Monday marked national emergency services day, which is an annual celebration of NHS and emergency service workers.
At times in our lives we all make use of the emergency services, watching many places our needs above their own, but regularly the matter of service provision becomes part of the planning debate.
There are not many major planning applications that don’t come with fairly standard objections saying “the doctor’s surgery can’t cope” or the Fire Brigade wanting a s106 agreement to secure fire hydrants.
More recently we’re seeing lengthy requests from NHS Trusts seeking, in some instances, quite significant contributions to varying forms of healthcare provision.
But how far should planning applications realistically go? Developers can’t solve everything and still make schemes viable.
We need housing and one of our previous posts highlights the importance of housing development coming forward with the necessary infrastructure to ensure developments are sustainable. Should that extend beyond buses, trains and car clubs?
Without doubt fire hydrants are important, but they can be secured by condition – it doesn’t need to be in a legal agreement.
However, the decisions in The University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, R (On the Application Of) v Harborough District Council [2023] EWHC 263 (Admin) and Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, R (On the Application Of) v Malvern Hills District Council & Ors [2023] EWHC 1995 (Admin) bring into question the need for Authorities to secure NHS contributions and whether NHS Trusts are adequately set up to feed into the planning system in a meaningful and robust manner.
Experience has shown that even where developers have secured commercial space for a new or expanded surgery provision, the protracted engagement of local established surgeries and/or development with various arms of the NHS Trust results in sites not coming forward.
People either simply give up, or alternatively, where the NHS Trust seeks contributions to the expansion of local surgeries, there has been no realistic assessment of the ability to physically deliver expansions or the viability of a surgery scheme. The realisation is that it doesn’t happen.
Often, the Local Planning Authority just adds the contributions onto the ever-growing list of financial demands placed on new developments without even questioning their compliance with CIL.
Developers can be seen to be harsh if they seek to challenge these contributions, but if they’re not challenged there is no guarantee that these contributions are actually spent on the right projects. The ones that will improve services to accommodate the growth proposed and not just seek to resolve existing deficiencies in provision locally or go into the larger NHS Trust pot.
Whenever contributions are sought it must be remembered that they should be directly related to the development being proposed and not funded through other mechanisms (amongst the other CIL 122 tests).
It’s always worth checking before you agree to Heads of Terms proposed by the Local Planning Authority. This is a nuanced area that one of our consultants is ideally placed to advise so do get in touch.
