Birmingham Planning Seminar for Private Practitioners

Powering the Midlands Engine – new tools or old spanners?

An autumn update

Some might see the concept of the Midlands Engine as little more than empty political rhetoric. However evidence suggest otherwise. 14.6% of the UK economy is in the Midlands Engine which also supplies 16% of all UK exports. With a population of 11.5 million and over 637,000 employed in manufacturing and engineering, the Midlands Engine is clearly more than just a clever branding exercise.

The key question is: will ongoing changes to policy and legislation provide new tools to tune up the Engine or could they just be more spanners in the works?

In this morning seminar, Martin Edwards and a team from Cornerstone Barristers will be road testing the latest proposals set out in the Neighbourhood Planning Bill and considering current issues including:

• Neighbourhood plans – where are we now, what does the new Bill propose, how much weight is the Secretary of State attaching to them?
• CIL and community payments – what has happened to the CIL review and what are the current issues?
• Changes to conditions – will the proposed changes to conditions set out in the new Bill work?
• Judicial review – Has the spectre of judicial review based on inadequacy of reasons by local planning authorities returned to haunt developers following the Court of Appeal judgment in CPRE Kent v Dover DC and the High Court decision in Hawksworth Securities v Peterborough City Council?
• Landscape harm and visual impact – Are inspectors using landscape harm and visual impact as a reason for refusing otherwise acceptable schemes?
• Compulsory purchase – what does the new Bill seek to achieve?