 Good morning, everyone. Welcome. Thanks for the turnout. Looking quite a good number here, so I appreciate you getting up early enough and joining us. This is the first agents forum meeting we're having in 2022. So, you know, special, special welcome. We have this agenda, but very useful, very interesting, I'm hoping. So first thing will be quick introductions. For those who don't know me, I'm Timmy Hawkins. I am the lead cabinet member for planning policy and delivery at South Commissioner District Council. And with me is Katie Thumbra. Katie is my cell. Oh, I'm Katie Thumbra. I'm the executive councillor for planning policy and transport at Cambridge City Council. It's lovely to be here. Thank you, Katie. There's obviously quite a number of officers with us. We've got Stephen Kelly. Who is the director. We've got Heather Jones. Morning, everyone. And we've got Jane Green. Good morning all. Jonathan Dixon. Daniel Weaver. Where are you Daniel? I'm right here. Morning. Right in the middle of my screen. Hi. I'm not sure if I'm missing anybody else. Toby. Hi. Nice to see you. Okay. And what I do now is I'm going to speak as little as possible. I'm going to talk information to be given to the sheds this morning. So what I will do now is hand over to Stephen Kelly, who will be able to tell you about what's happening in the shared planning service and update. And I think we've got about 15 minutes for all of that Stephen. I'm not sure we're going to need all of it, but I'll do my best. I've written to a number of you. In the last in the last week or so but but obviously I think a number of you are aware that Sharon Brown, the assistant director for delivery. And Paul Frainer, who was the assistant director for strategy and economy, which included the policy team and the built natural environment team have both different stages over March have left the council. And faced with faced with their departures, we've obviously taken an opportunity, or I've taken an opportunity to start to talk to the staff about what is the right approach going forward for the future, bearing in mind that we started with our current team up in 2018. And it seemed appropriate to just take stock and consider what the best use of our resource would be going forwards. What we have put in place having spoken to a number of the teams and spoken to a number of the kind of team managers across the service over the last few weeks. And I've started to put in place some medium term interim arrangements, reflecting the fact that I think there are some continued areas of focus that we want to make sure that we deliver on at least the local plan, but also working with the delivery team on issues to do with a backlog of applications that we have, but also the focus that's still required on strategic sites, and some of the changes that we want to make as we integrate the delivery process, more more fully with our technology and so on post post COVID, and I'll talk to you a little bit about the transformation program that we have put in place in a little while. And therefore, put forward or what what we are now working to is some slightly different arrangements in terms of staffing in those areas, most particularly, Heather Jones who said hello earlier on today, who has been managing the three C building control service will be stepping in to the post created by Sharon Brown's departure to provide some kind of senior management oversight to the services a whole, but also particularly to support the delivery teams, which is strategic sites, the planning application teams, and the technical support team on the next phase of their journey of change in evolution, which COVID accepting which through several curveballs as I'm sure it did you, we hope to be making meaningful progress on or continued progress on through 2022. Alongside Heather, in my management team is someone called Steven Windsor, who's been with us since 2019. But I expect Steven to take a slightly more significant role for all of those back office system issues that we've we've dispersed but which nevertheless have important implications for you so we're looking to try and consolidate our planning performance agreements and our work around systems to improve the pre application services so all of the kind of invoicing all the kind of organizational activities, but also, and it is an important conversation that we're going to have to have going forward through 2022, starting to bring together thinking about the resources that we have available to us to deploy and indeed the resources that we need, and your programs and projects and priorities through 2022. We can kind of better mirror what you say you're needing and what we have recruited and have available for those for those projects that's historically been done in within the teams, but I'm trying to centralize and create a much tighter system for that. And as a consequence, we're also really keen to hear from you what your clients priorities are what your project priorities are so that we can start to track that on a singular in a single location. And that will include also the work around the local plan, the work that we're doing, supporting the Greater Cambridge partnership program, but also a number of infrastructure projects which are both disruptive in terms of our resources but also require the tools of support particular times through the year. So we're, we're organizing the back office through Stephen, and you might start to see his name a bit more. And with Heather coming in to look over the delivery area that Sharon Brown historically did and to continue with the three C building control service. Integration issues in terms of our it and so on but also continue to support the teams in delivery. Many of you will be aware that having resolved that that position that Nigel Blaise be is currently unwell. Nigel is the effectively the head of development management that's not strictly speaking what what our role profiles described but effectively to you, he will be, you'll know him as the head of development management. Nigel is unfortunately unwell at this moment in time. And as a consequence of that, we are just going through the process of looking to add some capacity caused by Nigel's vacancy with potentially some interim arrangements for cover because Nigel is unfortunately going to be off for a little while. They were in the process of doing that Heather and I are currently in the process of looking at CVs. I'm indebted to Toby for heroically stepping up to help me and Heather with planning committees at this moment in time got free committees in the next few weeks. JDDC and City and South Cams planning committees, but also to support across the team, the work, not only that we're doing to keep the wheels on the wagon and make continue to make decisions, but also the work around the transformation program that I'll talk about a little bit later. So we're also looking to see whether or not we need any additional resource across the service recognizing that we've got continued high volumes of applications coming in. And we have in addition to Sharon and Paul, having left some of your teams might have joined everyone last Friday to say goodbye from shared planning service to Lewis Tomlinson and Aaron Coe who have crossed the Rubicon and are now working. I think for for either themselves in the case of Lewis as a consultant or Strutton Parker I think in the case of our current we wish them well. But we're obviously therefore in a circular process of looking to recruit more people and we've got some forthcoming interviews for team leader roles, certainly. Beverly I think has circulated some newcomers who've joined the service she circulated that yesterday and at a future meeting we'll probably try and see if we can find a way of getting them to introduce themselves to you. We will be updating the organ organogram, the kind of structure chart to help you to navigate your way around the new names and contacts. And, as I said, the slightly disruptive the disruptive nature of Nigel's unexpected absence means that over just the next couple of weeks whilst we put into rim arrangements in place. I just request your at least understanding that we might not be able to be quite as rapid. In our in our responses, some of you might raise a rise smile there, but we are. We are working on providing an improved. A response to that vacancy. I think to me that's probably all I'm all I need to say about that at the moment I will come on to talk about the transformation program in a minute but I just wonder whether there's any questions that arise now actually sorry I should say that. Because I want to look at the, the way that we're organized, and I want to work with the team about what the best, and indeed the most progressive structure is for their development as well as for the services development. The measurements that I've outlined will probably be in place for up to 12 months, until we set out our next way of working on next, our next structure. It's fair to say that we're also looking in terms of way of working in both councils at the use of our existing states. So a number of you are doing exactly the same. And about the role of the different offices in our service offer going forwards, particularly in terms of their capacity to support meetings face to face. Some of you will have already been to our planning committee meetings held in the buildings but that's probably. Thank you for that Steven. I did put in the chat box to say if anybody wanted to ask a question as we're going along. If you just will stop in the chat to say speak please then I can call you because I've got two screens or people. So I can't see everyone. If you put your hand up so just post in the chat book speak please but right now Steven there isn't any question unless anybody has any questions right now. You might have later on. Once to speak. Can I just make it very brief comment. Yes, sure. Judith, yes. Yeah. What might seem very trivial after what Steven's been talking about, but you're basically talking about organization. And there's this dramatic contrast between small trivial applications and strategic site applications. And sometimes clients understand a strategic thing taking a long time, but it's very difficult if because of conservation zones. I had a planning permission for garden sheds. I had a long hassle, a couple of years ago over a bicycle stand because of a conservation zone. Is there some way you could efficiently separate these tiny little ones that you know clients simply do not understand you know why. The clients had a catastrophe on the bicycle shed bicycle stand, which was absolutely trivial and it went on and on and on and it delayed building where they had where it was for a church and they have volunteer workers who they were going to lose because it didn't come through in time. And now I've got a client with a bicycle with a basically in a conservation zone, replacing an existing shed with a tiny, slightly larger one and telling the client well it might take two months it might take three months because they're backed up. So if there's any way of you designating some sort of, let's just get this stuff out of the way, you know, have a, have a planner who, if it's small enough that it's just get it off the desk don't take two months. Push it away, so that people don't feel that, you know, this is just bureaucracy gone gone crazy. You know, why do you have to wait for a couple of months for for bloody gaunch that under committed development would be would be allowed to conservation zone so you need, you need to go through the whole planning application. Judith absolutely we are looking we're looking at that and I'll talk a little bit about the work that we're doing as part of the transformation because we are. We are certainly exploring how we, we might triage applications slightly differently in order that getting rather than sequentially order on a time basis dealing with applications we start to take a much more active role in managing those small cases that that can pass through the process without significant interference and those which are justify