The Local Plan: Coming to the End of a Long Journey?

We are finally getting towards the end of the processes involved in Wandsworth’s producing a new Local Plan, to replace the one which was published in 2016. The process began for us more than four years ago, when we commented on a Local Plan Issues Document issued by the Council in December 2018.

The early stages: 2020-early 2021

Nothing much then happened until January 2020, when we were invited, along with other local groups, to participate in a workshop to consider some of the key themes to be addressed in the Plan, such as housing, town centres and high streets, industry and employment, and transport. During the rest of that year, the Council began to publish the first in a series of lengthy documents – assessments of housing needs and retail needs, an urban design study, studies of employment land and buildings, and so on – to underpin the new Plan. We took careful note of all these documents when it came to responding to the 400-page “Pre-Publication” draft of the Local Plan issued by the Council in January 2021. At the same time we had to take account of significant changes to national policies being introduced by the Government, including major relaxations to ‘permitted developments’ that do not require planning permission. We also had to take full account of the policies set out in the new London Plan, published in February 2021 after long delays imposed by the Government, and with which all London boroughs must comply.

Our response, published here, ran to 20 pages.  We were critical of the Plan’s lack of overall strategic direction, of some of the key policies, and of the poor quality of the evidence and analysis presented to support them.  Our critique covered the strategies for key areas in Battersea such as Clapham Junction and Nine Elms, and policies on matters such as tall buildings and urban design; affordable housing and the lack of provision for family-sized housing; the lack of protection for industrial land and offices to support the local economy, and the lack of attention to the problems facing the borough’s town centres.

Things hot up: Early 2022

Council officials spent much of 2021 analysing the responses to the draft Plan from some 200 individuals and organisations, including local businesses, landowners and developers, infrastructure bodies such as Network Rail and Thames Water. regional bodies such as TfL and the GLA, and statutory bodies such as Historic England. Our colleagues at the Wandsworth Society, the Putney Society and others also submitted detailed comments. The Council approved in November 2021 a new “Publication” version of the Plan, which was issued for a second round of consultation in January 2022.

We were very disappointed that the new version did not respond effectively to the criticisms that we and other local societies had submitted. Indeed, the criticisms were largely rejected. Changes were limited to largely technical matters relating to affordable housing, the definition of tall buildings, improvements to air quality and a few other issues. We discussed whether it was worth making a second response. But since we knew that this so-called “Regulation 19” version of the Plan was what the Council intended to submit to the Planning Inspectorate for approval by the Secretary of State, we decided that a second response was worthwhile, with more detail on the specifics of our arguments and the evidence to support them. You can read our response here.

The “Examination in Public”

The outgoing Council submitted the Plan to the Planning Inspectorate the week before the local elections in May 2022. The next stage in the process was the appointment of two planning inspectors to assess the Plan, and whether it met the test of ‘soundness’, in accordance with four oddly-drafted criteria set out in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), so that it is:

·         Positively prepared, and seeks to meet the area’s objectively assessed needs

·         Justified, taking into account reasonable alternatives, and based on proportionate evidence

·         Effective, and deliverable over the plan period, in this case to 2035

·         Consistent with national policy, enabling sustainable development.

We were invited in September to nominate ourselves to participate in the sessions at which the inspectors would examine the Plan against those criteria over two weeks in the second half of November 2022; and we received guidance on how the examination would be conducted. The guidance was shortly followed by a schedule for the hearings, specifying 22 ‘main matters’ that the inspectors intended to examine (corresponding essentially to the main chapters of the Plan) and two or three questions under each main matter. The inspectors’ Programme Officer also established a vast online library of over 200 documents relating to the Plan, including background material, changes made by the Council to the Publication Version, and post-publication submissions made by developers and landowners, statutory bodies, the GLA and others. We found among these some welcome changes made by the Council including corrections to some of the factual errors we had identified, strengthened policies on biodiversity, and a new requirement that at least 50% of affordable housing should take the form of low-rent provision.

The hearings were held in the Council Chamber, and it has to be said that our experience over the two weeks was disappointing. Unlike previous EIPs to which the Society had contributed and which had been held in Committee rooms, discussion in the Chamber was more formal and offered less opportunity for more relaxed exchanges between participants and the Inspectors. The inspectors made clear from the start that their job was not to make the Plan better, but to simply to judge whether it conformed to the four criteria of soundness set out above. And informal conversations with others participating in the hearings indicated that they felt, like us, that these particular inspectors took a narrow view of those criteria. They did not accept our arguments that the Plan was riddled with inconsistencies; that strengthened Government policies on public engagement were being ignored; that some of the policies - for example on transport - did not pass the test of sustainability; or that some policies and proposals were non-deliverable. 

The major discussions at the hearings we led by two groups. First, the GLA and TfL, who sought to strengthen policies in accordance with the London Plan on the protection of industrial land on the one hand, and on parking and car-free developments on the other.  Second, developers repeatedly sought greater flexibility, in accordance with Government policies set out in the NPPF and in the London Plan, on issues relating to the height and density of new developments. From our perspective Government policies are not helpful on such issues. The few changes we managed to achieve were minor clarifications of policies on matters such as avoiding developments being built out right up to the pavement. But it was pleasing to hear a commitment from the Council to publish each year the results of a monitoring framework much more detailed than in the past.

While the EIP itself was disappointing we concluded that it was worthwhile for us to have made representations, to reinforce links with Wandsworth officers and make ourselves known to other participants who are involved in development in Wandsworth.

What happens next?

A new version of the Plan, with changes to take account of the points raised during the hearings, will be issued soon, with a short period for consultation. The inspectors will draft their report and make a final recommendation to the Secretary of State in the early summer; and it is hoped that the Council will be able formally to adopt the Plan shortly thereafter. And in a couple of years’ time, we anticipate that the whole process will start all over again. It may even be less protracted next time. The Government is consulting on new national policies which would require Local Plans to be completed within two years. Let us see whether that can actually be achieved while allowing proper engagement and consultation with local communities.