My name is Mark Benham, I’m head of Real Estate at Lester Aldridge. I advise regional and national housebuilders (and the occasional landowner) on land promotion, acquisition and development, including advising providers of later living housing and housing with care. Outside of work, my passion is music – whether it’s watching a new live act at a small local venue, enjoying music new and old on BBC 6 Music or compiling a playlist on Spotify to share with friends and colleagues.

There is a clear synergy between community assets, including live music venues, and the creation of new housing. In July 2023, Joanna Averley, chief planner at The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, reminded planning authorities that they “have an important role in identifying and protecting local grassroots music venues in their area from the effects of new development”, referring them to the requirements in the NPPF regarding the provision of suitable mitigation measures. She also flagged how the Music Venue Trust (which describes itself as being like the National Trust of music venues) can offer support to planning authorities when consulting on applications.

Independent music venues are the lifeblood of the music industry here in the UK, breathing life into our towns and cities as part of the “night-time economy”. Sadly, 2023 was the UK’s worst year for music venue closures, according to the Music Venue Trust, with 125 grassroots music venues closing over 12 months. Without Government support, the sad reality is that the number of venues will continue to shrink.

Our next guest is strategic planning specialist Catriona Riddell.

A familiar face both on our screens (Have We Got Planning News For You) and in print (Planning Magazine, TCPA Journal), Catriona has a wealth of planning experience, having been head of strategic planning at Surrey County Council and director of planning at the South East England Regional Assembly. Currently deputy chair at the TCPA, Catriona runs a planning consultancy which supports clients on, amongst other things, local plans and strategic planning.

It’s never been a busier time for spatial policy planning, but despite a hectic 2024, Catriona has still found time for live music, including her annual pilgrimage to the Latitude Festival. Want to understand why planning needs to stick to the knitting and how strategic planning can help communities to reengage with the planning process? Let’s hear from Catriona…

Mark: What is your favourite venue for live music?

Catriona: I am a big country music fan so go to a few gigs in some of London’s smaller venues like the Kentish Town Forum and Islington Assembly Halls, both of which I love. More generally though, I don’t think you can beat Hammersmith Apollo – just the right size!

Mark: What is the most entertaining and memorable inquiry or hearing you have taken part in?

Catriona: As a spatial policy planner, I don’t really go to inquiries or hearings but have been involved in many examinations over time. 

The most memorable for me was the examination into the South East Plan (Regional Spatial Strategy) which took place in three different venues over four months (Nov 2006 to Feb 2007) – Woking, Reading and Chichester. It was incredibly intensive, really hard work for everyone involved, but was also great fun, especially the overnight stays and particularly in Chichester as we were coming into the home stretch by then and everyone (including the panel) were a bit demob-happy.

No-one realised then that the new plan would be abolished soon after it was adopted following the coalition government’s scrapping of regional planning in 2010. It was so ahead of its time on key issues like climate change, nature recovery and resource management and everything was simply put in the bin.

With the return of strategic planning now, thanks to the new government, I am chairing a brilliant group which has been put together by consultancy Prior and Partners to re-imagine a new generation of strategic plans and we have pulled together a Spotify playlist to commemorate the return of strategic planning! Some of my favourites on there are Starting Over by the fabulous Chris Stapleton, Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley and Hard to Say I’m Sorry by Chicago (that one is especially for Sir Eric Pickles!).

Mark: What was the first, and most recent, music gig/concert that you attended?

Catriona: I was brought up on the west coast of Scotland and had to travel by ferry to get to Glasgow, which was the nearest main city, so my first proper gig wasn’t until I went to Glasgow University in the mid-1980s (where I did my planning degree) and it was the Simple Minds’ Once Upon a Time Tour in 1986.

I saw them twice at Ibrox Park in Glasgow that summer and they had amazing support acts including The Waterboys, The Cult, Lloyd Cole and the Commotions and Hipsway (one hit wonders but The Honeythief is still one of my all-time favourite songs).

I queued for my first tickets (in the cold and overnight!) but I had friends in the music business (via the student union) who told me that they were going to release 100 more pitch tickets and you could buy them from HMV at 9.30am on the same day as the gig. I turned up to buy a ticket and they hadn’t even announced it on the radio – they still sold them to me. I have seen Simple Minds over 20 times since then.

My most recent gig was one of my old favourites – Del Amitri at Hammersmith Apollo in December. They never have a big set, just brilliant musicians singing brilliant lyrics. I’ve seen them a few times and they are always fabulous. I was so sorry to hear that Justin Currie has Parkinson’s. I don’t know how much longer they will tour so I’ll take any opportunity to see them.

Mark: What one change would you like to see made to the planning application process?

Catriona: I was privileged to be involved in the Radix Big Tent Housing Commission and we came up with quite a few proposals to improve both the planning application process and the post approval process, some of which are beginning to be taken forward by the government, thankfully! 

