Planning changes hit the headlines

[Tony Gosling]

Minister moves to reassure planning critics
By Lorraine Turner - LONDON | Thu Sep 22, 2011 3:50pm BST
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/09/22/uk-britain-planning-idUKTRE78L3KE20110922
(Reuters) - Proposals for the biggest shake-up to the building 
planning system in decades are not an attempt to trick those who 
cherish the nation's countryside, the minister responsible for the 
changes said on Thursday.
"They will see when the policy framework is adopted, that all of our 
intentions are making sure that we can have homes and jobs and we can 
do so in a way that safeguards, what is very precious, our natural 
and our historic environment," Planning Minister Greg Clark told Reuters.
Senior ministers said they would press ahead with proposals despite 
criticism that it would blight what remains of the nation's dwindling 
countryside in favour of greater development.
The government said that changes are vital to help to revive a 
faltering economy and to make housing more affordable. It says 
planning delays cost the economy 3 billion pounds per year.
Clark, a Conservative, defended the 52-page draft National Planning 
Policy Framework (NPPF) on Thursday and suggested that the current 
debate is based on a misperception around the government's intentions.
"It's better to make changes that you know are necessary rather than 
simply tinker around with a broken system in order to avoid any 
controversy," he said, speaking after a presentation at a British 
Property Federation event.
"If you start with over 1,000 pages and you come to distillation ... 
then inevitably it is the case that not everything is maybe expressed 
in the clearest way but that doesn't signal any malign intent or 
signal any hidden agenda to subvert the process," he told the seminar.
The Director-General of the National Trust, Fiona Reynolds, said she 
had been "horrified by the draft" because the document focussed on 
promoting the economy over environmental concerns.
The debate over planning has been centred around one short phrase -- 
a "presumption in favour of sustainable development," which 
government critics say will prompt a free-for-all.
"The intention...is not in any way to provide a loophole through 
which alien developments can be progressively imposed, rather the 
reverse," Clark said.

U-TURN
But the National Trust's Reynolds argued that the spirit of localism, 
which the government is heavily promoting, should enable Local 
Authorities to build less, if they so choose.
"Don't tell Local Authorities they have to promote more developments 
not less, there will be some Local Authorities who want less because 
they are so passionate about their green fields," she said, with the 
National Trust boasting nearly 4 million members.
The business community and housebuilding industry fiercely defend the 
proposals, which will overhaul the current system that has seen new 
homes built in England and Wales dwindle to chronic low levels in recent years.
"This is a country that can ill afford a u-turn on what, at the end 
of the day, is a modest and rational plan to speed up rather than 
ditch our development control process," said Adam Marshall, director 
of policy and external affairs at the British Chamber of Commerce, 
speaking at the event.
"This is also a story of small and medium-sized companies who have 
lost confidence in the system, due to its ever-greater cost, 
complexity, uncertainty, and politicisation," he added.
The recent debate, also fuelled by the Daily Telegraph launching its 
"Hands Off Our Land" campaign, urging ministers to rethink the 
legislation that is at consultation stage, prompted the Prime 
Minister to pen a letter to the National Trust this week to reassure 
them that the British landscape should be "cherished and protected."
Clark was upbeat that the planning reform will go ahead -- with the 
consultation period set to close on October 17 -- though declined to 
comment on whether current criticism around proposals over brownfield 
land, housing targets and sustainable development will lead to a 
modification of the policy.
"I think (the misperception) is already being corrected through 
discussions like this," he told Reuters.
(Reporting by Lorraine Turner)


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