more effort but I'll talk a little bit about that in a minute so I understand we understand the issue. Okay. No one else has indicated to speak so perhaps I'll hand it over to you then Steven. Really, I think you have merged items two and three. Yes, I have yeah. Okay. What I'll do then and I'm going to I'm not really a zoom expert, but I'm going to try and share my screen to share with you a PowerPoint presentation just as a summary of the transformation program and and hopefully I'll pick up on some of the themes that Judith raises that are very much looking to capture some of some of the concern that you have raised. So let me just see if I can do this. Can you see that. Yes, we can. See if I can slide show from beginning. Does that work for you. It does we can see the slide and the notes. Okay. This is this is my mastery of the presentation mode. Okay, but that high presenter view. So make a difference. Now if you click the little icon at the bottom right to show go into presentation mode. And there, yeah. This is a resume slide show. Oh, well we see the slides on the side but it's okay I think. Okay, just because my, my personal development discussion is coming up shortly with the two chief executives so please feel free to share your thoughts on that. And I'll go on, I'll go on the course. But some of you might have, can you see the next slide. So we can fantastic. Some of you might have heard that we have engaged a firm called Mondrom, who have done a number of support roles with planning authorities in in in the country. And we've been working with them for around six months or so now, putting together a program of focused and targeted interventions in order to try and resolve some of the challenges that we face with the that shared planning service and particularly with the delivery, the development management side of things. We obviously combined the services and the technology seems a very long time ago now at the start of 2020. That process created a little bit of a backlog for us because we for the first time pulled together essentially the backlogs into systems. And we resulted in something that we headed into the COVID pandemic with around 1500 cases that were substantially past sort of their six, their eight week timetable. Some of them around 1000 planning conditions in fact in that figure. And COVID didn't necessarily help us massively. The backlog got slightly worse about 400 extra cases through that 18 month period. And it inhibited our ability to both develop our systems and our focus on our processes and of course the disruptive nature which I'm sure you will face of people being in the office changes to planning committee arrangements and the ability to pull people together to problem solve around some of our system and process issues was compromised. So having heard all of the feedback that people were sharing with us and working with Mondrom and with the team. We've come up with a series of focused pieces of work that the heart of which, as you can see from the headline on the screen is around trying to reduce work in progress. What work in progress means is the large number of non strategic sites and planning applications that the service has. I think I've said to a couple of you over the last two years or so we tend to deal with about seven to 8000 applications a year and not all of them planning applications but a large number of things like conditions submissions. And that quantum of work has sits quite heavily in the service because the backlog itself creates a an additional burden on officer caseloads that has had a impact on both productivity, picking up on the points made around the few of applications before people get to your specific one, but has also meant that although we have a steady, broadly steady state in terms of resource so the backlog isn't getting any worse. It equally not until relatively recently been getting substantially better. And that's created both the frustrations that are now happened to you, but also quite significant challenges in terms of workloads for individual officers and the amount that they're dealing with reducing as we call it the work in progress the kind of officer caseloads and getting more decisions out to the door that we receive is obviously a clear priority for that. And you can see from the list of work streams that we are engaged with working with Mondrom a number of the things that we're looking to try and simplify to redefine and to make progress on the short interval management is really an internal process as it says around helping the team leaders with the teams picking up on the point around can we pull out some of those simple applications with some of our less experienced staff and help them to kind of clear the decks sooner and with support from managers. We talked about work in progress, we have a couple of additional staff we're working with capital in providing a degree of additional support to the team. We've been working through case officers who whose job it is to try and chunk through some of those long standing backlog cases and to remove them from the from the system to bring down that work in progress list, which is still quite quite in terms of cases that are some some months old. We've been doing some work and this is comes back to the point I said about the shared planning service structure that we're still looking at around agreeing the roles responsibilities agreeing who does what and importantly as part of that also looking to explore ways in which we can remove the burden from some of our team leaders and managers by taking some of those administrative tasks that local authorities enjoyed. I think it was the term self service crept in enjoyed and passing down to managers but which when we have a real challenge we all have a challenge of finding planning officer resource is a distraction from them from the focus of making decisions and we're putting we're putting together an updated service plan that just seeks to kind of harden down on this and the work on the next pages, which, which we want to get done in order to impact the work in progress impact the backlog. So you'll see that having rolled out our previous pre application changes. We recognize that it's pretty clunky. We recognize that it's not necessarily fully targeted to the and adding the value that it should be doing to all of you. And so we're looking at the process to see whether or not we can offer some tweaks to it, both in terms of reducing the delays and the inputs required that it's quite time consuming for us and we know that's frustrating to you in terms of the delay in terms of offering a response, but also to make the process simpler and more accessible for you and your clients particularly in the context of the slightly harder line we're taking around amendments of applications and the need for us collectively to get it right. We are engaged in a significant and ongoing review of the information that we have on our website and how we can make it not mail this access easier and more efficient. But also, importantly, trying to answer some of the questions that you or your clients may have before to avoid you need needing to perhaps speak to officers not because we don't want to speak to you but because if we can answer your queries or your clients queries as soon as they need them, rather than have to wait to phone us up or email us, then that seems to us to be both good for you and hopefully improving our efficiency and there is something around. You might have seen some, I think we've made 28 changes in February, so a change a day to the website. Please about how the shared planning service website evolves, but we are looking to try and answer your questions before, before having to contact us so please feed through to us if there are frustrations or irritations about our website and the information on it that you think would be really helpful for us to change. And that we're trying to, and you will see us start to increasingly push the use of the consultee arrangements that exist in idocs. That's something both for our parish councils that we're looking to try to do, but also something to try and help us to reduce the amount of paper consultation that we end up doing. I may not be aware, but our public access system allows you as an agent to put searches in place on any part of the district, and having saved that search to get automatic email notifications of changes. And I believe if your application itself, if you start to track that, it will also notify you when changes happen to that application through additional material being uploaded and so on to the file. And we're very keen to try and make more use and to help people to utilize that capability, both to track applications and we're going to be looking at how we can increase the utility of the different status provisions in applications, but also to try and as I said allow planning services to focus on those things that in some respects, you're able to do yourself so that we can focus on planning decision making and reducing that backlog. Finally, we are doing some system work with idocs to try and configure it more effectively. So for the coming months be reviewing the enforcement functions, the enforcement policies and our processes, particularly to provide a consistency between both councils. So for example, you can make an enforcement complaint in Southcams online but you can't do it in Cambridge at the moment. So that will all be changing fairly shortly, as will the way that we record track and report on those enforcement functions. So a range of actions in our transformation program, some of them, they're not really very sexy and exciting, but they are meaningful because we think they will allow us to knuckle down and focus on those things that are consistently frustrating to yourselves, but also really importantly, are impacting adversely the workloads and the capacity of our teams, recognising that we're not going to be able to magic up lots more planning officers. I know that we're all looking for that. But we need to look at ways of making the best use of the teams that we've got and helping them and you to say same. So, thank you. I don't know whether there's any questions or any comments that people wish to make. Thanks for that. comprehensive updates given. Yeah, no one's put anything in the chat yet to say they want to speak. I have just seen a hand up. Hi, hi to me it's Garth Hanlon from Savils. Hi, hi. Morning. Steven, just on a couple of things. Obviously. Well, first of all, I know people have best wishes to Nigel more importantly than anything else. But secondly, I mean you're, you're referring obviously to resources and the issues you've got it on your side and one of the issues you made comments you made when you first presenting to us this morning was about what clients reactions are or have been some of us I know I've got major applications either in or pending and I suspect one of the implications in the context of the issues you've got is I think you'll understand that clients will want to perhaps move quicker because of the concerns they've got in terms of feedback time scales. And as a result of that is probably like, for example, pre application submissions through the process why was there may have been say five or six or whatever it is, they may be condensed down to three, and the onus being on ourselves as consultants with clients, putting more information to yourselves and almost not running before we can walk but the temptation is to try and get as much in through the process and reduce the amount of workloads as a result of it so you know I just think it's a comment which I think probably a lot of us would well hopefully agree with and through I think yourselves as officers to understand that's possibly the implications of some of the issues you've got what we're having to do is move quicker perhaps to deal with that. Thank you. One of the things that we are going to be it's a difficult thing to describe, we are looking really carefully at the process because I've been involved in a number of conversations in the last couple of months, in which people have said, and indeed are my observation being drawn in both since and before Sharon has left into some of those pre application discussions where there's a sense to which we haven't landed the plane effectively in terms of a definitive position is how we might be more efficient in that process. So your comment that we might be putting more in sooner. I suppose my senses is that one of my observations and it might just be an observation based upon a very small number of cases is that we perhaps are dancing around a little bit the core elements of a scheme that go to the heart of how we move forwards, so that for example, we can spend a huge amount of time focusing, and I know that in some cases, you know your clients will spend the huge amount of resource on focusing on elements of detail on points of layout and design, for example, before we've resolved fully and absolutely the position on principles. And certainly in a couple of cases that I've spoken to some local agents about recently. There is a kind of a sense that well, we've had four meetings now and we've been discussing we've got this beautifully rendered building and layout. And yet we've still got questions about some of the principles that sit behind the development itself so that when it comes to the application comes to the planning application submission. So the priorities or our stakeholders or policy team or the conservation team and so on, are perhaps not yet fully settled on a position. And so, if I was kind of characterizing it, I think I'm certainly going to be encouraging my team to be more straight talking if a little bit harder at the beginning, so that we're all clear exactly what it is that you and your clients have to think about rather than perhaps at times give the impression that yes this big really big elephant in the room over here. We haven't worked an answer to, but let's talk about the elevations or let's talk about the landscaping and so on. I think we, you know, in my analysis I'm very quick. I used to call it brass tax and they are really keen to get to the real brass tax of the scheme sooner, because what otherwise then happens is, and I've noticed the application comes in and we're perhaps missing that high level strategic kind of quite difficult conversation around the things that really are at the heart of the consent. I think that, you know, we want to work with our, with our teams on to be a little bit more honest with you maybe, rather than I've seen all sorts of very gentle language, but try and be a bit more honest about what we do and a little bit more corrective if we can be in terms of how we think the solution to that might be resolved, because I think otherwise it takes us all a huge amount of time and becomes very frustrating to find these unresolved issues at the application stage. So we're trying to improve the efficiency of the process, not just the process itself if that's if that's helpful. I think you're right. I don't, there's anything you said that causes, you know, any surprises this and I suspect what he probably what I was saying about is that maybe the, the second and third pre-app, rather than the first one might be the ones that is more condensed in terms of detail rather than the first one I accept first of all, you know the first pre-apps, oh, did I say sometimes the most important one, which is principle so I haven't, it's not that one it's almost the, the more advanced ones, perhaps maybe well, may need to be condensed once we've got the big strategic issues out of the way of principle so just more of a comment than anything else but I think it's just an appreciation perhaps of from your side that might be the implications later in the process rather than the start. One point on that Garth is, and that's understood obviously we're going to talk about the design review process that we've revisited for the whole of Greater Cambridge now so integrating that in a little while. But I do think that sometimes, you know, if for that process to be effective, what I would say is that it's not that nobody's got an open mind in pre-app, but my experience sometimes is that the kind of design team become incredibly invested in a solution, perhaps even in the principles conversation, and it then becomes hard for us and for yourselves I'm sure at times and the client to reverse out of the situation or to resolve something. And I'm very keen that perhaps there is less design upfront and more conversation about the principles so that we set the course fair in terms of what needs to happen. And I've certainly seen it get some very expensive and very fully rendered proposals that we have in the past perhaps asked for some greater levels of detail around some of that. Very early in the process which which I'm sure your clients are invested heavily in and which then become quite a challenge in terms of sunk cost in terms of starting again or looking at more broadly. So I think that first meeting becomes incredibly important. And, you know, some comments from some of you I've had in the past is, you know, you almost ask for too much information at the first meeting so that that everybody is too far down the pathway of a scheme or a project and so on before you get to the before we get to then discuss kind of key elements of principle. So we'll be looking at we'll be looking at that and recognizing the cost and efficiency issues that you've highlighted. Okay. Thanks for that Steven there's. Sorry, I need to reiterate please please put speak please in the chat because when all the hands are up I can't I don't know which order it is in. Katie's hand I saw first and then I will call Colin, Colin Brown after Katie please. Thanks. Yes, thank you. I was just one of the things I agree with everything Steven saying and fully backing him and the team, but another area we want to work on is reducing conditions, the number of conditions and working with consultees regarding comments I think the conditions need to be one of reducing the applications and household applications. So, and that we lost you a bit. So it's I was just saying as one of my priorities is reducing conditions, getting the right conditions for the scale of application and I feel in some cases it we I would want to be working with applicants about a slightly higher level of information submitted even if it's, but, but as long as it's not onerous so that things can be agreed in advance I would, I think that would be something that we'd all benefit from. Yeah, that's definitely the point. I'm trying to keep an eye on the time if Colin Brown please. Yeah, to me thanks very much I'll be quick and I mean I agree with everything that's been said in the previous exchange and also Katie's comment just now about conditions and I think it is incumbent on us all to try and ensure that we do provide as much information with applications as we can to try and minimize the amount of conditions that the authority needs to put on the one point I just wanted to make was apropos the matter of establishing the principal and I agree that that is good practice to do that right from the very outset. Without going into specifics over we have had a number of cases where that on the rag system you know we found that the principle of development has remained amber, probably three if not four meetings into the process, when I think we're all pretty sure that the principle of the land use is acceptable but what we found quite often is that the officers are saying, well we can't really give you a definitive view on that until some of the some of the detail that sits behind the proposal is actually known and I'm not sure that's all together helpful. I think as Steven said earlier on if we can just clear that out of the way, right at the very beginning I think we all understand. There's a lot more work still to be done but I think it would be beneficial just to clear that early doors. Thank you. Thanks Colin. Jenny page, please. Thank you. Thanks to me. I'm going to go back to Co Garth and Collins comments and certainly say an honest conversation early on is really handy for us to go back to speak to clients. Certainly, you know it sort of sets the scene about where we've got to work for and I think it helps around. It does come back to also and I think another point that again helps us all round, including your communication. And also giving. So firstly, just giving us a time that you can come back to us and sticking with it, because again, we're off your back then we can tell clients, it's going to be three weeks it's going to be four weeks. And I think that that certainly helps the process as well. I think so shout at me if I'm going on too long. One is I think about going forward with any new applications and pre app. We can give clients the head up heads up that it is going to take longer and certainly give them a matter of months. There's often the pre apps and the applications and the discharge of conditions that we really we have in at the moment where we're needing to update clients on existing projects. So dealing with a backlog is a really useful point for us to again deal with clients where we've got existing projects in. And a couple of other things was be interesting to hear your view on deemed consent for conditions. And if you're seeing that more and whether that actually is a positive or negative for you in dealing with those applications. One other thing always through all of these obviously come back to me offline if if if it helps was about speaking to your consultees direct rather than going via the planning officer. And that might again save time all around particularly if it's very specific. So your question on ecology, we may be able to solve that ourselves between our consultants and them without compromising anything to do with the planning applications. And one one other thing was about a practicality on submitting pre apps. I don't think you've got all your specialized services up there for us to request, for example, such as heritage, which makes it difficult. I've ended up putting it in your and any other comments bit which probably complicates things but just I think easier for you for example in invoicing as well. The last thing final thing sorry is just about your, say parish councils or people who are putting in comments and whether they are fully aware of the difficulties and the challenges you've got at the moment. And I have every sympathy for you being a planning officer in the past, although I don't have an inkling of your challenges now I think I hope I have some idea and hope that things improve for you all. Thank you. Jenny, just to comment on the last one. Many of my myself and my colleagues actually attend parish council meetings, their monthly meetings or two monthly meetings and we do tell them. Some of the challenges we do have so yes we try to educate them so they know what's what's going on. But I think also they are free potentially sometimes to talk to, I guess you know people like yourselves who bring projects to them they're going if they talk to you then they might seem to be agreeing with what you say. So there's, yeah, I guess there's communications to to work out on that one. I'm looking at the time thinking there's no. Oh, Judith, can you be quick and then we can go as we still have time for questions at the end. Very quick, just the idea of principle, separating detail and principle. I think the problem that Steven's obviously completely aware of is that you can establish something in principle, say that there should be development on the site and there should be flats. And then it comes down. In fact to the detail of say with flats, is it livable. Do they satisfy minimum room requirements, you know, size requirements on houses so there's I think it's in principle lovely to say that you'll give, you know, establish the principle first and then go into the detail, but sometimes the principle falls down on detail. And so, in a sense, I think it might be more difficult to do that separation. I understand that Judith, but but you know some of my experience for example though is is that when I talk about the principles, it's things