ADD2521 Homebase Wandsworth Planning Performance Agreement

1.1 Planning Performance Agreements were formally introduced into the planning system on 6 April 2008 and are principally aimed at major planning applications that need substantial amounts of officer time and negotiation throughout the life of the scheme and allow officers to improve the quality of schemes that are eventually submitted as planning applications and determined. They also allow the GLA to charge for officer time taken up by the larger scale strategic schemes.

1.2 A Mayoral decision (MD2475) was agreed on 11 June 2019 which gave delegated authority to the Assistant Director of Planning to enter into Planning Performance Agreements (PPAs) up to a cap of £250,000. This PPA will be with Legal & General Investment Management and will be for £4,410 to cover the costs of officer time dealing with a deed of variation to the original S106 agreement, to which the GLA is a party, which will secure, amongst other things, much needed genuinely affordable housing.

2.1 The principal objective is to maintain an effective high-quality strategic planning service at a time of pressure on resources and growing external and corporate demands by ensuring there are sufficient resources to deal with pre-application advice and applications including call ins by the Mayor and related work such as S106 agreements. The expected outcomes are:

• a continuation of the ability to deal with increasing workloads by having sufficient resources in place; and

• allowing the GLA planning function to keep up with high and rising levels of demand for advice whilst delivering an efficient fit for purpose strategic planning function for the Mayor.

3.1 Under section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, in making these decisions “due regard” must be had to the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation as well as to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between people who have a protected characteristic and those who do not. Protected characteristics include age, disability, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation (and marriage or civil partnership status for the duty to eliminate unlawful discrimination only). In this instance the proposals have been considered and are not expected to have any impacts on those with protected characteristics as distinct from anyone else.

Mayoral strategies and priorities:

4.1 Section 106 agreements are fundamental to the implementation of the Mayor’s London Plan which seeks to ensure that the city meets the challenges of economic and population growth with much needed housing and commercial floorspace along with other associated social infrastructure and transport infrastructure to enable the development. The Mayor’s input into S106 agreements is a key implementation tool of the London Plan and the planning service helps to ensure these documents deliver London Plan objectives.

Risk management issues:

4.2 Regular monitoring of income will be necessary to ensure the costs of providing the service are covered and the income is spent within the Regulations associated with the Local Government Act.

Conflicts of interest:

4.3 There are no conflicts of interest to note for any of those involved in the drafting or clearance of the decision.

5.1 Approval is being sought for expenditure of £4,410 for a Planning Performance Agreement (PPA) in respect of the Homebase Wandsworth scheme and the receipt of £4,410 on a cost recovery basis from the developer Legal & General Investment Management.

5.2 The PPA income and associated expenditure is budgeted for within the Planning unit budget for 2021-22.

5.3 The costs on this agreement will be capped and any additional work required on the scheme over the approved amount will be subject to further approval via the Authority’s decision-making process.