For me though, I think the two most important changes are to get back to the core planning matters that need to be addressed and to improve the committee system. Too many other requirements have been added which belong elsewhere and planning is now doing all the heavy lifting for other regulatory processes like building regulations, environmental health, even on nature recovery – as Mike Kiely at the Planning Officers Society often says, planning needs to stick to the knitting. 

The government has promised to modernise planning committees and, as part of this, will be introducing a national scheme of delegation which I think will help. However, this must go hand in hand with getting the ‘plan-led’ system operating much better with more community engagement upstream at the plan-making stage (strategic and local plans).

With less than a third of local plans up to date, the plan-led system is currently broken which is why so much is left to the end stage in the process and why so many communities feel totally disengaged with the process until an application is submitted.  

Mark: What is your favourite album? Name the first that comes into your mind.

Catriona: Sparkle in the Rain by Simple Minds has always been my favourite, but I think Paolo Nutini’s Last Night at the Bittersweet might have pipped it recently. I have a lot of vinyl LPs though and I often play LP roulette on a Saturday morning and am constantly reminded how good some of these are.

Mark: You are appointed the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities for one week. You are given the power to make immediate legislative changes in order to ensure more houses are built. What is the first change you would make?

Catriona: I’m going to cheat and give you two answers. First, to ensure more houses are ‘planned’ for I would immediately give strategic planning powers to all counties and combined authorities. Oh wait, that might actually be happening!

Second, to ensure more houses are actually built, I would introduce changes to compulsory purchase – and selling – to allow far more small and medium housebuilders to access the market, especially in the more expensive parts of the country where the big housebuilders pretty much control the land market. I know the government is going to do something on this but the SMEs need a lot of support and they are the ones that can deliver quickly.

Mark: What is the furthest you’ve travelled to see live music?

Catriona: I don’t tend to travel too far as I don’t really need to as most bands play in London. However, I do go to Suffolk every year for Latitude Festival which never disappoints. 

I go with a large group of old friends (most of whom I met as a graduate planner at Surrey County Council in the early 1990s). I keep thinking about applying for Glastonbury tickets and then I remember how much walking I do at Latitude which is a quarter of its size, so I think I’ll stick with that!

Mark: Week two as Secretary of State and the PM tells you to implement an unconventional housing policy inspired by a successful policy or project from another jurisdiction. What policy would you adopt?

Catriona: I’d pick one from a previous time which would be to re-introduce the Academy of Sustainable Communities from the 2000s which I think made a huge difference to the quality of development we had then.

I think the one that would make the biggest difference though would be to introduce something on the lines of the French planning system which is supported by regional planning agencies. The RTPI has already proposed this and I think that it would help address the planning resource and skills crisis we have in the public sector.

More money for graduates and from planning fees will help but something more fundamental is needed if we are serious about addressing this. Some form of shared agencies would also allow multi-disciplined teams to be formed with the different skills and expertise we need for good place-making, including a new generation of strategic planners which we are going to need.

I was involved last year in research into current strategic planning practice and access to experienced strategic planners was highlighted as a huge challenge and potential risk for the government’s plans to re-introduce mandatory strategic planning.

Mark: If you could sum up the state of housebuilding in the UK by reference to a song, what song would it be?

Catriona: Free Fallin’ by Tom Petty although I’m hoping that in 2025 Back to Life by Soul II Soul will be more appropriate!

Mark: If you could require one landowner in the UK to do more to facilitate housing growth in the UK, which landowner would it be?

Catriona: The Crown Estate, which controls so much of the land around the cities, including green belt.

Mark: What band or artist is your dream headline act, who would be the support act and where would the gig be?

Catriona: If he was still alive, it would be George Michael as headliner, every day. I only saw him once and that was at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert at Wembley in 1992 and it is probably my biggest musical regret, but I expected him to be around a bit longer than he was, sadly.

If it is a living artist/band I would have The Zac Brown Band headlining (my favourite country band – an amazing live band) with Paolo Nutini supporting at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville.

Mark: What housing scheme or project that you have been involved in are you the proudest of?

Catriona: As a spatial planner I haven’t really been involved in specific developments but probably my proudest project was the last Surrey Structure Plan in 2004. We won an award for the engagement strategy underpinning this which was way ahead of its time (and without the aid of digital tech or social media) and the plan was much smaller and more focused than any other plan of its time.

We used a journalist to rewrite all the supporting text and challenge us on a lot of the policy content to ensure that it was a technically robust plan but was also not full of planning jargon that no-one else could understand. Sadly, like the South East Plan, it was short-lived as the Labour government abolished structure plans through the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004.

Many thanks to Catriona for joining us. Our next episode will be landing next month – sign up to be notified when episodes are published here.

If you need further advice about any of your real estate requirements, please contact Mark via email at mark.benham@la-law.com.