Planning Green Paper

• Posted by David Jones on 18th Mar ’10 at 11:58 UTC
• 0 comments

Conservative Green Paper - Open Source Planning

David Jones, Head of Planning Services at Evans Jones LLP, recently attended a Question and Answer session with the Shadow Planning Minister (Bob Neill) who took questions from the invited guests upon the recently published Planning Green Paper entitled “Open Source Planning”.

The guests represented solicitors, barristers, planning professionals, developers and land owners.

The Green Paper itself sets out the Tories vision for a complete overhaul of the current planning system. If adopted in its entirety little of the existing planning system would remain unscathed.

To any interested party I strongly advocate reading the Green Paper Planning Green Paper as it will have far reaching implications for all sections of the community.

Having studied the document in detail and having heard the Shadow Planning Ministers reasoning for change, it appears that the Tories have opted for a popularist planning policy, which undoubtedly will win support of “middle England Nimbys”, but which will do little to generate growth, stimulate construction, create wealth or produce much needed housing.

The Tories answer to the alleged failings of the “broken system” is to return decision making to the people. The thrust of the policy Green Paper is to empower local communities with the task of deciding how much development is needed and where it should be sited. This would be facilitated by an immediate dismantling of the Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS), which Bob Neill confirms would be facilitated within the first Queens Speech of a new Parliament.

This would in effect remove current regional spatial strategy housing and employment land targets and replace them with locally derived targets. Bob Neill confirmed that Local Authorities would still need to maintain a 5 year supply of housing land. Regrettably 5 years of nothing equals no housing!.

To the casual observer the policy proposals may sound very sensible and plausible. Regrettably, any party involved with development schemes, whether a land owner, a developer, a consultant or indeed a local resident objecting to a scheme, will quickly realise that the community is conservative by nature and as a matter of course in my experience object to any development they perceive may have a negative impact, however small or indeed unfounded that impact may be.

I put to Mr Neill that I have grave concerns that if communities are given an option they will always choose “no development”. He responded that this was a depressing attitude and he felt sorry for me, not having the faith in local communities to delivery the development needed.

Whilst it is accepted that enlightened members of the community will understand and indeed if questioned would accept that additional housing is required to enable our sons and daughters to enter the property market or simly put a roof over our heads, those same enlightened community members will also be the first to object to a scheme in their back yard. Lack of new housing has no direct impact upon those who already own houses in that community; however, even if we ignore population growth, new housing is required to accommodate our ageing population and smaller family units.

If the supply chain is strangled then this has a negative impact upon the economic viability of our towns and cities, failure to allocate land for housing and economic growth will make towns and cities less attractive to potential employers and will thus have a significant impact upon the ability of that town or city to attract new business to stimulate the economy.

A well funded vociferous minority already have a significant impact upon the delivery of sites for development. To afford greater power to those same communities will in my opinion sadly further restrict housing supply and delivery.

Bob Neill criticises heavily the current administrations failure to increase housing delivery, whilst proposing to remove housing targets which currently provide the only driver that encourages Local Authorities to allocate additional land and approve housing schemes.

The Tories believe that allowing Local Authorities to retain Council Tax receipts generated by new development for a period of 6 years, will encourage that Local Authority and community they serve to deliver additional housing numbers.

In practice new housing supply per annum even at current RSS target rates creates a miniscule percentage of additional housing locally, regionally and nationally (compared to the existing housing stock) and thus the additional revenue generated will certainly have no impact whatsoever upon individuals within the community and I do not believe that elected members will be motivated by the relatively small financial sums involved.

Ultimately it is developers who build houses, factories and offices, it is not communities. Whilst greater public consultation and liaison is essential to achieve “buy in” from the community it remains, in my view, an unrealistic expectation that communities alone will be able or willing to make those difficult decisions that must be made.

If the Green Paper Policies are implemented then I can foresee a period of stagnation and a serious under-delivery of development land with serious economic consequences for towns, cities, communities and villages.

For more information contact David Jones E-mail comment or give me a call on 01242 531411.
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