Planning White Paper
You might have seen articles and advertisements in the press concerning the Government White Paper on Planning.
There is a campaign going on called Planning Disaster which has been initiated by a group of organisations (Friends of the Earth, National Trust, Ramblers Association, RSPB to name but a few) who fear that the government is removing community voices from the planning process for major developments.
Send in your comments to the government on the White Paper by August 17th
The white paper covers a number of areas as well as the Majore Infra-structure projects, including:
CADRA is concerned about what is proposed here - see below for more detail.
- Changes to Permitted Development: Consultation Paper 1 - Permitted Development Rights for Householder Microgeneration - closed June 27th
This relates to householders having wind powered generators etc.
- Changes to Permitted Development: Consultation Paper 2 - Permitted Development Rights for Householders
This proposes that householders wanting to do small extensions or changes to their home do not need to apply for planning permission as long as their neighbours are amenable to the changes. This will remove a large number of planning applications from under council control and free up their time for the larger and more controversial developments
- Improving the Appeal Process in the Planning System: Making it proportionate, customer focused, efficient and well resourced
a new way to manage large scale major planning applications
Planning for a Sustainable Future (Major Infrastructure Projects)
This paper is looking at how new proposed developments for new power plants, ports, railways, major roads and motorways, waste disposal plants and the like are implemented. The basis of it is to establish a set of policies through consultation and to then set up an independent commission to oversee and ultimately make the decision on all major infra-structure projects.
The white paper aims to improve the current planning process by:
- Improving clarity and responsiveness of national policies by first establishing a set of policies against which all future plans will be assessed. These policies will be established with consultation with community groups. It is not clear how the establishment of these policies will integrate with the existing or future polices of existing departments for power, roads, ports etc.
- Reducing bureaucracy, time to make a decision and unpredicatability of the decision by trying to engender a spirit of co-operation between the developers and the independent commission and also between the developers and local community to ensure issues are dealt with ahead of time and not through the process of long and complicated public enquiries. Time limits will be set for legal challenges etc.
- Making it easier for individuals and communities to be heard by establishing open forums for people to speak and aire their views. It is not clear what format these will be and how long they would be expected to go on for. It is also not clear whether anyone who wants to will be allowed to speak or whether it will be restricted in some way.
- Simplifying the planning systems to make them transparent and accountable
making decisions at the 'right' level. It is not clear what this means, although there is an intention to take away planning approval (or otherwise) of major infra-structure projects from local authorities and give it to this independent commission. Likewise, local authorities will be given responsibility for truly local developments. It is not clear how this process and systems will integrate with existing systems like the South East Plan.
The main concerns are:
- How independent will the Independent Commission be? How will they be appointed and what sort of people will be on it?
- How realistic will it be for local people to get their voice heard for these nationally run projects?
- How will the Independent Commission remain independent when the goal is to have more collaboration between the dvelopers and the Commission?
Click here to see what CADRA sent as offical feedback to the Major Infra-structure section of the white paper