like what's that what what's the building envelope capability if it's 10 stories high and in a two story conservation area you know is that actually something that we're working through before we've designed the windows and the reveals. And, and, and, or what are the trip rates associated with this development and are they capable of being accommodated at that quantum of floor space for example, before we get into the landscaping details and so on that we tend to sometimes run in and then what happens at the planning application stage is those issues come back and bite everyone when everybody's thought they've had four pre apps or they've had five pre apps and the matters are resolved but we absolutely understand that it's not there aren't hard lines here but I'm very keen that we kind of get to the nub of the application, perhaps and, and a really clear if we don't think we've resolved that earlier up into the process picking up on Collins point around things staying that amber we perhaps need to just make sure that we're clear on what amber means or what red means or what green means but no helpful helpful comments, thank you. Okay, can I just, okay, in the past, they've been situation where many years ago, when I was applying for things. It was passed, even though, in a sense, in principle, it wouldn't have been and I was asked to help you rewrite your design guides. You know, years ago on law conversions. So, having a detail, a principle overriding without the details may actually destroy an application that would otherwise pass on the basis of the details. In other words, if it's, if it's a well enough thought through design, it may, you know, you may reconsider and say, ah, yes, in general, we wouldn't go for this but this is so interesting and so well developed I mean that, you know, goes back so it's a bit difficult to separate them entirely, I think. I think that's understood. We obviously need a complex process. I was trying to be kind of covering observations from my own perspective but I appreciate that every case is distinctive. I'm just keen that we get to the nub and your comments, you know, if you want to put comments into us around that, please feel free to do so. Thank you. Thanks very much. I think I've got Jane on next but just very quickly. There was a comment from 10 man architects in the chat, which says is there a way in which we the agent can contribute through peer reviews using local architects as a resource. You might want to think about that Stephen. Okay, Jane, over to you. Thank you. Thank you, folks. And hopefully, can you, I can't see anything on my screen. Can you see the slideshow? Yes, I can. But I can see it in the same view that I probably had it. I probably need to go on the same training course as you Stephen. Right, so I can do this one. Is that work it? Right, okay, let's see. Yeah, that's fine. Oh, before you go ahead. Sorry, Beverly, for some reason the chat is disabled. Oh, okay. It happens I think when you're presenting to me maybe. I was on when you were presenting. Let me look into it. Okay. Okay, I'll keep going. You keep going, Jane. So thank you very much. So I really want to just talk to you a little bit about design review about some of the changes that we've been making. I think you can continue to encourage you to use the service. As Stephen says, we've obviously been going through a number of changes and improving our processes. A lot of it is about aligning the processes that we've got. And again, I suppose following up on that conversation we've just been having about working closely with the planners. So part of the process has also been us working with our planning colleagues so they actually understand the benefits of design review, and they use it appropriately. So they use it quite an early stage, but they actually are using it as part of the process they fully understand. I'm sure most of you here know what design review is, but for those of you that you don't, it's really important part of the pre-app process. And it's seen as very much a critical friend to all parties, both the planning authority, future decision makers, but also yourself as agents, and hopefully your clients as well. Based on some very established principles, ten key principles of design review, and some clear benefits, benefits to the process that we know we need to improve and will continue to want to improve. And also to the outcomes as well on the ground for both our businesses and our communities. The review that we've undertaken over the last 12 months and some of you will have been involved in that and answered questions and some of the questionnaires in the early stages. So thank you very much for that. Really helpful that's informed the changes that we've made. We previously had three panels in the area, we have the quality panel, which still exists and that will always be there at the moment. We're also looking at the strategic sites, but we also have the two panels one for Cambridge City, which was the design and conservation panel, and the other for the South Cams which is design enabling panel both run both had similar prints, similar objectives but running very different ways and what we've looked at that looks at is the best of those but also looking at new practice and come up with a single panel going forward. The new panel which started in January is a single review panel is now pay to use which South Cams was in the city wasn't. So it's covering costs we've got a new pool of panel members, we have 40 panel members to new chairs. And generally aligning with the quality charters we're going to use the four season a very similar format to the quality charter. So for so three different types of review a full review encouraging this very early on with yourselves but also with the planners present as well, a subsequent review. And then if need be a desktop review by the chair that's really if there are things for a few final things that really need to be resolved before the application actually comes in to us. We're currently carrying on reviews obviously with COVID et cetera we're still doing those online and business doing that until the summer. We are lined up to do two reviews to have two panels a month if needed to actually keep the momentum going. We've got Bonnie quok with us today who's one of our panel members managers, and the other one is Joe and Preston who oversaw the review. We have clear guidance on our website about what we would like yourselves as applicants to submit and also for the case officers as well. And the criteria so this thing these are in very broad terms the criteria so what we would encourage you to bring to panel to based on the size and the scale of them but also the sensitivity because we're very aware that they're very different on what can be large. In one part of the district may be quite small in others et cetera, or vice versa. As I said with the panel be focused on the foresee so this is how we'll ask you to present your scheme to make sure that you've given consideration to all these various aspects the three aspects of the scheme, and the panel reports that will come back will be on that basis as well. So you'll get a report from the panel chair within 10 days, it will be based on those four C's that report that letter stays confidential to yourself and ourselves until the actual application comes in. And once it comes in then it will actually go on our website and actually will support your application going through to planning committee or to the decision makers. And this was something that we did in erratically before so we will now be monitoring so after every panel, you will actually be able to send a question and you'll be asked for feedback on your experience with us. We also intend to have an advisory board that sits above it effectively overseeing the work of the panel, and they will meet at least on an annual basis there will be an annual report coming out based on that feedback, looking at lessons learned keeping an eye to best practice and things that are happening around the country. And the annual report will also be on the website. And then a final slide, which is just to let you know what's on our website, and then join your attention in particular to we put a quick guide for applicants on the website as well so draw that into your attention in particular. And that's me in terms of happy to answer any questions and we've got Bonnie here as well. Thanks very much Jane. Does anyone have any questions or shall we move on. Yeah, thanks Jane. One of the things I think will be helpful just a quick commentary on when these design panels take place as in pre application and post application. I still got quite confused despite being here for hundreds of years of when the best time to do them I know you're going to say, you know, at the start. And then once the application submitted, do you do it again. And I know that they become a part of the committee item anyway, the feedback but I'm always sort of, if you can give us a bit of guidance and that will be helpful. We would like you to come at the pre app process we would like you, we don't really want you to go when you've got your applications in that's far too late. So what we would like you to just build into your pre app process and your timeline then and we'd like you to build it in twice. So actually going at a reasonably early stage once we've got that principle established with the planners, but still early enough that actually makes a difference. And then, if I'm honest it depends on the nature of your comments you're getting. If you're getting a panel report that has quite a lot of issues that still need to be going to be addressed it needs to go back a second time. By going back a second time that demonstrates the panel that you've actually dealt with everything. And then it gives confidence the planning committee because otherwise what was happening before is the planning committee were getting the report when it went first time with lots and lots of loose ends, and then they were having to work out whether those loose ends have been dealt with the planner has to explain what all has or hasn't happened. So our intention is to ask you to go twice. Once recently early once you've got your print support established and once when you made those improvements unless it's perfect at the beginning but you know once you've made those improvements. So there is actually almost a final report that goes to actually when you come in, you've actually got that clarity and you know the plan has got that clarity the community's got that clarity. And, and the planning committee then has that clarity, and you've obviously got to hopefully that the support of the panel, and again having across all four characteristics of quality, you know it's clear across across the piece. But we can help you so what should be happening is the planner should be working with you. What I hope would happen is to almost like work at a timeline for your, for your pre app and then fitting it into that. Okay, I suppose that the, I know it's a situation, perhaps, in theoretical, if for whatever reasons, nobody went to the design panel application comes in, do you consult the design panel anyway as a matter of course. No, but what the planning committee might say is that actually they should have gone to. I actually might work because actually the other thing that we've been doing as part of this new process is doing a lot of work and training with the planners they understand what design review and the benefits of it. And we've always also been in that planning committee. So actually what you'll see is that everybody becomes a design champion, and actually it's a similar issues all the way through the similar questions. Thank you very much. This question which I've just seen as well which is what goes to quality panel what goes to the great Cambridge quality panel is basically doing the strategic sites as a county wide panel. It deals with those strategic sites. It's about the geography really. So you bought a beaches in all stores, your urban extensions but everything else will come to the greater Cambridge