30 October 2020
Oldham & Saddleworth Green Party says oppose the government’s planning reform it is a con, takes away your rights and doesn’t deliver
The Government White Paper ‘Planning for the Future’ will take away your say on what’s built in your community and hand even more power to developers and land owners. It will fail to build the affordable homes needed, it will not ensure that planning plays its part in combating the climate emergency, biodiversity crisis or air pollution.
Yes the planning system is over-complex and needs reform. It is failing to value the climate and biodiversity. It is not providing the range of housing needed and not creating better communities. It is not sufficiently democratic, accountable and genuinely participative.
Changes to the planning system since 2010 have removed rules on building standards and allowed more automatic planning permission, producing poor quality housing. Changes have also tilted the balance in favour of developers building the wrong homes in the wrong places: reducing green space vital for health, wellbeing, combating climate change and the biodiversity crisis, whilst failing to provide enough money to clean up brownfield sites.
The White Paper proposals will make these problems worse.
The White Paper ignores the evidence of the actual reasons for failed delivery of housing. It asserts that failure to give planning permission is the cause. Research data from government and the Housebuilders Federation show that 40% of homes granted planning permission between 2011 and 2018 remain unbuilt, more than 380,000. The government’s 2018 review found that private developers stall building to keep sale prices high and maximise profit.
To ensure the best planning outcomes for local areas, local communities must be at the heart of the decision making. Instead of reforming the current system so that local communities can fully participate in decision making, the White Paper proposals make the planning system less democratic, with less opportunities for communities to participate.
Oldham will be divided into 3 zones: growth, renewal and protection. Local communities will be consulted on where these zones are. But most of our rights to comment on and object to what is actually built where are taken away. For example in growth zones, and for many developments in renewal zones, we will have no say on specific planning applications which is when the impact, harmful or otherwise, of a development becomes clear.
Elected local councillors will lose much of their role in decisions further reducing local democratic accountability. Also the White Paper suggests that people’s civil right to be heard in person under Section 20 of the Planning Act 2004 will be reduced or removed. These measures are not democratisation
Instead of localism there is centralisation. How to decide on the zones and what land can be protected will be laid down in national policy. Most applications will get an automatic go ahead in principle and a final go ahead if they meet with what is laid down in national design codes. There is little indication of how far local councils can vary policies and codes to meet local circumstances.
New digital ways of informing us about planning applications are offered and welcome. But they do not help people who are digitally excluded and are no substitute for raising issues about the local impact of an application and participating in the decision on whether it goes ahead.
It is a missed opportunity to address climate change and rebuild ecosystems.
Carbon reduction is not a key priority. The target of being ‘carbon net zero-ready by 2050’ does not meet the urgency of the Climate Emergency and the many ways planning can reduce carbon are ignored.
‘Improving biodiversity’ continues to be about ‘protecting and enhancing the most important habitats and species in England’, with no recognition of the widespread loss of once common habitats and species and the need for environmental assessments to include their protection. In Oldham habitats and wildlife corridors have been lost or are under threat due to development, even land designated as a priority Biodiversity Opportunity Area, because they do not fall within the narrow designations of current national policy. The White Paper offers more of the same.
The White Paper will not deliver the right homes in the right places because it does not look at proven solutions to the housing crisis including investment in local authority house building and withdrawal of the right to buy.
In Oldham the most desperate need is homes at social housing rents. In 2019 there were 25,357 households on the Council’s social housing waiting list. The impact of covid-19 on jobs and incomes is further increasing homelessness and households in need of secure, decent housing at affordable rents..
The White Paper does nothing to increase the supply of affordable housing and focuses on affordable houses to buy although these are out of the reach of many in housing need due to insecure work and low incomes.
Disabled people face many more barriers than the general population in access to suitable housing and the rest of the built environment. Planning also needs to tackle prejudice and promote understanding for example around provision for Gypsy and Traveller communities. Such issues are not covered because the government has not carried out an equality impact assessment of its proposals as required by law.
The White Paper will not deliver on its promises because it has the interests of the development sector at heart not local communities or the environment. It will make existing problems worse. It ignores existing evidence. It seeks simple answers to complex problems. It does not recognise the variations in local social, environmental and economic geography. It is entirely lacking in the detail in key areas and the proposals raise more questions than they answer. It is nowhere near ready for legislation in 2021. It is no way forward.
Oldham & Saddleworth Green Party has sent in a response to the consultation on the White Paper. To read what we have said email us on: info@oldham.greenparty.org.uk
The White Paper ‘Planning for the Future’ can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/planning-for-the-future
Friends of the Earth views are here: https://friendsoftheearth.uk/climate-change/planning-reforms-are-bad-news-communities-and-environment
The Town and Country Planning Association views here: https://www.tcpa.org.uk including
https://www.tcpa.org.uk/Blog/blog-the-wrong-answers-to-the-wrong-questions
Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA)views are here:
‘Planning free-for-all-will only make things worse’
Oldham & Saddleworth Green Party RSS Feed