Agenda and draft minutes

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The Chair referred to the notice of filming at meetings and this information was noted.

To receive any apologies for absence.

There were no apologies for absence.

The Chair will consider the admission of any late items of urgent business.  (Late items will be considered under the agenda item where they appear. New items will be dealt with under item 10 below).

There were no items of urgent business.

There were no declarations of interest.

To consider any requests received in accordance with Part 4, Section B, paragraph 29 of the Council’s constitution

There were no deputations/ petitions/ presentations/ questions.

To confirm and sign the minutes of the Strategic Planning Committee meeting held on 24^th February as a correct record.

RESOLVED

To confirm and sign the minutes of the Strategic Planning Committee held on 24^th February as a correct record.

Members requested updates on the HMO application progress and the removal of telephone boxes.

A report on the work of the Planning and Building Control services from January to March 2025.

Rob Krzyszowski introduced the report as set out in the agenda pack.

The following was noted in response to questions from the committee:

• Most proposals regarding reform of Planning Committees that the Government suggested were already in place in Haringey; so, in a sense these wouldn’t make too much difference in the borough. The big decisions for major applications would still come to planning committee for a thorough debate.
• In terms of the tiers, the paper that the government were consulting on was for local planning authorities to feedback on. Anyone, including councillors, could go onto the website, read the paper and make comments.
• There was emerging work occurring on local fee setting and the government would be publishing guidance on how the borough should do this to make sure it would only be about cost recovery; it was not about making extra ‘profit’ or surplus for a council.
• A Member noted that the Theatres Trust as a statutory consultee was important in London
• One of the consultations is about setting a small, medium and large designation for planning applications, which was different to how it was at the moment.
• On the fees and whether they could cover things such as planning aid or design competitions. Officers did not think design competitions would be appropriate, but, potentially yes to something like Planning Aid, which assisted with community engagement. It could be argued that community engagement was a fundamental part of the planning application process.
• The previous consultation in December spoke about having unelected professionals on committee having a vote, however, this was no longer being proposed.
• A Member noted they would like to see more accountability for individual councillors across the country who repeatedly voted for politically motivated reasons.
• In regard to strategic master planning and tenure diversity, this was largely about getting smaller and medium house builders into the market and delivering housing because at the moment it was dominated by the larger house builders. Strategic master planning would mean there would be a big site broken up into different developers. The challenge around lots of small and medium developers on a single site would be with the levels of affordability, when there is a smaller builder they may be less likely to deliver the optimum number of affordable homes, whereas, a possible upside of the bigger house builders may be an increased likelihood to get more affordability.
• In terms of time frames of the reforms, some of it was linked to the planning and infrastructure bill passing through parliament. If all goes smoothly, that will go through parliament and get royal assent towards the end of this year/ early next year and then there would need to be secondary legislation as well.
• In terms of getting the level of documentation right for a planning application, officers asked for high standards from developers. Over the years, planning had seeped into other areas. One example of this was building fire safety, which used to be kept separate in building regulations.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

This report provides an overview and brief summary of the Haringey Authority Monitoring Report 2020-2024 which was published in April 2025.

Bryce Tudball introduced the report,

• Each time the council’s housing target gets reset through the London Plan, the shortfall effectively disappeared. When GLA sets new housing targets, officers ensured that there was a sense check; was it realistic and could the GLA help to deliver it.
• When the local plan would be adopted the areas which officers currently sought evidence on archaeology would be expanded. Officers were asked to provide more information on the Oxford Archaeology Report and map of the areas.
• Officers were asked to provide information on whether the chapel at Tottenham Cemetery was on the heritage buildings at risk register.
• The retail vacancy rate reported for Tottenham Hale was 0% but there were some vacant units in Tottenham Hale and there possibly was a need for a concerted effort to ensure that they got filled with tenants. Officers were asked to provide more information regarding this data.

RESOLVED

That this report be noted

This report provides an overview and brief summary of the Haringey Infrastructure Funding Statement 2023/24 which was published in May 2025.

Bryce Tudball introduced the report, the following was noted in response to questions from the committee:

• There were two types of CIL for the purposes of spends, the first was strategic CIL. This was the element of CIL which helped support the delivery and the capital programme; so the spend of that money would be determined by the Council's cabinet. There was, however, the neighbourhood CIL and later this year officers would be consulting on the spend of £1.7 million across 9 areas in the borough. As part of that consultation engagement process, officers would be speaking with ward members on priorities for the spend of this money. There would be a collaborative process to establish where that money gets spent.
• Officers were actively working with the Council's highways department and with the transport and travel service to get that money spent, some of it was general and could be spent on cycling improvements within the east of the borough and some of it had to be spent on specific projects. Some of that money was also money brought in to fund traffic management orders related to car free parking schemes.
• There was no spend deadline for community infrastructure levy and officers had a regular quarterly reporting process and worked hard with colleagues to ensure that gets spent as quickly as possible.
• Some of the money for the Decentralised Energy Network (DEN) came through section 106 but if the DEN was not delivered then it needed to be paid in some way through carbon offsetting or other means. The DEN Programme had been reduced in the capital programme significantly so, the next time the Council redoes its capital programme for the annual budget cycle, that money would need to be reallocated on something else through the capital programme.
• There were two full time officers who dealt with the administration for CIL and section 106. They had a great track record of bringing in money to the Council and bringing in that money on time when it is owed. So, there was very little work officers had to do with developers where the money was overdue. About three years ago the team brought in the 2^nd officer, a key part of her work programme was ensuring that the Council received all of the required CIL. Officers did not always know when a development had commenced, so they completed an exercise to look at schemes that had commenced without notification, and in those cases, instructed CIL payment. Officers had also requested that they pay a series of surcharges and penalties. Due to this the team were doing quite well on the income maximisation front.

RESOLVED

That this report be noted and agreed.

There were no new items of urgent business.

To note the dates of future meetings:

TBC

It was noted that the dates of the next meeting was 10^th September.