panel. I think last year between the two panels they considered about 40 to 50 schemes. So quite busy in terms of designing you. And that's why we've set it up in a such a way with a large number of panel members and a, the opportunity to happen twice a month so we can actually keep up the momentum. And you think we've got Bonnie on the chest as well. Do you want to add anything Bonnie. You're still on mute. Okay. No, not really. But I noticed that there are two questions from Colin and from another agent. So Jane, would you like to answer them. I think the first one has been answered. Which is when does it go to the design review panel and when does it go to the county panel. So the first one. Is that okay Colin was that clear what I said on that. Very clear Jane. Thank you. Very clear. Yeah, I can see it. Thank you in the school. What about the second one how is the design review panel process intended to mesh with any other public consultation, which may be required, or does it replace it. I know it doesn't. It certainly doesn't replace it. It's actually another tool that sits hand in hand in hand with with the process. So again, we'll work with you in that early meeting we have the first pre-app meeting that we have with you. We would be sitting down and talking through what you know, identifying what the issues are, but need to be dealt with. And obviously as part of that we would actually map out with you when design review happens. And if you decide other process it doesn't replace the conversations you'll have with the community as well. And because that's really important, but the panel is independent of the council advisory, but it is independent. So you still need to be talking to the communities or whatever the issues are that come up at your pre-app stage. To add to that, looking at it from the viewpoint of a parish councillor and district councillor who represents many parishes and a member of the planning committee. All right, so I'm wearing those three hats. It is important that your proposal actually discuss it with the parish council in the village or wherever it is that your proposal will be affecting. Because what's been happening is they don't know about this until it becomes an application which they then get consultation on. Whereas if you spoke to them early whilst you are putting things together, and especially those who have designed guides, right, you need to be able to speak to them understand what it is that you know the issues are for them. And take account of that because when you come to planning committee, I can assure you you will be asked that question. If I'm there, I will ask you. And many of the planning councillors are doing that now. We realize it's important to have good design. And it's important also that you go once the first time and when you've heard from the design panel, you actually take into account what has been said. And then make sure that is because I have in the last two planning meetings have been to actually ask if they've been to the design panel and if they went once but in the second time. It's important that the whole process actually seem to be done properly, so that people are those who have to take the new development are perhaps not as anti as they will be otherwise. That's the, that's the thing. And I'm talking from the viewpoint of somebody who represents the community here. Are we going to share the presentations. Yeah. Okay. All right, they'll be here. Thank you. Any further questions. I think we are. Yeah, just about on time with this one. Right, we're now on item six. So, we'll hand over to Steven to talk about planning outputs. Thank you to me and I'll be very brief. Actually, I don't need 10 minutes on this and I'm sure you're interested in what's happening with the local plan from John. I wanted to just highlight that over the next. I had an interesting conversation with Colin Brown on the call last autumn, I think it was crikey, or maybe early this year, just about trying to share some of the information about where the services at and the numbers, what our performances, and so on. Next, a few weeks. We've certainly been doing a lot of work looking at data. Everyone's looking at data these days but we're doing a lot of work looking at data. And not only our own performance, but but actually your performance as well in terms of things like the applications that were valid when they were submitted. The performance of planning decisions, you know, our committee's performance, which out how many applications are overturned what the percentages are with the intention of trying to share with you some of the kind of key headline figures and so on. So partly to help you to help understand where we are. If that sounds right in terms of the number of applications we currently have on hand and things like that but also our performance each month on validation and the kind of turnaround times. So the intention of trying to help you to understand and help your clients to understand the position by planning service, not just through the headlines of a kind of quarterly report on planning performance of decisions in time, but actually a little bit more live data around where we are in terms of, you know, validation times, where we are in terms of decision throughput times and so on. So if it's something that's particularly of interest to you. Then if you could perhaps let me or a reference Steven wins earlier but he's not on the call, let me or Steven know. Then we're very keen to try and start to think about putting some information together for you in a relatively simple format that just gives you a bit of an insight as to where we are. To me and as and as I said, we may welcome and start talking to you about your performance on invalid applications because the figures go from 45% for some named consultancies to 95% for others. So we have your performance and we're not going to share it at this moment in time but we do have your performance and we're really keen to use that to try and understand what we can both do so that everybody gets 100% validation. So everybody actually doesn't get frustrated about that that kind of process, which is not that not good for us it's not that good for you and it's certainly not good for your for your clients. But we, but please let us know if there's something that you would be interested in terms of throughput numbers either in the chat or by writing to me. So I'll move on to me to john who's got far more interesting conversation about the local plan. Thank you. And even I'm going to start by building on the point you just raised. So I think in a question received by email was, when are we going to publish the reps, we are actually still posting the reps. You'll appreciate we have to do that alongside all the other work, the team is doing, which I'll come on to a bit to cover, but just picking up on what Stephen said. So for us when we're posting reps it's the sort of minority of the reps that take all the time. So whilst I know an awful lot of people on this call use our online systems and put their reps in with some reason all those things we would expect. But we still do receive reps which come in, you know the worst cases are sort of scanned PDF so you can't even select the text. There are maps where we have to, you know, digitize the map somehow from fairly poor copies and so on so I'm not so naming anything this call at all. But what we do need help with is if my colleagues contact you asking for different formats or word versions and so on. I'll be really grateful if you could could help them out if they come to you individually just help us be that along and we will get the reps published. We'll probably be in the summer I suspect. And alongside that we're already underway doing a lot of the work we said we were going to do so for those hardcore local planners will have read all the topic papers we published back in November we set out quite a number of areas where we carry on developing the evidence, turning our policy ideas into actual policies and so on so we are working through commissioning evidence doing a project planning on the moment on those issues. And the other thing we'll be doing is we've had a lot of comments on the sites we've proposed but as your menu on the call will know on sites that we didn't put in the first proposals. Raising raising comments on the level of need and the individual issues around sites will be going through all those issues and comments you've given us as you'd expect. We've also received some new sites and a fair number of amendments to sites put in using our call for science process so working through those as well so you guys have given us a lot of work to do but we are plowing on with it. Alongside that other work the teams and working on with adopted the biodiversity SPD which are going to hear about in a bit. The neighborhood plans the water beach neighbor plans now been adopted. And we've got several more I think full going west we can gamble gay all going through their examination stages so we're getting to state will be adopting you know almost doubling a number of major plans fairly quickly in the next. Basically a few months hopefully. And you'll have seen we published the annual monitoring report and alongside that we published a new document, providing a bit more detail and accessibility to our sexual and six statements so we have to publish. Some very numbers formal base data to meet our government requirements but we put that together with a covering document now set out. You know some of things development actually helps deliver on the ground the improvements it can help secure to give a broader picture of what what your developments actually do for communities. And we also just about we have published is currently going through its calling process has cams. The updated housing trajectory five year land supply position that shows that we've continued to maintain our five year supply this year being 6.5 years. Thanks to everybody and I know awful lot of people on this call help provide the information do that we put an awful lot of effort and detail into the five year statement but we couldn't do without you so. Thanks for your help with helping Jenny and Mark probably be on the phone to many of you and the last few weeks chasing, but it's been really good. I think that's my general update covered says an awful lot going on behind the scenes reading local plan dealing with the information you've given us. Can you just say when, when we're likely to be publishing the data from the consultation feedback. I think, I think our ambition is early summer isn't it. Yeah, that's right. So we just see. We're just lining up the suitable meeting dates we're probably taking an update report to Katie into these relevant meetings. There's a lot of information and we'll also accompany that with the summary report you'll recall. We included sort of overview of this the information received and summaries will be putting that out there as well so yes it's, I don't have the dates, specifically, and yet, but it will be hopefully early summer. That's cool thanks as a lot of work still for you to do before then so wish you a good luck with that. Thank you. I've just had a question saying what's the timing for the next public consultation of the local plan. So, we are still looking at the specific dates that and we'll provide an update in the summer. Yes, we're still moving forward with all the work towards that there is a lot to do. Okay, it's probably it's probably just worth adding. And the reason we're a little bit vague is obviously, and picking up on Paul's points around the program for the local plan review. Clearly, there are some some components outside of our control at this moment in time that determine the when we can reach Reg 19 status in terms of the level of certainty on a draft plan. And including some of the infrastructure projects but also clarification on water, particularly given the circumstances that great Cambridge finds itself in. And we're just trying to work with those kind of key agencies to understand when they will be in a position that we can