The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) has submitted its evidence on the Growth and Infrastructure Bill, highlighting the extent to which the Bill contradicts existing policy.
CPRE writes:
The often repeated myth that planning is an obstacle to growth appears to have strongly influenced Ministers. This marks a misguided return to the worst aspects of the NPPF debate and its attack on the planning system’s essential role in protecting the environment. But a February 2012 report, Inexpensive Progress?, published by CPRE in conjunction with the National Trust and RSPB found that the economic benefits (as opposed to the costs) of the planning system are not properly recognised.
… CPRE is particularly concerned that the Bill and related secondary legislation:
· mark a dramatic shift away from the Government’s commitment to localism. The Coalition Agreement states: ‘We will end the era of top-down government by giving new powers to local councils, communities, neighbourhoods and individuals.’ It is difficult to see how proposals to take planning powers away from local authorities, or to allow developers to bypass local councils in determining affordable housing requirements, are compatible with this aim;
· attempt to use small legislative changes to create an unbalanced ‘growth at all costs’ climate for local planning authority decision-making. This undermines the hard won policy approach to sustainable development set out in the final NPPF;
· overlook a key problem for local councils. Most of the planning proposals in the Bill seem motivated by a misguided perception that planning authorities are being slow in making decisions on planning applications or getting local plans in place. Yet continued uncertainty about the status of Regional Spatial Strategies, which the Government committed to abolish, is an added complicating factor in local planning; and
· will create further uncertainty for local planning authorities, developers and communities in a planning system that has recently undergone major change, and risks creating the delays that the Government seeks to prevent. It is very concerning that in at least three areas of the Bill (clause 1 on planning applications, clause 21 on major infrastructure and clause 5 on broadband cabinets) the Government has pressed ahead with primary, enabling legislation before consulting on the detail of its proposals.
UK Parliament Publications: LINK
