OK, I admit it, I’m an email luddite! Or least ways I was until a day or two ago. It’s taken me some time to work out where everybody went. Now I see - they left for the Twitter universe. Time to join them.
Although a self declared twitter newby I am nevertheless a fully paid up planning activist and have taken a keen interest in the activities of my local LPA (Braintree) for some 15 years or so. I am known to several of their number (perhaps not too fondly) having been engaged in 2 major planning projects and taken a keen interest in many others before, during and since a 4 year stint as chairman of my parish council.
I have gained a great deal of knowledge and understanding over the years but I hold no planning qualifications and I firmly remain no more than a humble but hopefully well informed amateur.
My interest has spanned the run up to my LPA’s adoption of its Core Strategy in 2011 and the ongoing debacle that is Braintree’s local plan deliberations since the NPPF’s arrival in 2012 including of course the belated and somewhat disruptive impact of its garden communities (GCs) initiative.
Now don’t get me wrong. I am all for planned development and the timely implementation of supporting infrastructure. It’s also clear to me that a joined up sustainable transport strategy is a must both for the quality of life of our residents & travellers and to meet the challenge of climate change. In fact I am quite passionate about it. I just don’t think that BDC (or the NEAs at large for that matter) have got it right in this case.
In this regard I (and evidently many others) seem to be singing from the same hymn sheet as the local plan inspector himself. Exalted company indeed.
But enough of me! Let's get down to business.
A local plan inspector’s terms of reference includes the requirement for her to restrict any suggestions for improvement to matters that would be liable to rescue a plan from being otherwise found unsound and therefore rejected. In the case of the submitted NEA Section 1 local plan there is no shortage of suggestions in the inspector’s protracted 8 June letter which emphatically brings home the view that the NEAs were way off target the first time around.
So has it got any better for this second go? While some things may have been fixed the NEA’s intransigence in ignoring the inspector’s cogent suggestion that the GC’s should be significantly smaller whilst greater in their number is stark. The arguments against the NEA’s approach are manifold and well understood by detractors so I don’t address them here but there is one aspect which relates to West Tey which I have so far not seen exercised so I have chosen this as my first contribution to the cause as I belatedly (and tentatively) enter blogger land.
The NEA’s heavily revised viability statement demonstrates that the proposal for West Tey is (and always was) unviable although it is somewhat ambivalent on this point. In the introduction it states that all 3 GC’s are viable but a bit later it owns up to the fact that, in the case of West Tey, this is heavily dependent on a substantial grant from the Government's Housing Infrastructure Fund (HIF) being forthcoming.
Without this grant the residual value of the land to be acquired at West Tey falls below that of its existing use value (EUV) - not my view but that of the authors of the revised viability statement. Given that the required grant is at the discretion of HMG surely this must mean that West Tey is, in actuality, not financially viable.
This situation has been brought about by the need of the NEAs to react to the inspector’s “suggestions” in his 8 June letter. Firstly, not unreasonably, he has required that the interest costs associated with land acquisition be included in the viability analysis. This sum, inexplicably omitted from the earlier analysis, is substantial and always did detract from the project’s viability.
Perhaps of even more significance is the inspector’s comments regarding the existing route of the A12 and its juxtaposition to the land designated for the West Tey GC. As he points out, it is not reasonable to have what ECC refers to as an “Expressway” (having by this time been widened to 6 lanes) scything through the middle of the proposed West Tey GC development.
However, the NEA’s proposal for the realignment of the A12 in order to bypass West Tey (thereby addressing the inspector's objection) brings the proposed Section 1 plan into conflict with the ongoing A12 widening scheme since, regardless of which of its routes may finally be chosen, this scheme will continue to pass through the proposed West Tey GC area.
This is unfortunate timing (from the NEA’s point of view) as the A12 widening scheme has, after many years of delay, finally been approved and funds are already committed under the first tranch of the Government's Roads Investment Strategy (RIS) initiative. By virtue of this grant it becomes a given that the RIS1 proposals are seen to be viable in terms of return on investment and will undoubtedly ease the experience of road users on this major London to East Anglia arterial route albeit that the relief this will provide will now come considerably later than planned as a consequence of the submission of the NEA’s Section 1 plans (much to the chagrin of one Pritti Patel MP).
The point here is that this throws the new NEA A12 realignment proposal into stark relief in that it offers no additional value for the A12 road user (or anyone else other than landowners along the route) over what has already been agreed under the RIS1 scheme. Indeed, at twice the length of the RIS1 A12 option 2 realignment proposal it will consume far more land (mostly best and most versatile agricultural land) and cost far more than the RIS1 widening proposal at Marks Tey irrespective of which option is chosen. It will also result in considerably longer sections of orphaned dual carriageway road which, as ECC points out, must either be maintained (assuming that this land can be reassigned as useful roadway) or otherwise be reinstated to another purpose at whatever cost.