rely upon their programs or their publications and so on in order to be able to help us on that. And we're also conscious that the Northeast Cambridge site allocation is contingent upon the development consent order process for the water treatment works. And obviously that program and the certainty that's necessary for an allocation and the provisions that we've made for Northeast Cambridge is linked to our local plan timeline, because clearly we can't put something forward for the next stage of the plan that would not be consistent with the principles of delivery and soundness and so on that underpin that. So, so we're still we're still working on that with with key stakeholders trying to think about where East West rail for example and that program sits now where the water treatment works program sits and as I said, how we can resolve the position in terms of the water, particularly with the right level of certainty, enabling us to get to go forwards. But as soon as we, as soon as we've got a picture on that we will, we're likely to share more information about the program in the summer after the Council has come back, following the local government election period. So, as John said, watch, watch this space. Well, thanks Stephen I think that also potentially answers the question from Paul about confirming the program for the local plan review. It's a good thing to be able to adopt another neighborhood plan at our full council meeting last week, and many, many of our South Cams communities are actually doing, doing neighborhood plans now so do take note. Okay. We've got Charlene Harper who will now talk to us about the TSO. Hi, Charlene. Good to see you. Sorry about someone that's a bit late in. Thank you very much. Right, I'm just going to share my screen so I've got a few facts and figures about what my team had achieved last year really so maybe I'll just do that. There we go. Hopefully everyone can see that. Okay. Okay, so I just thought it'd be really useful to go back. Let's share some figures about what we actually achieved last year. So, obviously we received a lot of applications last year so in total including trees as 8,289 applications. The graph here is showing what in blue what was last year broken down into their very basic application types, and then the orange is currently what we've received so far this year. As you can see, we have received quite a few applications already this year. So, numbers are still considerably high coming in on a regular basis for us. We did receive 86% of our applications were received by the planning portal last year which is brilliant does make my team's life a little bit easier in processing and all the information comes through we're able to put that straight in. 12% we got via email and there was just 1% via post so really a big thank you for everyone that's using the portal does make life a lot easier for the starting process of validating an application. Moving on, looking at how many applications we actually validated that were invalid and withdrawal closed. So again, massive amount of applications that were validated and actually went through to validation stage and on to our case officers. I haven't included trees in this side, because it's just easier to separate them out into valid situations. There's a number of invalid letters that we actually sent out and the number of closed applications. Obviously with invalid letters, there is a majority of applications that have invalid letters sent out the turn into valid applications. It just highlights that the importance and goes back to what Steve was saying earlier about trying to get the application right first time because the amount of work that goes in with the invalid side to try and get it through to get it right for you, or for the applicant and getting it through makes a big difference for us and again just showing where we are this year and what we've achieved so far considering we're only three months into the year seems to have run away really quickly. Some of the invalid reasons that I thought share is sometimes it's description incorrect plans and it runs through right to incorrect fees. Now, I've not separated out who has an agent who doesn't have an agent so it is just a whole mix of the invalid reasons that we have to deal with. Moving on, comments and our mailboxes, we obviously receive a lot of comments in two different forms, consultee comments and third party comments. So each comment has to be dealt with so consultee comments by the way the system is set up we need to go in and physically name every consultee comment. So we're dealing with that aspect of having to go in and physically touch every single consultee comment to name them to make sure that it is visible on public access on who made that comment. So consultee comments take us a bit longer as these are public comments. So every single one of them comments requires us to read through redact any personal information and process it to make sure that it is suitable for a website without any data protection they obviously take a lot longer. But as you can see, last year, there was nine, just over 19,000 comments that one of my team members, varying team members would have gone in and touch last year so it's a huge amount of time involved in processing them. Our mailboxes, I deal with several different mailboxes so we have comments once if the comment is submitted, not by public access it comes through via email, our land charges mailbox, our appeals mailbox and our main mailbox which is our planning inbox. As you can see that's over 16,000 emails to deal with. That mailbox does actually receive a considerably large amount more because we receive all our portal information comes through there. So I have minus all of that off. So this 16,000 again is something that 18 member would have looked at over the year. So I think it averages out about 65 emails per working day that we receive so it's quite a lot of emails to try and keep on top of deal with and process. Appeals. Last year we had not quite 120 appeals received and we just fired 100 mark in determining again this year we're on a steady trend for matching the number of bills that we've received and determined. Other tasks that actually the technical support team carry out is the production of site notices. Now, since COVID this process is slightly different we do produce it on waterproof paper which is recyclable which is much better than the laminated takes us less time to print them and is actually much better quality. So we still have to produce them we post them out to our case officers so that they are able to put them up on site. Last year we did 2847 site notices and currently we have done 681 this year. It was another service that unfortunately had to stop due to COVID. We have brought this back in and we have been dealing with our previous requests that were received in COVID. The request do take us a while because it is going through our paper or our microfiche documents and then obviously the whole file requires redacting and we have since late September been able to process over 64 file historic file requests. Also last year we prepped for 39 different committees. That was a mixture of city south cans and the JDCC. We also had some specialised ones as well like the north side one that required us to support. Redaction seems a very simplistic task. It's a really important service that we offer. It's quite staggering to realise that actually 395 hours of my office's time last year was spent doing redaction. That boils down to about just over 10 weeks of a full time person actually doing reduction work. So it's a lot of time that goes unnoticed but is massive massively important. We're also part of the decision process or decision notice process I should say. So once a decision has been made, we make sure that notice is sent out and all the documents are loaded correctly up into public access. And again, last year my team spent 826 hours dealing with decision notices. So huge amount of time making sure they're correct and go out correctly to everyone. We also had 1784 applications that had gone to press notice. So again that's prepping it ready for our local newspaper and getting that out. It's done on a weekly basis, but it's just interesting to see a number of applications that went to press notice. So trees. Last year just as a number 1792 applications were received by the councils. It's currently a process that I'm working with Jane ease we're taking on the South Cams tree process so last year. We weren't validating South Cams tree applications they were just doing city, but since the beginning of January we have taken on South Cams tree validation. We're moving on to taking on the TSO so tree present tree tree preservation orders and a couple of other bits that go along with that. I'll give you some idea. City last year we do all registered 52 of the tree preservation orders, and we had requests for information of 137. Now with the request for information that doesn't just mean one tree that could mean multiple trees but they are just grouped together as a single request. So a lot of work required again there. Obviously as agents, this doesn't have quite so much of an impact on yourselves, but obviously it's part of my team and we deal with a lot of land charges so just to help understand what we do within my team. So the number of land charges payments that we took last year, we took 4,735 payments over the phone. So, yeah, every day we spend a couple of hours contacting our local search companies and taking payments. Obviously, huge amount of searches what we received and again a huge number returned and along with personal searches. Obviously last year was a huge year everyone will have been aware of the stamp duty holiday and the on massive people moving. So in mind that obviously had a massive massive impact on land charges, though numbers have dropped since the stamp duty holiday in this region, they still quite high they still love movement within housing. We spent 7,725 searches in 2020 gone which was actually a 31% increase on 2020. As you can see we're still doing quite a lot of searches we're still producing quite a lot of work on that for this year. It will be interesting to see how the ship pans out and how the economy continues to recover in that sector. Compliments, just a chair, a few bits of feedback. So, in 2021, I only received five complaints about the service that I delivered, but compliments. I did thankfully receive quite a few more but I just thought I'd give a small flavor. So, yeah, some of them are internal some of them are external but just thanking my team for the work that they have achieved over that period of time. And finally, it was a very good year for us. We were able to be either nominated or actually won some awards. Some of these are internal awards. So the Gem awards is something that South County Council does that we are able to have people nominated for. There's a range there. We also were able to win the leadership award of the unsung hero team. So that was a massive, massive thing for us just on the amount of work that we've done. I was nominated for the Cambridgeshire County Council's apprenticeship award, which is the first one that ever run. And very, very recently, we were finding this for the land data local land charges awards. So, just a flavor of some of the stuff we do I haven't obviously covered everything that my team does. So it is just to hopefully emphasize the amount of work that is going on within the technical support team. And I will stop sharing. Thanks very much, Charlie. It was good to see the team win that award. The team of the year so very well done. It's obviously a lot of work that you have to go through. I think it's important, I think comes to mind actually. Any questions from anyone. Rob says well done for the award. Thank you. It's appreciated. A question from me though. Are the applications number of applications coming in increasing since January? Yes, I would say that the numbers have increased this steadily. Before Christmas, I was averaging probably about 130, 140. Since Christmas, I'm easily 