dclg circular / design and access statements and outline applications
Hello, With reference to recent Changes to the D C system circular, there are number of implications for us while working on applications. I am wondering, how is your experience so far, in managing this change and how best are you implementing it?
The issues are principally 2 for me: -- outline planning applications- level of details & need for Design /access statement
- Generally gearing up with new system and feedback so far.
We at tower hamlets have prepared a guidance leaflets, http://www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/data/planning/data/general-advice/data/download-leaflets.cfm but as produced few months ago, are not fully uptodate. and also a internal guidance note for validation checklist. But still awareness amongst DC colleagues is not encouraging.
Would appreciate, if you can share your experiences.
Sounds sensible to me. We had a good session with councillors last night about statments. some very interesting points made during discussion. In particular there seemed confusion over when Councillors felt they could or could not refuse an application on design grounds. There also seemed to be some conflict between officers and councillors with design sometimes maybe being used as an excuse to not communicate between each other. Will anyone be looking at making statments available for councillors? On the table with the plans? or summariesed? Some Boroughs I think might be thinking about structuring part of their committee reports around the statment titels - is this a good idea? Would it help?
Thanks for our very first real comment on the forum - if UDL had any prices, you deserve one! It was interesting to hear last week that Lewisham will not do pre app meetings unless the developer has a draft statment - does anyone else do this?
Cool, i have Rich text editor now :-)
I agree with lewisham's view. Where possible, we also insist on sending us pdf / hard copies least few working days in advance, prior to the meeting. And in half the cases, we can really avoid meetings , saving officers valuable times (private consultant's hourly rate to his clients). Its better to write up a joint response, after internal workshop within the council, than having unending sequence of pre-application meetings.
This way, we limit pre-application meetings to only where necessary. My experience is developres want to schedule these meetings only to tick boxes as a part of the process. Very rarely, they are interetsed in guidance and all the amendments are subjected to negotiations during the application consultation process.
This is a very generic statement, and pleased to know that exceptions are also true.
Mandar Puranik