Government Inspectors are allowing more planning appeals in York.
New national guidance (National Planning Policy Framework or NPPF) has led to several major appeals against the refusal of planning permission being successful during the first 6 months of the financial year.
Between 1st April and 31st October 2012, a total of 40 appeals relating to CYC decisions were determined by the Inspectorate. Of those, 20 were allowed. At 50%, the rate of appeals is significantly higher than the 33% national annual average. By comparison, for the same period last year, 8 out of 26 appeals were allowed, i.e. 30.77%
The successful appeals included the replacement of offices with a retail warehouse at Monks Cross and the construction of a 64 bed care home the York Business Park near Poppleton.
Also approved were changes to City centre shop fronts, infill housing, the conversion of houses into flats, home extensions, the installation of balconies/dormers and the conversion of (another) property into a bar on Micklegate
The Council’s poor performance has been blamed by officials on the decision of the Labour Council to withdraw its draft Local Development Framework. This was the plan that would have governed how York would change over the next 20 years. Now Inspectors are relying on NPPF on which to make their decisions.
The NPPF has been afforded considerably more weight. The presumption in favour of sustainable development in the NPPF “appeared to be a significant factor in consideration of appeals“.
Appeal statistics are collated by the Planning Inspectorate on a quarterly basis. Whilst the percentage of appeals allowed against the Council’s decision is no longer a National Performance Indicator, it has in the past been used to abate the amount of Housing and Planning Delivery Grant (HPDG) received by an Authority performing badly against the average appeals performance.
Until recently, appeals performance in York has been close to (and usually better than) the national average for a number of years. More recently the Government has indicated that it will use appeals performance in identifying poor performing planning authorities with a view to the introduction of special measures and direct intervention in planning matters within the worst performing authorities.
There are currently 20 outstanding appeals lodged with the Planning Inspectorate