of the NPPF’s “tilted balance” (the phrase just being planners’ jargon) are to discourage local planning authorities from: ⁃ relying on out of date …

I threw those curtains wide, drinking in the morning emails and there it was: MHCLG press release 30 January 2021, All new developments must meet local standards of beauty, quality and design under new rules. Consultation is now running until 27 March 2021 on: National Planning Policy Framework and National Model Design Code: consultation proposals …

So friends, here we are, still in the most tedious sequel in the whole franchise: Lockdown 3. Of course, the vaccines will be the eventual way out 💪 this year but can anyone predict how many more months will go by before, in England, we are free from some level of restrictions on our ability …

Jessie J is no judge and when it comes to litigation costs “forget about the price tag” is poor advice. Aarhus cost caps I last blogged about Aarhus Convention cost capping in my 22 June blog post No Time To Be 21: Where Are We With Aarhus Costs Protection? The detail is in that blog …

Over Christmas, I finally read Joshua Rozenberg’s 2020 book Enemies of the People? How Judges Shape Society. The book examines the tension inevitably faced by judges in interpreting the law, particularly in areas of public controversy (constitutional issues; “right to death”; family; discrimination; religion; privacy; access to justice): when should the application of common law …

This post focuses on the relevance of the provisions of the UK-EU trade and cooperation agreement (“T&CA”) (provisional agreement subject to ratification, 25 December 2020) to the future of the English town and planning system. The prime minister’s 24 December 2020 statement contained the following passages of particular note: “We will be able to set …

On 16 December 2020 the Government abruptly abandoned its proposed revised standard method for calculating local housing need, in the face of political and media pressure from those who saw the method increasing substantially the figure for their particular areas. I covered the consultation as to the proposed revised method in my 29 August 2020 …