Why do “no brainer” applications get rejected?

The fact is, if your application is sufficiently unpalatable, councillors will reject it, even if they know you will win on appeal, and win costs.  They want to “go down fighting” rather than compromise and secure a better deal.  That costs applicants a boatload of cash and years of delay.

So, how can we avoid this happening?  It’s a net loss to both applicants and communities, exactly the sort of thing that the system is designed to avoid, not incentivise.  The answer is that you need to design the application with the local politics in mind just as much as you do the local flood risk, or the design vernacular of the local area. 

There is one local authority who hates any application which comes in with more than 10% affordable housing in certain marginal seats, because it upsets the political balance.  Knowing this means that applicants can put in for lower affordable % and achieve greater political support as well as improved economics.  But it’s not public information, so applicants are surprised at the fury that greets their more worthy applications.

Getting the political intelligence so you can design your scheme appropriately is key, and that is one of our functions at the CCP.  Because we were founded as a collective of current and former councillors, we have insights into political realities that can help applicants shape schemes in ways that often don’t cost any money, but gain tremendous political capital that can be deployed to make applications sail through committee.

This can be done late in the process, often as simple as renaming elements on a map to accord with local political priorities will help, but it is best done at the Masterplan stage.  Bring in the political expertise and we can tell you if you have a neighbour who happens to be on the planning committee, which might lead to a different scheme design, or if there is a need for a local bandstand, or if you need to create two groups of allotments instead of one, so that two separate allotment societies can each get one (all real examples from our experience which have turned schemes from rejections to acceptance).

If you have a site where you know that securing a local consent will save you significant money and time, we can have a chat!  Ultimately some sites will sail through planning, some will always be won at appeal and those sites that are marginal are the ones where bringing on politicians onto your side is where you will see the best results.

If you would like to arrange a meeting my email is will@theccp.net and my mobile is 07933438156