Planning law changes: Looks as though the government has burnt its mouth

RSS Feed

Planning law changes: Looks as though the government has burnt its mouth

January 1st, 2012

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

By
Clive Aslet

Last updated at 12:54 PM on 21st December 2011

Planning has become an issue for this government: not so much a hot potato as one of those mince pies – you know the kind, left too long in the oven so that they become superheated, blister the roof of your mouth and never seem to cool down. It’s their own fault.

Not content with mending the system piecemeal, they have thrown out the whole works and attempted to replace it with a new super-slim rulebook, known as the National Planning Policy Framework. A brave effort in some ways: it is written in comprehensible language.

That perhaps is the problem. Too many people can understand it. They don’t like what they read.

Minsters say that a presumption in favour of development exists in the present system. They may be rightMinsters say that a presumption in favour of development exists in the present system. They may be right

Minsters say that a presumption in favour of development exists in the present system. They may be right

Minsters say that a presumption in favour of development exists in the present system. They may be right. But the NPPF is a fresh document. It lays undue stress on the desirability of development, albeit ‘sustainable’. We all know what development means – the horror of retail parks and ugly housing estates. But sustainable? Its meaning is about as easy to grasp as a winter fog.

Now the cross-party Communities and Local Government Select Committee has weighed in, calling the NPPF ‘unhelpfully vague’. And we all know where vagueness in legislation ends: the courts. As it stands, the new planning system would be a paradise for lawyers. Heaven forfend.

Of course, it’s not just vagueness that people object to, but the apparent assault on our green fields and open countryside. Instinctively, the public feels that it ought not to be necessary (as has been proposed) to construct 1000 homes at Sandleford, on the surely sacred fields that inspired Richard Adams to write Watership Down. There must be an alternative.

We all know what development means - the horror of retail parks and ugly housing estates

We all know what development means – the horror of retail parks and ugly housing estates

I suspect there is: not just the ex-industrial sites and decaying northern cities, where whole streets of potentially fine accommodation are boarded up, because people coming flocking to the South-East. But in surprisingly bijou places – over the shops in market towns, for example. The other evening, over dinner, I was talking to a European property specialist who told me that, in the opinion of her firm, London was an excellent place to invest, because, by the standards of the Continent, it is so loosely developed.

The densities of people per square kilometre are low. That means that canny operators can buy residential accommodation and increase their money by using the land more effectively. Why leave it to the foreign speculators, however charming they may be as dinner companions? We should be looking more closely at this ourselves.

Read Clive Aslet’s RIghtminds blog here

Here’s what other readers have said. Why not add your thoughts,
or debate this issue live on our message boards.

The comments below have not been moderated.

Newest
Oldest
Best rated
Worst rated

Paul Mason at 21/12/2011 12:55 lives in a parallel universe.
Go to Cambridgeshire where the council is drawing up local development plans for eacgh village. The over arching objective is to get locals to agree to more houses. That is matched by a determination to grant planning consent on grade one agricultural land outside any natural village envelope which the County Council happens to own.
This is local-state capitalism being practiced.
The sufferers are the existing inhabitants.

– Andrew Smith, Epping United Kingdom, 22/12/2011 08:09

Planning is not the real problem. We have a profound imbalance in this country. London and the South East are grossly overcrowded with an infrastructure creaking under the strain, while other parts of the land lay abandoned and neglected…. What is really needed is a serious attempt to re-distribute economic activity… How this could be done I don’t profess to know… But leaving the EU so we could revive our once thriving Fishing and Farming industries may be a good start… Then of course the £50m a day we wouldn’t need to give them might be worth investing in re-opening some of our many still viable mines and shipyards…. And we won’t even think about what being able to scrap VAT might do for inward investment… Just a suggestion…

– JES, Brighton UK, 21/12/2011 21:23

Matttthew 17.53, you must be slightly colour blind to miss all that green on Google, also have you ever looked at food packaging when shopping to see just where all your food comes from?. You rarely see “grown in the UK”. This “green belt” myth is just NIMBY people who don’t wish their view to go. So look again at the green or better still, get a friend to describe it to you.

– Alan, Huddersfield, 21/12/2011 18:43

Google Maps show more green than anything else. There’s loads of room to build, just look at the space around your town and you will see.
– Alan, Huddersfield, 21/12/2011 14:43
Ever seen Britain from above at night? Talk about spot the dark patch. Do you know it requires the whole of the UK in terms of land area to feed London alone? Put that in your food security pipe and smoke it.

– Matthew Tysoe, Northants, UK, 21/12/2011 17:53

The problem lies in the misinterpretation amd misrepresentation of existing planning legislation by tinpot local Councils and busybodies with vested interests in stopping any type of development. Over the years I have witnessed some of the most appalling and costly planning decisions made by local Councils, often against the advice of their own officers. It is imperative that the Planning System is reformed and the presumption in favour given greater emphasis. If anything, the reforms do not go far enough.

– David James, Everdon, United Kingdom, 21/12/2011 16:54

Google Maps show more green than anything else. There’s loads of room to build, just look at the space around your town and you will see.

– Alan, Huddersfield, 21/12/2011 14:43

This is a dreadfully misleading article here. The slimming down of National Guidance and the resulting vagueness is intentional. The main drive and responsibility for specific policies and guidelines is to come from each Local Authority and Neighbourhood plans. Hence calling it the “Localism Act”, or was such simple terminology beyond the grasp of the author. The “assault on our green fields and open countryside” as Mr Aslet puts it, will only happen if it is in keeping with the Local Plans which are consulted on and drawn up by the local authrorities. In my opinion this local decision making and control, and as many suspect an element of NIMBYism, will continue to keep the system in check. Panic not.

– Paul Mason, Skipton, England, 21/12/2011 12:55

The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline.