From: Paul Burnham <haringey_dch@outlook.com>
Sent: 11 June 2020 10:17
Subject: Tenure segregation and planning policy
Letter to Cllr Kirsten Hearn
Cabinet Member for Climate Change and Sustainability
Dear Cllr Hearn
ONE: I am writing to you as the Cabinet Member for Climate Change and Sustainability, in respect of your responsibilities for Planning Policy and Delivery.
TWO: It has come to my attention that Haringey Council’s planning services team routinely ignores some key agreed planning policies in relation to planning applications for major developments, concerning tenure segregation in the provision of affordable housing.
THREE: This has been an issue throughout the three years that I have been following major planning applications in Haringey. It has been routine that tenures are segregated by access core (stairs and lifts) in new developments. When this practice has been challenged, it has been robustly defended by the planning officers; and there have been frequent discussions about this matter at Planning Committees, including amongst elected members.
FOUR: Planning permission for the Tottenham Hale Centre development (HGY/2018/2223) was granted by Haringey and approved by the GLA, even though the applicant stated in the Affordable Housing Statement, ‘Through careful design, this scheme has ensured that the affordable homes where possible can be accessed separately via their own entrance… Shared ownership homes are provided on the lower floors and so there are no mixed floors’; and child play spaces were located in tenure segregated blocks. Building standards were reduced for the new Welbourne block at Tottenham Hale Centre as soon as it was set to become a council block, with cheaper doors, wall and floor coverings, kitchens, door entry systems, and sanitary appliances (sinks, shower trays, basins and WCs); all in breach of Haringey’s development management policy DM12 (D) which states that in mixed tenure residential development proposals, tenures must be indistinguishable from one another in terms of quality of design, space standards and building materials.
FIVE: The sole exception that I am aware of, where tenures were pepper potted according to inclusive planning principles, was at St John’s Church and Church Hall site, Acacia Avenue N17 8LR (HGY/2016/4095), when it came back to the Planning Committee in 2018; and even then, the pepper potting was only on the Northern part of the development. If there have been any other examples within the past few years, I would hope that you could list them in your reply.
SIX: Things came to a head at the planning committee meeting on 9 March 2020 regarding 867-879 High Road N17. The Planning Report prepared by officers contained an unusually brazen presentation of tenure segregation at the site, with a further justification in the text (6.4.13 and 6.4.14), and at the meeting itself, planning officers robustly defended these aspects of the application.
SEVEN: Following research, we could find no policy basis whatsoever for tenure segregation, including segregation by access core, in the policies of Haringey Council, the Mayor of London or the National Planning Policy Framework; and there are many references in all of these policies about creating inclusive communities, and about the need to resist and eliminate segregation. Tenure segregation by core is not explicitly forbidden; but neither is it explicitly permitted. Nowhere is tenure segregation exempted from the consistent emphasis throughout on inclusiveness and integration. The word inclusive appears 132 times in the Intend to Publish London Plan (December 2019).
EIGHT: A detailed email was despatched to Emma Williamson, Assistant Director for Planning, with all the evidence, and Emma responded promptly, quoting yet more similar examples. The email exchange is pasted below, for your perusal. We also wrote along the same lines to the Mayor of London, and received a reply from Anna Turner, Principal Strategic Planner with the London Plan Team, which gave no support whatever to any form of tenure segregation. That email is also pasted below.
NINE: Now we have the Caxton Road application (HGY/2020/0795, former petrol filling station, 76 Mayes Road, London N22), with a design which is brazenly segregated by tenure. This takes three main forms: there are twin segregated 7th floor roof amenity and child play spaces (one for market residents, and one for affordable residents); there is segregated deck access to all 75 flats, designed so that the gaze of residents is directed at residents of the ‘opposite’ tenure; and the housing provision is split between market and affordable cores.
TEN: This particular application has not yet come to the Planning Committee, but there are concerns about the content of the planning team’s advice to the applicant at the pre application stages. This advice is a service which the applicant pays for, and it is support to which they are entitled. The applicant’s Design and Access Statement describes ‘the communication process between the design team and the local authority’ including ‘3 pre-application meetings, 1 public consultation event, 2 design panel reviews and other separate meetings on various subjects have been taken into place.’ Whereas according to policy the developer should have been told that their highly segregated design was not acceptable, this surely cannot have been done, looking at the application which has come forward resulting from these discussions, especially as the planning team has provided the application with a letter of conformity with planning policy.
ELEVEN: On affordable housing at Caxton Road, it is evident that the applicant wishes to use London Affordable Rent as a form of intermediate housing, with minimum income requirements of £36,606 for a two bed property and £39,679 for a three bed. However, London Affordable Rent is designed as a form of Low Cost Rent which is intended to be accessible to waiting list applicants including those only income comes from state benefits. The applicant should have been told that their rent proposals were completely unacceptable. Yet by default, the letter of conformity with planning policy suggests that no such message was conveyed.
TWELVE: Across a wide range of Haringey planning applications it appears that in pre-application discussions, borough planners focus on the physicality of proposed buildings, their design, heights, scale and proportion, views, and allied matters. The social policy aspects of planning, such as affordable housing, rents and service charges, and inclusion or segregation, have a much lower priority. In many cases it appears that the content of the advice given does not conform to the agreed planning policies, Caxton Road being a case in point.
THIRTEEN: Haringey’s Local Plan strategic policy 6.1.11 states that ‘Design and Access Statements will be required for developments to show how the principles of inclusive design and access for all [my emphasis] have been integrated into the proposed development.’ However, applicants do not address tenure integration in their Design and Access Statements, and they are not asked to do so at Planning Committee. Where the issue is addressed, it is to justify segregation. Presumably pre application discussions largely ignore the issue as well.
FOURTEEN: Now we come to the case in favour of the planning team’s practices. Emma Williamson’s letter of 29 April 2020, which is referred to above and is pasted below, contains some wording quoted from Cllr Emina Ibrahim’s response to Cllr Connor at Item 12 of the Full Council Minutes for 15 July 2019.
FIFTEEN: You can read this wording yourself. There are some attempts here to minimise segregation by verbal gymnastics: ‘we consider community integration across a site, and not on a block by block basis’; blocks may be tenure blind if social housing cannot be distinguished from other types of housing externally; etc. These comments do not engage with the high priority for social inclusion in planning policies, and the lack of any specific policy exemptions permitting tenure segregation.
SIXTEEN: This text from Cllr Ibrahim raises the most substantive points:
Social and private housing may be located in different blocks for two main reasons. Firstly, for management reasons; that is social homes and market homes are likely to be managed by different organisations, which is more easily done if the homes of similar tenures are together. Secondly, for affordability reasons; that is market homes often have services which lead to high charges, many of which are ineligible for housing benefit, which would make these homes unaffordable to many council tenants.
SEVENTEEN: Our response to this is that housing professionals can and must manage mixed tenure developments; and that all service charging should be limited and reduced, because it is a bad practice in terms of consumer protections. There is a gross injustice when an owner or tenant buys or rents their home at an agreed price, but then faces an unlimited liability for any and all service charges imposed by the landlord, without any redress.
EIGHTEEN: There are many possible routes to permanently lowered service charges, for instance those suggested in Chapters 3 and 4 of ‘Superdensity: the sequel’ (2015), a report produced by practitioners from four leading London architectural practices. Some examples include: interrogating the developer’s proposed management arrangements before planning consent is agreed in order to keep charges affordable, capitalising maintenance costs, extending defects arrangements from the typical 12 month period to 36 months or longer, ring-fencing commuted sums from the land value or developer profit to provide a funding stream for the management of communal facilities, and local authorities imposing caps on service charges. These are the alternatives which a bold and principled local authority could start to implement through its planning powers.
NINETEEN: The third reason for segregation by core is never mentioned by the policy makers, but it is the real and decisive reason: that developers seek a financial advantage from offering market residents homes with communal areas free of affordable residents, and in particular free of affordable renters and their children. The answer to this is that the planning team should explain public policy to the developer, and then the applicant must wait a little while longer to make their profit.
TWENTY: Some people of goodwill believe that segregation by core means that owners and renters are separate but equal – but this has not been the case. In segregated Haringey developments we have seen the reversed tenants’ entry core at Altitude N8 placed next to the bins entrance, segregated child play spaces at Tottenham Hale Centre and Caxton Road, and the sharply reduced internal building standards at the Welbourne site. These policies are divisive, and unnecessary, because we do not believe that home owners in Haringey are bigots. This is one of the most mixed and tolerant boroughs in London. All the evidence shows that mixed tenure housing developments help to challenge any misconceptions and tenure prejudices which may otherwise exist.
TWENTY-ONE: The de facto policy of segregation has never been the subject of an Equality Impact Assessment, and the Council cannot discharge its Public Sector Equality Duty if it allows the policies outlined by Cllr Ibrahim on 15 July 2019 to continue.
TWENTY-TWO: We say that the planning team must adhere to the agreed planning policy. The opinions of planners or Councillors however sincerely held are not part of Haringey Council’s planning policies, which are decided through a public process overseen by the Planning inspectorate, and which must be compatible with the Mayor’s London Plan and with the National Planning Policy Framework. There is extensive public engagement in shaping planning policies. Haringey Defend Council Housing took part with Our Tottenham in the Examination in Public of Haringey’s Local Plan in 2016, and alongside numerous Haringey residents and alongside the London Tenants Federation and the community planning group Just Space, we took part in 2019 in the five month long Examination in Public of the Draft New London Plan.
TWENTY-THREE: The question is, were we mugs to participate in that way? Because what we are now seeing is a quite different policy being carried out by the planning service, outside of any public process, and seemingly being enacted with impunity.
Recommendations
ONE: There is a need to clean out the stable. Haringey’s councillors must take decisive action to challenge all of the malpractices described above, and ensure that the planning team advocate the Council’s agreed planning policies, and that they seek alternatives to tenure segregation in all cases.
TWO: Because the underlying reason for all of these problems is that central government seeks to build affordable housing through planning gain on market developments, without significant public subsidy; and this just does not work. As well as holding the line against developers who may be tempted to flout the borough’s agreed planning policies, Haringey should become a campaigning Council, explaining the need for government development grant to build new council housing and other social rented housing, which will pay for itself in reduced benefit costs, along the lines suggested by the housing charity Shelter in its report ‘Building for our future: a vision for social housing’ (January 2019), and in the Labour Party’s Manifesto for the General Election of December 2019.
Haringey Council must give a lead in exposing and changing such malpractices in the planning functions of local authorities across London, and campaigning for the policies that are needed, across the city and beyond; and when you do so, we will support you all the way.
I am available and willing to discuss this matter, should you wish to do so.
Please can you send me a response to this letter in due course.
Kind regards
Paul Burnham
58 Newbury House
Partridge Way N22 8DY
Secretary
Haringey Defend Council Housing
07847 714 158
www.haringeydefendcouncilhousingblog.wordpress.com
………………..
Mayor of London <mayor@london.gov.uk>
Fri 29/05/2020 17:12
MGLA290420-0398 Enquiry about planning policy re. tenure segregation
Dear Mr Burnham,
Thank you for your inquiry. The Intend to Publish London Plan (December 2019) Policy S4: Play and Informal Recreation, Part B(2)(f) explicitly states that residential developments should incorporate play and informal recreation space for children and young people that is not segregated by tenure.
As you have pointed out, paragraph 3.6.6 of Policy D6: Housing quality and standards of the Intend to Publish London Plan clearly states that housing developments should be designed to maximise tenure integration, and affordable housing units should have the same external appearance as private housing.
To support the implementation of the Intend to publish London Plan, the Mayor has published the Good Quality Homes for all Londoners SPG Pre-consultation draft document to provide guidance to landowners, developers, architects and wider design teams, planners and decision-makers across the public, private and community sectors in implementing the Plan’s policies on housing quality and standards.
Module C: Housing Design – Quality and Standards, part C2: Design for A Diverse City of this document helpfully provides more detailed guidance on how schemes can be designed to maximise the integration of different tenures.
