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Gaining ground - Planning article
Levvel's response

March 2010

Gaining ground - Andrew Golland (click to read article)
Planning magazine, 19th March 2010

Levvel's response :

Andrew Golland draws attention to some important issues surrounding the difficulty in establishing development viability. He points to the problems associated with the three considerations of viability as he sees them.  In coming to his conclusion that the ‘uplift approach’ is probably the most appropriate, Andrew states that viability is based upon what is necessary to bring a site forward. This is fine on sites where there is a well established existing or alternative use. The problem clearly comes on greenfield/agricultural land where the only potential for the site is the subject of that planning permission.  In that case the value at which that site needs to come forward can be a matter of conjecture.  Andrew points out these problems stating that the value will be 'down to the individual' site owner. 

All of this makes policy setting difficult.  In order to generally set targets which are appropriate for the area it may be that viability needs to be assessed against Brownfield values but for policy setting purposes local authorities must also be aware of the position on land at previously developed residential land values as the amount of community benefit (infrastructure, community and affordable housing contributions) that can be justified are likely to be different (and usually much less) than that which can be achieved on land at industrial values. Furthermore, local authorities are being asked to consider targets that are appropriate for the length of their Core Strategies and in that case an idea of landowner behaviour is needed. Anticipating the behaviour of land owners in the future is problematic and therefore there is a need to assess what might be necessary to bring sites forward based upon past behaviour.  In the case of policy setting, the land to GDV approach is a useful check in conjunction with a site value comparison based approach in order to gain an idea of what landowner expectations might be.

Simon Mitchell
Levvel
simon.mitchell@levvel.co.uk
 
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