Well here it is. The Conservative Green Paper, Open Source Planning, has been published. With the party's opinion poll lead narrowing we may yet see the recycling bin bulging with this on May 7th, but we must assume that this is unlikely. This Green Paper will be the basis of planning policy for the next few years.
Much of the document we already knbow. Previous papers have identified the need to do away with regional planning targets, development agencies, inspectors and the like. This paper confirms this. The days of reaching for the acronym guide to figure out PPS3, or RSS, or LDF will seemingly end.
Well until the next guide is published!
We all know that what is good in opposition, however, rarely makes it good in government. Some headlining measures include:
- Incentives for local authorities to set their own affordable housing target. The carrot will be a 125% retention of the council tax for each affordable unit built for six years
- Extension of delegated 'brownfield' land to include areas previously used for agricultural purposes
- Limited planning appeals against local development to just two grounds; that the correct procedure was not followed and that the decision was in direct contravention of the relevant local plan.
The localism agenda, which is underpinning pretty much every element of Conservative thinking right now, will bring in fairly unreasonable demands for whole communities to be involved in planning applications. Many people in such communities simply will not do this. The only interested party when making comment on a planning application is, generally, those opposing a development.
The next government, if it is Conservative, will undoubtedly refine this paper. Green Papers rarely duplicate themselved into White Papers. One bright shining hope is that the next intake of Tory MPs will undoubtedly include several current and former councillors.
Expect a lot of time spent on the committee stage of any future Planning bill!
No comments:
Post a Comment