July Quarterly meeting
The presentations from the three agenda items discussed at the quarterly meeting on 10 July have now been uploaded to the Bristol NPN website here.
The latest version of the Development Management detailed structure has also been updated and uploaded to the same page.
Making a statement at planning committee.
For anyone making a statement at a planning committee, the presentation from this meeting has some excellent advice from the DM manager.
1. Keep statements short and snappy – try not to read them out
2. If more than one person speaking, avoid repetition & cover different topics
3. Keep to planning issues
4. Use it as an opportunity to prompt questions from Members (to the DM Officer)
5. Remember it is your only opportunity to speak at the meeting, (you cannot be involved in the committee discussion even if what they say is incorrect.)
Bristol Walking Alliance
The presentation on Advertising and Telecoms pillars (new style Public Telephone provision) was from Roger Gimson of BWA.
The Head of Planning welcomed the input of the group; both because it was good to have a group that represented the interests of pedestrians, especially in forums where there were often strong campaign groups for cycling and other forms of transport, and also because it was good to have a presentation from NPN groups to the meeting.
If anyone wishes to make a presentation at a meeting, please let me know.
To find out more and to join the BWA click here
St James Parade Conservation Area consultation
It is proposed that the St James Parade Conservation Area be extended to include the newly listed BRI Hospital Chapel, and the Former Bristol Royal Infirmary buildings and original Eye Hospital buildings, which are unlisted. See the proposed Boundary Review here.
To provide feedback on the appraisal and this proposed boundary amendment please send comments to conservation@bristol.gov.uk
The closing date for comment is 9th August 2018.
Letwin draft report
The draft report by Rt Hon Sir Oliver Letwin MP on Independent Review of Build Out Rates has been published here
The review sets out to ‘explain the significant gap between housing completions and the amount of land allocated or permissioned in areas of high housing demand, and make recommendations for closing it’
This preliminary report states
“The fundamental driver of build out rates once detailed planning permission is granted for large sites appears to be the ‘absorption rate’ – the rate at which newly constructed homes can be sold into (or are believed by the house builder to be able to be sold successfully into) the local market without materially disturbing the market price. The absorption rate of homes sold on the site appears, in turn, to be largely determined at present by the type of home being constructed (when ‘type’ includes size, design, context and tenure) and the pricing of the new homes built.”
This leads to a recommendation that large housing developments should provide a good mix of types and tenure.
The study is also investigating other possible issues such as
• lack of transport infrastructure,
• difficulties of land remediation,
• delayed installations by utility companies,
• constrained site logistics,
• limited availability of capital,
• limited supplies of building materials,
• limited availability of skilled labour.
• alleged intentional “land banking” on the part of major house builders.
The final report will make recommendations to address this problem with policy options in time for the Autumn Budget 2018.
Please circulate this to your group members.
Or encourage them to sign up to receive the newsletters here