The Coalition is preparing a new assault on planning laws that will give developers legal powers to force through planning applications without council approval or environmental assessments.
Under new proposals, described by one planning expert as a nuclear option, developers and builders will be able to by-pass local authorities that delay decisions on conditions attached to planning approval.
Even worse, the Coalition also proposes to remove requirement to assess the impact of some large residential developments or housing estates, super-markets and shopping centres on the countryside.
Campaigners, including concerned Tory back-bencher MPs representing rural areas have warned that these radical reforms could result in communities being “held to ransom” and could force councils to wave through unpopular and contentious planning applications.
A senior policy advisor to David Cameron has said that the ‘physical harm’ being inflicted on our countryside by the Coalition’s planning reforms could become the “defining legacy of this Coalition government.”
Never the less, arch protagonist and Planning Minister Nick Boles proposes yet further changes that will clear the decks for even more development, claiming that the reforms would “significantly cut the burdens of unnecessary planning applications” and also “save the industry precious time and money.”
The Coalition will unveil a package of new measures in April 2014 to help meet its target of building hundreds of thousands of new homes and stimulate the economy at the same time.
One of the most contentious reforms gives developers legal powers to ignore local authorities.
Grant of Council planning permission routinely imposes conditions providing local public benefit such as flood defences, (an area much under public scrutiny at this time,) tree planting and landscaping.
Builders are successfully lobbying that local authorities are delaying applications for construction of hundreds of thousands of new homes by failing to sign-off such restrictive conditions.
Ominously, this new legislation will enable automatic application approval if councils “fail to discharge a condition in time.”
Richard Blyth, Head of Policy at The Royal Town and Planning Institute said that under the proposals developers “can hold everybody to ransom”. and “Local councillors work hard to reflect public opinion in developments, and if it later turns out that a lot of these conditions have not been met, residents might feel let down. It is a Nuclear Option.”
Councillor Mike Jones, Local Government Association’s Housing Board Chair said that planning conditions helped to protect communities.
The second new measure will reduce the need for environmental assessment which must currently be considered for any development covering more than one acre. Under proposed legislation, the threshold would be raised to considerably larger than one acre, exempting thousands of development from requirement for evaluation of their impact on the landscape, wild-life and plants.
A spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government said that the Government (Coalition) was concerned that too many unreasonable conditions were imposed, sometimes adding years to the planning process and delaying the building of new homes.
This material is virtually a verbatim from newspaper and magazine articles.
David Cameron has agreed to meet Conservative MPs to discuss their concerns and possible changes to the proposals.