2021: The Year of Hybrid Working, Sustainable Development, and Levelling Up

Being asked to provide a review of the year makes me feel quite nostalgic! We have been working, like many others, in a hybrid fashion, with a flexible working arrangement in place — I think this will be here to stay after our current spell of working from home again. Being back in the office has meant we have been able to attend in person events, which has been a delight. Who would have thought we could miss the Planning Law CPD updates so much!

At the Cornerstone Barristers Planning Day, The Honourable Mr Justice Dove, gave the keynote speech. He was a baby junior when I did my first Planning Inquiry, and I feel lucky we picked so well since he is now the leading judge at the Planning Court. He noted the staggering growth in Judicial Review cases over the years he has been in practice, when JRs were previously rare. He reminded us that it was John Gummer as Environment Secretary who introduced the term ‘Sustainable Development’ into government policy, over 25 years ago, and yet we are still grappling with its tangible meaning and delivery.

In terms of new trends related to Sustainable Development we are seeing much more focus on Embodied Carbon and resistance to demolition, and Biodiversity Net Gain, which has now been formally introduced into legislation through the Environment Act 2021. COP26 has provided much focus on living sustainably this year which, combined with 15-minute cities, Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, and improving cycling infrastructure, all gained attention during the pandemic. This increased working from home should pave the way to a less car-dominated urban environment.

Other themes from the year include the unfortunate delays to applications and appeals. It is now quite normal for a written appeal to take over 6 months to be determined and over a year for an inquiry — this is an appalling and, sadly, worsening situation which benefits no one. The hybrid method of holding appeals should help, but that doesn’t seem to be improving the speed of appeals just yet. Conversely the Planning Court has no pandemic backlog, so it is possible to deal with the volume of cases efficiently, provided that the necessary resources are in place.

Finally, a word about Levelling Up: I hate to be a pessimist, but in a similar way to Sustainable Development, this is not a new initiative. 30 years ago, I was studying at the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies at Birmingham University. Much of my course was focused on regional inequality and assessing the merits of interventions, such as the Development Corporations, which were introduced to ‘level up’ the regions! Let’s hope that Levelling Up, whatever it means for local communities, leads to significant change to a longstanding problem. One thing’s for sure: We look forward with great anticipation to Michael Gove’s Levelling Up White Paper.

Wishing you well over the festive period!