Admittedly, a blog on the intricacies of the Community Infrastructure Levy (“CIL“) doesn’t sound like a very appealing prospect, but everyone needs their medicine occasionally.
In December 2022, the Court of Appeal had to consider the legal consequences of a local authority’s failure to serve a CIL liability notice and the question of whether the local authority could correct the defects in an earlier notice by serving a revised CIL liability notice.
We often get asked, when clients are faced with obstinate and, frankly, slow local authorities dealing with planning applications or s106 agreements, whether we can threaten legal action (other than planning appeals). Most of the time this is just letting off steam, but what is the answer?
A recent 140-page judgment in the case of Primavera v Hertsmere Borough Council (2022) considered if, and in what circumstances, a local planning authority might be liable for negligence for the way it dealt with a planning application.
In the second of our blog posts on some key developments in planning law in 2022, we look at some new proposals set out in a Consultation published in December 2022 on how to stop landbanking. These come on top of some new provisions known as the “use it or lose it” clauses in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill which is slated to become law in spring of this year.
The process of landbanking, whereby landowners obtain planning permission (thereby securing an enhanced value for their landholdings) but fail to implement (or at least substantially complete) a permission, has long been identified as a problem, particularly in the residential sector. The problem is now acute with the lack of suitable and affordable housing availability.
Continue Reading Our top 6 Planning Law takeaways in 2022 – Part 2: Proposals to stop “landbanking”
The widely anticipated judgement of the case of Fearn and Others v Board of Trustees of the Tate Gallery from the Supreme Court was delivered on 1 February 2023, opening up the potential for many new claims of nuisance by way visual intrusion.
The Facts of the Case
The Tate Modern contains a public viewing platform on its top floor (constructed in 2016), which provides views over the city of London to hundreds of thousands of visitors each year, but also a direct view into a number of residential flats (constructed some four years prior) which are located nearby, and which were built with floor to ceiling glass panels. The claimants are residents of four flats who originally brought a claim in nuisance and sought an injunction requiring the Tate Modern to prevent members of the public from being able to look into their homes, by cordoning off or screening the part of the viewing platform.
Continue Reading A room with a view…. and a nuisance – The Tate Modern
When acquiring a property for development, covenants that restrict the type or form of development always need to be carefully considered. There are a number of ways in which restrictive covenants can be addressed, and in two recent cases developers sought to have the relevant restrictive covenants discharged following the grant of planning permission.
Continue Reading When are restrictive covenants not development constraints?
Last week the UK Government published its long-awaited proposals for reform of the planning system in England and Wales, in the Levelling-Up and Regeneration Bill.
Back in June 2020, radical reforms to the planning system were proposed, including introducing zoning and deemed planning permission in designated growth areas. Despite the abandonment of these far-reaching reforms, the proposals set out in the Bill, are significant. The main changes are as follows.
Overview
The Government is introducing sweeping changes to the planning system in England, with a view to cutting down on bureaucracy and letting the market decide what we use our buildings for, as well as facilitating much needed housing development. The changes are both medium term and immediate. In this Alert, we focus on the
Much has been written about the sweeping changes the Government is introducing to extend permitted development rights and limit the need to obtain planning permission for changes of use.
But on 2 September 2020 Mr Justice Holgate ordered that an application for leave for judicial review challenging these new laws would be heard on 8
The UK Government today published its Building Safety Bill, three years after the Grenfell tragedy in which 72 people lost their lives in a fire in a tower block in Kensington, London, the worst residential fire in the UK since World War II.
The Bill seeks to implement the recommendations of the Hackitt Report of
Although it is uncertain what the likely long-term impacts of the pandemic on the development industry will be, the short-term impacts are clearly significant.
The real estate development industry is looking to the Government for immediate relief in the following areas::