160 plus per week. The highest so far this year and highest since I started the job was 245 applications submitted in one week. The following week was 194 so we are having quite considerable peaks. Last week was what I could class as slightly quiet at only 158. They have been incredibly high and constant so I've not had a lull shall we say to be able to catch up anything. So yeah, appreciation by all agents for understanding just the huge volumes we've got coming in and constant huge volumes coming in is very much appreciated. Well, yes, it just shows just how dynamic this area is and growing still, despite everything else. Thank you. There might be questions later on. In the meantime, can I hand over to Daniel, talk about the SPD. Hi Daniel, I can't hear you. I can't hear you now. There we go. Oh, come on. Can you see me? Can anyone see me? We can see you, we can hear you. This is like home IT system of like having an old television over here with like different things than my laptop over here. I'm sorry, I'm getting a bit confused. I've used Zoom in a long long time so you have to forgive me. I'm also going to try and share my screen as well, which may also get interesting. So just give me a second. Okay, over to you. Can you see which one? I think it should be that one. Can you see my presentation? One thing is that, oh yes, we can see your whole screen now. Oh, that's even better. Let's stop doing that. I think you want to do this slide presentation. Yeah, hang on. Good grief. I'm really sorry, hang on. What is going on? I don't even know how to get. I'm really sorry. I don't know how to use Zoom. That is obviously what's happening. If you click on the bottom of the, no, not that, not that. Bottom of the slide on the right hand side where it shows the screen, I think is that one. Yeah. Okay, can you see that now? Yes. Brilliant. Sorry about this everybody. Is that the end? Yeah, so let's go all the way up to the beginning. Oh, obviously a brilliant start by me. So thank you very much for bearing with me. Obviously a complete professional when it comes to these sorts of things. So yeah, today I'm just going to talk to you guys a little bit about the biodiversity SPD, which we've recently brought out and being adopted by both councils. I'm not going to go through the entire document. It's about 70 pages long and there are lots of very good, interesting things. I would, I would encourage all of you to take a look at it and to provide and to encourage your clients, especially and that because oncologists to take a look at it as well. There's some really good stuff in there that, you know, we're really quite proud of. So today I'm just going to concentrate a little bit more on why we've done it. I'm going to take sort of three of the sort of headline issues, mainly by those make game that bird box provision and great question newt district of licensing just as just to take out that probably the three things you're most likely to come across in your applications and just sort of tease out a little bit more about them. Yeah, so first and foremost, why we changed what we come up with a new SPD or quite frankly the old SPD wasn't really fit for purpose any longer due to when it was published. So the old SPD was published in 2009, which was well before lots of very integral bits of legislation and policy has been sort of formulated. And I think first and foremost it came out before the original conservation species and have set regulations in 2010 which didn't help anybody that has since been updated many, many times and is now being written into UK statute and is outside of the European statute now as well. I think one of the key changes was in 2012 when the national planning policy framework came out so in the 2012 what that did is it introduced the concept of no net loss to biodiversity. It meant that biodiversity suddenly became a planning issue which I think was probably quite a key change. I think the phrasing of no net loss personally was quite nebulous it wasn't very quantitative so it was really down to almost individual planning authorities to decide what that meant, and how that was going to be pushed forward. So, in sort of almost combination I'm not sure whether it was designed that way but in combination 2012 the DEFRA and natural England also started their biodiversity net gain pilot studies in seven different authorities around the country and that's what it is. Since that sort of rolled on and rolled on and rolled on in 2018 we came to the new pub and PPF, and that brought into the world the concept of measurable biodiversity net gain now. Again that's gone through a couple of iterations but you'll still find the term measurable biodiversity net gain in paragraph 174179 of so measurable biodiversity net gain is now a thing and we do need to take it into account when looking at it. Finally, I'm sure you're all well aware of this one is the Environment Act which got Royal Ascent back in November last year. Now what the Environment Act is doing is it is bringing in mandatory biodiversity net gain. And by that I mean that all applications subject to town and country planning and also NSIP so all of our national infrastructure projects will be required to provide a minimum biodiversity net gain in all projects so that is now being brought forward into law through mostly secondary legislation so DEFRA at the moment are going through a public consultation I believe the. Close in terms of submitting your comments but they are now shifting through those comments and hopefully will be reporting at some point in the near future. And that will probably frame how that secondary legislation comes through. Now the intention is that the act itself will become enforceable in November of 2023 for all applications subject to town and country planning. NSIPs at the moment are looking more towards 24-25 but I have a feeling that that might come more into line with town and country planning post the consultation that's going on at the moment. So what the act does is it brings in that minimum requirement of 10% biodiversity net gain and it's very emphasises that that is the minimum requirement. Other aspects of that particular act which I think are also really important at this point to recognise is that applications that clear land prior to getting their baseline biodiversity. Assessments completed will still be subject to biodiversity net gain based on habitats previously on site so any land that is cleared post January 30th 2020, which was the date that the act was put before Parliament could be subject to biodiversity even if the land has already been cleared and it will be down to the local authority really to determine what that will consist of and we'll have to do that from aerial photography and we'll probably have to be quite cautious and call things in good condition or excellent condition just to make sure we're covering it. What I think the act does is it shows that there's no there's no gain in clearing land prior to getting your biodiversity baseline assessments done so that those I think those are the important things to take away from the act as it is secondary legislation will come over the next two years and the mandatory requirement was set in in sort of November 2023 so that's where the act is at the moment. A couple of other brief things about biodiversity net gain again what it does is it, it standardises how it's measured so all applications now must use the dephro metric so at the moment we're at 3.0 which is obviously the third iteration of the metric. They are already working on the next version of that metric, I think the plan is according to myself and colleagues talk to Nick White from natural England a few weeks ago who's their lead on biodiversity net gain and his steer was that the next iteration will come out at the same time as mandatory biodiversity net gains comes in so this is going to be a moving project so this is going to keep on being updated as we go along along with the small sites calculators so remember there are two metrics that can be used one for small sites and one for the larger sites. One of the important things we have to stress when you're looking at the metric itself is the metric is split into three different streams one is area by diversity so this is your grasslands your woodlands things that have a boundary around the outside. Then there is linear biodiversity so this is headlines, tree lines, things that have a length to them and thirdly which is new to the new metric is river habitat so river habitat has been separated outside of the area habitat now all three of those must provide 10% biodiversity net gain for the metric to be satisfied. So we can't have situations where they, you provide amazingly 35% biodiversity net gain in area by diversity which would be brilliant if you could, and you provide 13% net gain in linear, but you're only providing 4% gain in river that won't satisfy the metric and we have to make sure the metric is satisfied so everything has to hit 10% plus broader for that metric to be satisfied and that's when we'll agree to that metric if you see what I mean now if you have no river habitat. 10% gain of nothing is nothing so that's fine so it doesn't matter if that you don't have that habitat in your in your area if you see what I mean so it does work out. So really, where does the SPD come in in terms of biodiversity again I think what we're, we try to do in terms of the structure is to provide almost like a process, a way to sort of think about biodiversity within the process of designing your your your applications. I think one of the things that we really want to sort of stress is that, to be honest, biodiversity net gain should now come in on day one of design or thoughts of of development. Personally, this is my own opinion, I think it should form part of your land that disagreements I think you should be doing those, those base assessments before you even buy the land to understand what your obligation will be in terms of biodiversity units that will be provided. So it's your choice at this point in time whether or not those units are provided inside the red line we would obviously prefer them to that at some points they will be provided outside of that red line which will mean you have to purchase credits, and they will be a cost to that so again it goes into your viability. It can also influence on your layout and your density so all of these things are now going to be subject to what your biodiversity baseline is going to tell you so it really should come in right at the very beginning of this process. One of the things it does tell us is that the intention is in the local plan is to actually move further away from 10% net gain and move towards 20% net gain. So this is much more of a of a of a Cambridge sheer wide sort of scheme which are being put forward by lots and lots of different NGOs and also combined authority and natural Cambridge share and all the other sort of larger larger bodies around this of really sort of pinning down and trying to sort of get back what we've lost we've lost a lot of natural habitat from Cambridge here due to both development and also intensive based medical for over the last you know 50 hundred years or so so I think we there is the feeling that Cambridge here is lost a lot more than other places and that we need to sort of try and gain that back it also fits into other strategies that are coming forward at the moment especially from South Counts with a doubling nature strategy. So again there's there's a lot of emphasis on trying to push beyond 10% and towards 20% and I think the local the intention is for the local plan to back that up when that is when that is adopted. So, I mean, sorry, one of the things I should say at this point is that we are at the moment putting together an interim guidance, like hopefully a small technical document that will publish at some point in the next couple of months on what we will expect in terms of by the best net gain from development in the period towards 2023 so we want to get as everybody in that process as early and as quickly as possible we want to be able to