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Winchester T: 01962 893 893 F: 01962 893 883
London T: 020 7812 6490 F: 020 7812 6677
info@remarkable-engagement.co.uk
Find out more about Localism visit localism-agenda.com
Last week saw the publication of the new draft National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). Rarely has any government consultation document prompted quite the level of debate that we have seen over the last few days.
By 9am on ‘launch day' Fiona Reynolds, Director-General of the National Trust, had gone on Radio 4's Today program to slam the document as being designed to "promote growth, not protect the environment" and warned that it could see ‘urban sprawl' "of the kind not seen since the 1930s"[1]. However, ministers were quick to defend the policy, with Bob Neill MP criticising the National Trust as being "incorrect" and the environment secretary Caroline Spelman MP arguing that, in fact, far from promoting development on Greenfield sites, the draft proposals "will give local communities the power to protect green spaces that mean so much to them".
In an open letter to The Telegraph, Liz Peace chief executive of the British Property Federation, and Dr Adam Marshall, director of policy and external affairs at the British Chambers of Commerce, responded by accusing the National Trust of ‘"scare tactics" and arguing that the new system "does not diminish the ability to protect the green belt". Instead, they pointed out that built-up land in the UK will remain less than 10% of the total and added that: "Job creation, affordable housing, and the businesses of the future are what's really at stake here - not the concreting-over of the countryside."[2]
Whatever your view of the impact of the proposed framework, what evidently has been achieved is a massive reduction in the complexity of national planning policy. The old framework was over 1000 pages long and, as planning minister Greg Clark was always keen to point out, "so bloated that it now contains more words than the complete works of Shakespeare, making it impenetrable to ordinary people".
Realising this takes you some way to understanding exactly what the Department for Communities and Local Government is trying to achieve. Back in August 2010 a spokesman said that "The current top-down bureaucratic planning model has been very good at generating impressive-sounding numbers but built nothing but resentment. By allowing communities to shape their neighbourhoods and share in the benefits, we are beginning to restore the idea that development can be a force for good, rather than something to be resisted at all costs."[3]
Perhaps then, even the impressive feat of reducing 1000 pages of policy into a new 52 page framework is just the smallest of the challenges facing both the government and developers. Convincing local communities to embrace development as a means both of housing a rising population and kick-starting the economic recovery will be the greater challenge over the years to come.
[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9548000/9548464.stm
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