Loosening planning controls in a vain attempt to get the economy moving would be bad for rural and urban Britain
Poor Greg Clark. The decentralisation minister is one of the most thoughtful members of the government and he took office with interesting ideas for reforming the planning system. But his proposals have been strongly criticised and now he lashing out at critics rather than listening to them.
The government came in saying that Labour's top-down housing policies had resulted in too much aggro and too few new homes. The coalition would put communities in control. If local people had confidence that they could stop bad development, they would support the new homes and businesses the country needs. Localism would both deliver growth and safeguard the places people care about.
Combining localism, growth and environmental protection was always going to be a difficult trick to pull off, but it was a welcome ambition. Unfortunately, Clark did not get the chance to try. Early in the life of the government the Treasury and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, desperate to stimulate economic growth, turned on the planning system. In his March budget, George Osborne announced "a new presumption in favour of sustainable development, so that the default answer to development is 'yes'".
That trashed the idea the planning system exists to serve the public interest, integrating social, environmental and economic ends. Its purpose, Osborne made clear, was to favour one sectional interest over all others: that of business.
It is not surprising that the Treasury wants the planning system to serve narrowly economic ends. Gordon Brown spent 10 years as chancellor trying to liberalise planning. What is surprising is that David Cameron has let Osborne get away with it. The prime minister genuinely loves the countryside and has spoken with passion about the importance of local distinctiveness. I know he is busy, but he should pay attention now to the growing row about planning reform, or he will have to do so later.
So, why is CPRE, along with virtually every other environmental and conservation body, so alarmed by the government's draft national planning policy framework (NPPF)? And why are the developers and planning consultants so pleased?
The presumption in favour of development is crucial. The NPPF aims to make planning principally an instrument for delivering economic growth. It is clearly about development, not sustainability. The message for local authorities is "build, build, build". Their local plans should be plans for growth. And if they don't have a plan in place, developers can build what they like, where they like.
In fact, there is no convincing evidence that liberalising planning will stimulate growth. It is far from obvious that moving towards a Greek-style planning system is the key to a stronger economy, or that Britain needs an Irish-style development boom based on a weak planning system. Weakening planning controls will not get the economy moving, it will just result in more poor quality developments in the wrong places.
Second, the NPPF removes protection of the countryside for its own sake, a policy that has stood for over 60 years. It maintains protection for national parks, areas of outstanding natural beauty and the green belt, but the rest of the countryside ? most of it ? is up for grabs.
Third, the brownfield-first policy introduced by the Conservatives in 1995 has been scrapped. When the policy was introduced, almost half the new houses in England were built on greenfield sites. Within 10 years, three-quarters were being built on brownfield land.
And as well as ending the brownfield-first policy, the NPPF will require local authorities to allocate much more land for housing than is necessary to meet their housing targets. Whatever ministers intend, this will make it impossible for local authorities in the green belt to find enough housing land without either building in the green belt or redrawing green-belt boundaries. Stand by for battles in the constituencies of Greg Clark, Eric Pickles and Grant Shapps!
I still hope that we can have a serious dialogue with the government. But public pressure will be necessary, as it was with the proposed forest sell-off. Thousands of people have already written to their MPs to oppose the government's plans. We hope tens of thousands more will do so.
CPRE wants to make localism work. And we recognise the need for development, including much more affordable rural housing. But what is being proposed will be bad for the countryside, bad for towns and cities, and will not win public consent. The government should think again.
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