24 February 2023
Our Manifesto calls for a series of targeted changes and refinements to the planning system to ensure that the system we have is optimised to do its job as effectively and efficiently as possible. Read more
Manifesto
24 February 2023
We need a coherent strategy directed at enabling the planning system to do what it can to tackle the housing crisis. We have set out a comprehensive series of measures that are designed to reform how we identify housing need so that communities are more likely to buy into the need to deliver additional housing, reforms to the spatial planning part of planning so that we are better placed to identify the sites that are needed, new measured designed to directly incentivise the delivery of housing and finally a wider series of measures to boost the supply side. Read more
Manifesto
07 December 2022
Planning resources are in short supply: we have seen less graduates choosing planning as a career and increasingly those that do are being attracted into the private sector. There have been great initiatives, such as Public Practice, to attract place making professionals into the public sector, but it remains a challenging landscape. This paper examines the system to see how we can redesign it to make the most of the skills that planning and other place making professions offer, avoid duplication and link the regimes with their core purposes. It explores how we can use new technologies to simplify, digitise and automate both plan making and decision taking, how we can redesign systems and processes to ensure that planning “sticks to the knitting” and matters that are better dealt with through Licensing, Building Regulations or other regimes are clearly taken out of planning. With a system that is more focused on planning and place making, and what can be digitised and automated is simplified, we have a much better chance to successfully operate with the limited resources that we have. It is hoped that the resulting system will be a much more stimulating and attractive place within which to work. Read more
Manifesto
02 March 2022
The NPPF states that, “Effective enforcement is important to maintain public confidence in the planning system”. Government has recently expressed its concern about the impact that retrospective planning applications have on the public’s confidence in the planning system. In this paper POS tackles these concerns and looks at the wider enforcement system to set out changes that are designed to make it more effective and efficient. Changes are also recommended to improve the funding that enforcement services receive. Read more
Manifesto
23 February 2020
As we enter Industry 4.0, the fourth stage of the industrial revolution, we embrace a connected world of big data and analytics driving like never before the world of work. rest and play. This paper looks at what might be around the corner in the context of the different forms of development we deal with and questions whether the way the planning system operates from a legislative point of view needs to change to be ready for the future. Read more
Manifesto
05 August 2019
The new NPPF (February 2019) has now put in place clear requirements for Local Planning Authorities to produce strategic policies and to co-operate at this strategic level when producing their plans. Many Local Planning Authorities are now preparing joint plans to contain these policies. POS considers that this leaves the rest of the development planning process in need of review to see if it’s still fit for non-strategic policies (DPDs and Neighbourhood Plans) and their supporting guidance (SPDs) so we can get local and neighbourhood plans in place in the shortest possible time. Read more
Manifesto