Signing off

It is now four years since I retired from legal practice. I did continue to publish occasional posts in this blog for a time, as I had not lost interest in Town & Country Planning at that time, but after four years of retirement I can honestly say that I am now a cured planorak, and I have genuinely lost interest in the subject, having been such an enthusiast for the subject for more than 40 years.

Several factors have contributed to my loss of interest in the subject. My detailed knowledge of the finer points of planning law began to atrophy as soon as I ceased to be involved in planning and development on a daily basis. But a major influence on my changing attitude towards town and country planning has been the way in which central government has dealt with it. The subject has become increasingly bureaucratic. It is frankly a nightmare for developers, and it is unnecessarily complex even for householders.

Now we have a government that wants to let rip with development. They are obsessed with ‘growth’ and, like some of their predecessors, they seem to think that housing and other development will prove to be the key to this. It is already becoming clear, as governments have discovered in the past, that this isn’t going to work. There are all sorts of delaying factors and difficulties resulting in the number of completed developments falling well short of their stated targets.

So the upshot is that I am no longer motivated to write on this subject. But, as I have promised before, I will leave all or most of the previous blog posts on this platform, but I must stress the ‘health warning’ that I have issued more than once in recent years – As time goes by, the material in this blog will become increasingly outdated. It cannot be relied upon to represent the current state of the law. More recent legislation and judgments in the higher courts will have superseded the position that was described in quite a few of these blog posts. If readers need legal advice on planning issues, it is essential that they seek it from competent and experienced professionals. Never rely on the internet for such guidance. Good advice has to be paid for; it is folly to try to get such advice free or on the cheap.

So good luck and best wishes to all my former readers.

© MARTIN H GOODALL