Kind regards,
Anna Turner
Principal Strategic Planner – London Plan Team
GREATERLONDONAUTHORITY
City Hall, The Queen’s Walk, London SE1 2AA
From: Williamson Emma <Emma.Williamson@haringey.gov.uk>
Sent: 29 April 2020 10:38
To: Paul Burnham <haringey_dch@outlook.com>
Cc: Krzyszowski Rob <Rob.Krzyszowski@haringey.gov.uk>; Hermitage Dean <Dean.Hermitage@haringey.gov.uk>
Subject: RE: Enquiry about planning policy
Paul
Thank you for your email regarding this important matter.
Your extracts from the NPPF, Intend To Publish London Plan and Local Plan are comprehensive. The additional points I would add are:
- London Plan Policy 3.5 Quality and Design of Housing Developments requires the design of new development to help create a more socially inclusive London. The plan is clear that the design and quality requirements in Policy 3.5 apply in full to affordable housing provision.
- Paragraph 3.76 of the London Plan and the Mayor’s Housing Supplementary Planning Guidance (2016) provides more specific guidance on this stressing the need for affordable housing to be integrated with the rest of the development and have the same external appearance as other housing.
- Policies 7.1 Lifetime Neighbourhoods, 7.2 An Inclusive Environment, and 7.6 Architecture provide further policy support for new development in London to achieve the highest standards of accessible and inclusive design and supports the principles of inclusive design which seek to ensure that developments can be used safely, easily and with dignity by all.
Item 12 of the 15 July 2019 Full Council
Cllr Ibrahim’s response to Cllr Connor on this matter is set out below:
From Cllr Connor to Cllr Ibrahim
If there is a site that contains multiple blocks of flats but all the social housing is contained in one block does this amount to an integrated community?
I was shocked to see recent media coverage of the segregation of play areas for children in affordable housing and market housing across London. I immediately asked officers for confirmation that this was not happening in Haringey and I am pleased to confirm that it is not and will not be in future.
Our approach is to consider community integration across a site, and not on a block by block basis. Haringey’s planning policy framework includes provisions to ensure that the affordable housing (including social rented housing) in a mixed tenure development is fully integrated within the scheme. All mixed tenure developments are required to be ‘tenure blind’, meaning that social housing should not be able to be distinguished from other types of housing.
Social and private housing may be located in different blocks for two main reasons. Firstly, for management reasons; that is social homes and market homes are likely to be managed by different organisations, which is more easily done if the homes of similar tenures are together. Secondly, for affordability reasons; that is market homes often have services which lead to high charges, many of which are ineligible for housing benefit, which would make these homes unaffordable to many council tenants.
There are no planning policies prohibiting the concentration of social housing in a specific part of a site.
By deeds and their results: strengthening our communities and nation (MHCLG July 2019)
- Page 14: “Take action to address unfair segregation and promote integrated and socially cohesive communities. The National Planning Policy Framework, updated in July last year, sets out that planning policies and decisions should promote social interaction. We will work closely with industry and local planning authorities to implement this. We will consider updating planning guidance to show how good planning can reflect our policy by creating tenure neutral design and spaces that can be shared by all residents.”
- Page 21: “Take action to address unfair segregation in housing developments and promote integrated and socially cohesive communities, working with the industry and local planning authorities to implement the National Planning Policy Framework”
National Design Guide (MHCLG October 2019)
- Paragraph 106: “Well-designed public spaces are social spaces, providing opportunities for comfort, relaxation and stimulation for all, regardless of the type or tenure of the homes around them.”
- Paragraph 111: “well-integrated housing and other facilities that are designed to be tenure neutral and socially inclusive”
- Paragraph 116: “Where different tenures are provided, they are well-integrated and designed to the same high quality to create tenure neutral homes and spaces, where no tenure is disadvantaged.”
- Page 36: “Definitions: Tenure neutral: Housing where no group of residents is disadvantaged as a result of the tenure of their homes. There is no segregation or difference in quality between tenures by siting, accessibility, environmental conditions, external facade or materials. Homes of all tenures are represented in equally attractive and beneficial locations, and there is no differentiation in the positions of entrances. Shared open or play spaces are accessible to all residents around them, regardless of tenure.”