There is an unavoidable truth in all this. It is quite clear from the above argument that the new HIF West Tey A12 realignment proposal is for the sole purpose of facilitating the West Tey GC project. No further value will accrue to road users, residents or the local or wider economy over and above that which is provided by the already approved RIS1 scheme. This means that all of the net over cost of providing this stretch of roadway in order to facilitate a GC at West Tey must be entirely carried within the financial justification for the West Tey project itself.
However, it is not enough to argue that the HIF grant will bring the West Tey project back to viability. The true test and the only one that serves the public interest is how West Tey compares with alternative sites and schemes which do not generate a need for the new A12 section and its attendant cost. It is here that we see a major breakdown in the NEA’s methodology which again raises the spectre of bias or at least predetermination in favour of the 3 chosen GCs.
In his 8 June letter the inspector draws attention to the NEA’s sustainability assessment (SA). He criticises the assessment for what was obvious bias which talked up the NEA’s preferred sites and talked down the rest. He therefore called for a new SA.
It can be said that the new SA is more objective and systematic in its assessment of the submitted sites and in this respect I would expect it to meet the inspector’s requirements. This has resulted in no less than 13 candidate sites (several being west of Colchester) making it through to stage 2. However at this point the SA becomes remarkably ambivalent towards the surviving sites pointing out that there is not much to choose between them and, more significantly, it makes no recommendations. Instead it appears to defer to the view of the already criticised and demonstrably flawed original SA for direction. That being to prefer the original 3 GC sites.
It’s executive summary concludes that
“It was not possible to come to a definitive conclusion that any one strategy, whether west of Colchester or east of Colchester, is the most sustainable option.”
and seems to argue without any apparent justification that the advantage of the Section 1 plan as submitted
“is that it provides clear direction for strategic development to accommodate North Essex over many decades to come and therefore more certainty in terms of coherence and investment.”
but then counters its own argument in the very same paragraph by stating
“However, some of the alternatives offer opportunities to deliver similar benefits.”
Hardly a ringing endorsement for the previously submitted 3 GC plan and certainly inadequate when it comes to justifying its action in supporting the hitherto unsupported position of the original SA.
So where is the justification for going with the 3 original sites this time? It would seem to rest on a virtuous circle encouraged by nothing more than the above statement i.e. because we went for it last time that makes it the best choice this time.
In sticking with the original 3 GC’s with no coherent basis for doing so the NEAs are disenfranchising all the proposers of the remain 10 sites that made it through to stage 2 of the revised SA. Had the NEAs subjected all 13 sites to a consistent viability assessment comparison we might now be in a better position to conclude with some vestige of conviction which sites might be the best choices to take forward.
On a level playing field the West Tey project must show how it remains value for money given that the new A12 section is a prerequisite for this GC site only and that substantial funds will be needed from the public purse to meet this considerable additional cost.
Furthermore, with all other costs of the West Tey project either covered or allowed for (as indicated by the viability analysis) there will be a direct correlation between the funds provided by the HIF grant for realigning the A12 and corresponding sums consequently redirected to the core of the West Tey project. By the viability assessment’s own reckoning this will result almost exclusively in the upward revision of the residual values of the land required by the project thus turning it into a viable proposition.
In other words the public funds released by the HIF grant would be mostly used not only to compensate those landowners fortunate enough to own land within the West Tey development zone but also that group of landowners with land situated on the realigned section of the A12.
It will be by allowing the residual value of the land at West Tey to return to commercial levels that landowners will likely be enticed to bring their land forward for development. There is nothing wrong with the principle of purchasing land for public projects but how will value accrue to the public interest for such purchases in this particular case? There is no added value to be had! How can such a use of public funds possibly be justified?
On the other hand, and subject to a favourable viability assessment comparison, if West Tey were to be reduced in size and/or realigned such that it can be accommodated entirely to the north west of the A12, the need for the HIF A12 realignment contribution would no longer be required thus saving the taxpayer the aforementioned contribution and presumably returning the West Tey project to a viable proposition. This would presumably require additional GC sites to be deployed elsewhere to compensate for the loss in housing capacity at West Tey.
Failing this it will become incumbent on the NEAs to demonstrate that either there is no viable alternative to West Tey (which would contradict is own SA findings) or otherwise show how a substantially lower cost of the West Tey project as it stands offsets the extra road costs it incurs and thus competes effectively with available (and which we now know to be sustainable) alternative sites and/or strategies. Given the very large HIF contribution needed I very much doubt that it will be possible to square this circle.
It is clear to me that the submission of this revised evidence is just as fundamentally flawed as its predecessor and unlikely to pass muster. Were the inspector to go with this revised version I have no doubt that his decision would be very quickly called into question and be challenged through a JR request or perhaps through more direct court action. For this reason I expect this second submission to be similarly found unsound.
Were that to be the case I cannot see how the NEAs could possibly hold out against the inspector’s option 1 any longer (i.e. by bringing forward Section 2 for examination) or even abandoning the whole plan in favour of something more feasible.