provide that by the best net gain from now on we really really do and we're going to try and provide that technical guidance in the next couple of months. We have a document together it's it's going through the process of review for a different levels of management at the moment so hopefully that will be with us at some point in the very near future. We go through that quickly so that we can, because we're running out of time now. Okay, always. I'll be very quick then that bird box provision has increased since the last SPD we're now looking at every dwelling to have a multi use bird box, and at least 25% of your dwellings to have boxes. We now have a business well for commercial and industrial developments as well which was missing from the, in the previous SPD. We have also formula is the requirement for hedgehog penetrability or hedgehog movement between all boundary boundaries within the site. And lastly, great question new district level I think hopefully some of you or most of you will have come across this already. This is where you do not have to do any surveys you do not have to provide any mitigation within your project, but you do have to buy into the natural England scheme which is running in Cambridge if you choose to do that, we must emphasize that you still need to provide us with your impact assessments and payment certificates in as evidence that you are part of that scheme prior to the dissemination of your application so you must meet you must already apply to the scheme during your before you've applied to the to the your application if you see what I mean. I think that's probably everything so thank you very much. Thanks. Thanks Daniel there's a question here that says is there an intention to follow London's example or measuring the urban greening factor. I'm not 100% sure what that is I have to admit sorry I'm still trying now trying to stop sharing my screen. Again, I can't even find where my zoom screen has gone to. Oh, you're there to hang out. Right. You're there. Where is the. It's in the chat. There's a link in the chat. Do you want to ask the question can you explain that very quickly. Hi. It's less about maybe biodiversity. As much as it's about providing green roof and open area which does let water and supports biodiversity so in a way in the dense urban environment where you don't have it's you know maybe it's more related to city centers. You know, it's not just about the south camp, but in areas where there is less of a natural resource and less of open ground. You start measuring any surface as a potential green surface which you can can support both water permeability and biodiversity. You start measuring that the open surfaces and then you start applying some sort of a factor. And that's something that London's been doing I think for the last couple of years. I don't know if you know whether rapid urbanization of of of Cambridge whether it you know there is a way of starting thinking about maybe, you know where I don't know I think there's a lot of rooms where everything is, you know, very dense very little open space. We start applying some sort of thought about how we can make that area greener and supported to the natural environment as well, rather than only, you know, the green belt, etc. Yeah, I'm happy to say, I'm happy to also help on this if it helps them. Well she's going to say yeah it's something we've been looking at through the green infrastructure evidence base that's come through for the local plan so we haven't got a plan or a policy on it but it's certainly conversations that we've started to have within the team with our policy colleagues and it will be part of the next local plan I think but whether we'll actually go that far. I think we're just looking at the evidence base and how it would apply to greater Cambridge at the moment. Thank you for that. We're kind of shot on time at the minute but I think the next item was going to be for you to tell us something about some of the projects that you are up to so that we can understand what you're doing where you're at, you know, if anybody wants to share that with us when listening. Stephen, do you want to say anything on. Well it was really it was really just a, I think we do want to kind of potentially we've spent an hour and a half talking to you recognize that and there's a lot of information download, but I suppose I'm interested to get a bit of a feel for the kind of issues that and it arguably can fold into the Q&A but issues that you're currently experienced things you're noticing we're very aware of the acute interest in commercial space, which is driving a huge number of approaches to us for example around lab and commercial space at this moment in time. But just any any any comments about what you see happening in the Cambridge or greater Cambridge kind of planning realm that could be projects you're working on or demands you're facing just to help us to get a bit of insight in terms of the pressures that you're experiencing. Thanks to me. Anyone. All very quiet. That's, that's fine. We'll continue to guess what you're doing then that's really fun. That's helpful to me. So let's move to Q&A. I just want to say something on the, but I was doing that game. I mean this is something else that the planning committee is very keen on these days. And, of course, you know, we've got a global nature strategy as well. And we'll definitely be looking for new developments to, you know, at least meet the minimum is the minimum but as Daniel said we're aiming for 20% in the emerging greater Cambridge local plan. So, let's let you know. Daniel, do you want to actually answer Phil Grant's question or do I put a little bit of a note in there? Are you considering biodiversity net gain offsetting at all to assist schemes that can't achieve it on site? Well, yeah, I mean biodiversity offsetting is part of biodiversity net gain. I think there are, there's a very real issue around much smaller sites that won't have that ability to have a biodiversity net gain within their red line boundary. So I think, you know, there is a, there is a very real issue when it comes to providing that off site. What we're trying to pin down at the moment is how that's provided off site and where that's provided off site. I think the national intention is that there will be huge markets of biodiversity net gain providers suddenly established in the next few weeks. It will have millions and millions and millions of credit for everyone to buy. That may well happen. There is also going to be a national scheme of biodiversity credit by as well. So, you know that provision off site is going to be part of it. At the moment we are trying to drill down on what that means to us in greater temperature. Thank you. Are there any questions that anyone else has before we bring this to a close? For Daniel, you just mentioned small sites. For example, for renovations of existing buildings or, you know, small things like that. Are you actually wanting biodiversity assessments? It's not a major change. If you haven't taken down a hedge or a grant, if you're just renovating a building, you're only working on a building and there's no biodiversity involved, so you've not lost any biodiversity. So you only provide 10% extra of the biodiversity you've lost. So if you're working on a building that doesn't have any biodiversity, then you don't provide any biodiversity net gain. Is there something that you extended out building by 5% or something like that, that you are losing a square meter of garden area? Is that something that really requires? That is probably something that you should look towards in terms of the small site calculator. So there is a separate algorithm that could work that out. You'll probably say that you're about £3.50 in units. I don't know. There is a mechanism to look at that, to see what that could be. In reality, if you're taking out a means of grass and it's not exactly a highly diverse, highly important piece of habitat, so it is unlikely to require too much work on it, if you see what I mean. So there are scales of provision involved, depending on what it is that you are doing. If you're building a new house on scrubland, then you're going to have to provide biodiversity net gain. If you're simply renovating a building without extending the bounds of that building or only working on a driveway or patio or something like that, then it's unlikely you're going to have to provide any biodiversity net gain. But you still have to say something about it. All planning applications will be subject to it by law, so you will have to, you still will have to look into it and attribute what you believe is the answer to it, if you see what I mean. So when does that come into effect? So it will be enforceable by November 2023. It will be brought forward by the Environment Act, which came through last year, and then the ins and outs, the specifics of 10% of biodiversity net gain will come through secondary legislation over the next 18 months. So are you actually saying that clients who want to put a path, a paved path in their garden, would actually need planning permission? If it doesn't require planning permission, then it doesn't require biodiversity net gain. So if it's only, if only, if only things require planning permission that they will require biodiversity net gain. So if they are subject to a planning act, then they will require to look to attribute whatever or to take it into account in their planning application. It doesn't require planning application, then it doesn't matter. I'm sorry, I'm going to have to, you might have to take this offline if you don't mind, because it's now 10 o'clock, actually. But, you know, we can carry on if you want to stay, I'm just noticing that we're losing, we're already beginning to lose people. There's one more question from Garth. Excuse me, I put it in the chat so it was probably passed over, so don't worry, it was just a very quick one. And a question that I get asked all the time from clients, a pre-application inquiry is made and say we sign the, or we don't sign the commercial sensitivity box. What actually, where does it go in terms of consultation, that the question being a client said, if we put a pre-app, does it become public? And my default is, well, always assume it may well be, but I don't think there's any default position where you consult local members, Paris Councils, whoever it is. No, that's fine. No, that's fine. I can see Jin and Stephen nodding, so that was my understanding. That's fine. Thanks very much. Okay. Thank you very much, everyone. It's been hopefully a very useful time for you all. Obviously, if there's any more, you know, that you would like to share, please let us know. I don't know when the next meeting is going to be. I'm hoping to see you after May, if that's depending on, you know, various issues, but yeah, it's been my pleasure, you know, to be in this role and hopefully see you afterwards. Stephen, do you have anything you want to add? I don't think so. But thank you very much everyone for your time today. I'm sorry it feels, it might feel like we've talked at you a lot. We're very keen to hear your feedback on what we can talk to you about. And indeed, thanks to Jenny and Colin for their comments about what's going on. I suppose actually might be quite interesting in a future meeting to get a bit of a presentation from someone who might volunteer to give us that kind of an overview, but I think the issues that we collectively face around what is hot in greater Cambridge come to, I'm sure you as agents, our understanding is really enhanced by what you're telling us and how we can hear that. And I'm sure people will just be interested on what a great place it is that we're working for all of us and some of the challenges, nevertheless, that we will need to collectively engage with. So thank you very much everybody for your time today and thanks especially to my team as well who all got up early to talk to you today. So thank you. Yeah, and especially Bev. Thank you. You're welcome everyone. Absolutely. Thanks, Bev. Bye everyone. Thank you, bye. Thanks all. Thanks. Bye.