- Paragraph 131: “Well-designed shared amenity spaces feel safe and secure for their users. They are social spaces providing opportunities for comfort, relaxation and stimulation – including play – for residents, regardless of the type or tenure of homes. They are well-overlooked and all of the residents who share them can access them easily.”
New Local Plan consultation 2020
The Council will be engaging communities on the first steps of its new Local Plan later this year.
This will provide an opportunity to consider where existing policies need to be changed, enhanced or clarified.
I hope this gives you the full picture with regard to the important issue that you raised, but please do not hesitate to contact me should you require further information or clarification.
Kind regards
Emma
Emma Williamson Assistant Director-Planning, Building Standards and Sustainability
Housing, Regeneration and Planning | Haringey Council
River Park House 225 High Road | London | N22 8HQ
Tel: 020 8489 5507
Executive PA Anita Morgan anita.morgan@haringey.gov.uk 020 8489 3142
Please help to save paper by not printing this email unless absolutely necessary.
From: Paul Burnham <haringey_dch@outlook.com>
Sent: 29 April 2020 08:10
To: Williamson Emma <Emma.Williamson@haringey.gov.uk>
Subject: Enquiry about planning policy
Dear Emma
In following the discussions about the content of planning applications regarding tenure segregation, I have taken a detailed look at Haringey’s Local Plan, the intend to publish London Plan, and the National Planning Policy Framework.
I have struggled without success to find in any of these planning policies any justification for the typical development proposals which separate tenures by access cores, seeking to exclude by design social renters and their children from the internal communal areas which may be used by market purchasers; and these segregated communal areas often also include resident amenity spaces and child play spaces.
It seems paradoxical that applicants are increasingly so confident that tenure segregation will meet with approval from Haringey Council and from the GLA, when there appears to be no defence of such proposals in the planning policies of either Haringey Council, the GLA, or in national planning policy.
Neither Haringey nor the GLA attempt to define mixed or inclusive in the Glossaries to their Plans. We can therefore only look to dictionary definitions, where mix means combine or put together to form one substance or mass, and associate with others socially.
Housing cannot be ‘mixed and inclusive’ if it is segregated. So if there’s nothing in planning policy about tenure segregation being acceptable, and there is a strong emphasis in all the policies on mixed and inclusive development, then I believe that tenure segregation cannot be acceptable in any development proposals.
I would therefore be grateful if you could provide references to any justification in planning policy for tenure segregation in new housing developments, because I can find none.
Some of my notes follow, regarding the content of Haringey’s Local Plan, the intend to publish London Plan, and the National Planning Policy Framework.
I am also writing to the Mayor of London about this issue.
I look forward to your response in due course.
Haringey’s Development Management DPD (development plan documents)
Policy DM1: Delivering High Quality Design
Haringey Development Charter
A All new development and changes of use must achieve a high standard of design and contribute to the distinctive character and amenity of the local area. The Council will support design-led development proposals which meet the following criteria: (e) Are inclusive [My emphasis is in red throughout] and incorporate sustainable design and construction principles.
Introduction to chapter 3 Housing
Para 3.3 The following housing policies give effect to Haringey’s Strategic Policies. In particular, they seek to ensure that:
▪ New housing developments, including mixed use schemes, help to secure communities that are inclusive to everyone and are appropriately mixed in terms of demographics, household types and tenure
Policy DM12: Housing Design and Quality
D Mixed tenure residential development proposals must be designed to be ‘tenure blind’ to ensure homes across tenures are indistinguishable from one another in terms of quality of design, space standards and building materials.
This latter wording has been quoted to argue that tenure segregation by block, entrance core or floor level is acceptable as long as the homes look the same from the outside. But the policy does NOT say that.
‘Homes across tenures must be indistinguishable from one another’ doesn’t say that they can or cannot be in separate blocks segregated by tenure. It simply says they should be indistinguishable by tenure, which we agree with.
Policy DM13: Affordable Housing does not mention tenure segregation at all.
Strategic Policies
Strategic policies SP2: Secure high quality affordable housing. Affordable housing shall be achieved by: (10) Ensuring affordable housing units are designed to a high quality and are fully integrated within schemes.
3.2.23 According to CABE’s Building for Life criteria, successful developments fully integrate the tenure mix, avoiding differentiation between individual dwellings and parts of the scheme based on their area.
Comment: Surely full integration is incompatible with segregation?
SP11: Design
6.1.11 The Council requires new buildings and spaces to be inclusive and accessible to all. Design and Access Statements will be required for developments to show how the principles of inclusive design and access for all have been integrated into the proposed development.
Comment: It is notable that applicants typically present Design and Access Statements which addresses inclusion solely in regard to disability. But ‘inclusive and accessible to all’ applies to tenure as well, and to social tenants and their children.
The Planning Inspector’s Examination
The Planning Inspector assessed the plan for Sustainability, including the topic Community Cohesion: Protect and enhance community spirit and cohesion, with its Appraisal criteria,
Will the policy approach under consideration help to…
- Promote a sense of cultural identity, belonging and well-being?
- Develop opportunities for community involvement?
- Support strong relationships between people from different backgrounds and communities?
Comment: It is hard to see how segregated schemes could deliver this definition of sustainability.
The New London Plan
The intend to publish London Plan (December 2019) has very similar content, except that it is even more fulsome in its insistence on inclusive housing and inclusive design, in fact the word inclusive appears in the Plan 132 times.
Policy D5 Inclusive design
A Boroughs, in preparing their Development Plans, should support the creation of inclusive neighbourhoods by embedding inclusive design, and collaborating with local communities in the development of planning policies that affect them.
B Development proposals should achieve the highest standards of accessible and inclusive design. They should:
1) be designed taking into account London’s diverse population
2) provide high quality people focused spaces that are designed to facilitate social interaction and inclusion
3) be convenient and welcoming with no disabling barriers, providing independent access without additional undue effort, separation or special treatment
4) be able to be entered, used and exited safely, easily and with dignity for all
3.5.2 Inclusive design is indivisible from good design. It is therefore essential to consider inclusive design and the development’s contribution to the creation of inclusive neighbourhoods at the earliest possible stage in the development process – from initial conception through to completion and, where relevant, the occupation and on-going management and maintenance of the development.
3.5.6 Inclusive design creates spaces and places that can facilitate social integration, enabling people to lead more interconnected lives. Development proposals should help to create inclusive neighbourhoods that cumulatively form a network in which people can live and work in a safe, healthy, supportive and inclusive environment. An inclusive neighbourhood approach will ensure that people are able to easily access services, facilities and amenities that are relevant to them and enable them to safely and easily move around by active travel modes through high quality, people-focused spaces, while enjoying barrier-free access to surrounding areas and the wider city.
3.5.9 Entrances into buildings should be easily identifiable and should allow everyone to use them independently without additional effort, separation or special treatment. High and low level obstructions in buildings and in the public realm should be eliminated. The internal environment of developments should meet the highest standards in terms of access and inclusion, creating buildings which meet the needs of the existing and future population.
3.6.6 Housing developments should be designed to maximise tenure integration, and affordable housing units should have the same external appearance as private housing. All entrances will need to be well integrated with the rest of the development and should be indistinguishable from each other.
Comment: As with the similar paragraph in Haringey’s Local Plan, this does not say that there should be separate cores for social renters. It is neutral on that point. The many other references in the plan to inclusion suggest that all forms of tenure segregation ought to be anathema in the GLA’s planning decisions.
3.6.7 Development should help create a more socially inclusive London. Gated forms of development that could realistically be provided as a public street are unacceptable and alternative means of security should be achieved through utilising the principles of good urban design and inclusive design (see Policy D5 Inclusive design).
National Planning Policy Framework 2019
- Planning policies and decisions should aim to achieve healthy, inclusiveand safe places which: (a) promote social interaction, including opportunities for meetings between peoplewho might not otherwise come into contact with each other – for example through mixed-use developments, strong neighbourhood centres, street layouts that allow for easy pedestrian and cycle connections within and between neighbourhoods, and active street frontages.
- Planning policies and decisions should ensure that developments: (f) create places that are safe, inclusive and accessible and which promote health and well-being, with a high standard of amenity for existing and future users.
Haringey Defend Council Housing 
The entire council needs to be cleared.
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