The London Green Belt Council - Notes: Issue 129 March 2002
The Government's four recent planning green papers are so important and, collectively, have such serious implications for a balanced planning system, that it seems desirable to reproduce the text of the London Green Belt Council's responses for members' benefit almost in full.
The Planning Green Paper
1. The LGBC considered the above paper at its meeting on 28th February. Our reaction to almost all of it is so unfavourable that the completion of the suggested questionnaire is inappropriate and I give a written exposition of our response instead. For the same reason we thought that we should criticise the paper's impact on the planning system generally, not merely in respect of its direct implications for green belt, which we acknowledge may not be very great.
2. We welcome the proposals concerning repeated applications, twin-tracking and time limited consents; but these gains are greatly outweighed by the immense harm which we believe most of the other proposals will do to the system as a whole. However, the three proposals do not depend on the adoption of the new system overall but can be proceeded with on their own. We ask that they should be. The other major proposals are objectionable on account of their pro-development bias, their complexity and wooliness and their approach to public participation. We deal with these fundamental criticisms first, then turn to some individual proposals.
The bias towards development
3. The proposals do not seem to grasp the fact that planning is valued as much, if not more, for its ability to provide some stability in one's surroundings, whether one lives in town or country, as for smoothing the path for development proposals. The whole thrust of the paper is to help business and speed development, to a degree that is quite unacceptable and will arouse strong resentment in the conservation movement. The paper has its priorities wrong.
The proposed hierarchy of planning, and the revision of plans
4. The complexity and wooliness of the proposals almost defies belief There appears to be no detailed provision for planning for whole chunks of the country - regions will be too big. In any case they are not intended to deal with details; counties have gone for planning purposes and local frameworks are not site-specific, neither apparently are community strategies which seem to be the same thing under another name. So one is left with local action plans, which will rarely cover the whole of a district. Which plan, therefore, is the basic document against which to consider specific site-related proposals relating to the areas left out, which may well be the greater part of some districts, and which may particularly be rural or urban fringe areas?
6. We are concerned that more and more influence is being given to unelected bodies at regional level. The paper does not clarify the relative position of the regional planning authorities and the regional development authorities. It is essential that the former should have greater clout than the latter in land-use, matters, though the RDAs have been jockeying to reverse this position. If that happened it would be very serious for planning. The paper is ambiguous on this matter, as paragraph 4.41 implies that the regional planning &dance should be co-ordinated with the RDA's strategies whilst 4.42 implies that the regional spatial strategies should provide a longer-term framework for the RDA's ideas. Which is co-ordinating with which, or will the RSS merely make respectable whatever the RDA's want? That would make a mockery of planning.
7. Having said the above, we recognise that there is an argument for regional input into subjects like the Metropolitan Green Belt, which spans seven counties plus some fifteen London Boroughs but lacks a single focus, even at regional level. It may however be better to wait umtil there are elected bodies at regional level.
Public Participation
8. We regard the proposal in paragraph 4.26 to deprive individuals of the right to be heard at public local inquiries into draft local plans as pernicious and indefensible. It seems to us sheer hypocrisy to he trumpeting the merits of public participation in various joint bodies, which may or may not be effective but in which commercial interests may be expected to participate strongly, whilst at the same time depriving individuals of a right to be heard. It is one of the great strengths of the present system (though it may sometimes be a time-consuming one) that individual views are respected in this way; and that ought not to be ended. The paper makes no adequate case for change: the cost of the present position is quoted but the cost is unlikely to be more than that incurred if the ludicrous proposals for the never-ending updating of plans and the frustration and effort engendered thereby are brought into being.
9. Community involvement in the preparation of plans undoubtedly has much to commend it, but much depends on how the community representatives are selected. This must not he done in a way that provides local political party representation by backdoor routes on the relevant bodies. But the community representatives do need to have sufficient understanding of how the planning system works to be able to make a useful contribution. They are not a substitute for the right of individuals to be heard. Likewise local amenity and similar organisations should be able to play their part.
Other matters
10. Other matters which concern us are:
(a) The role of county councils. We recognise that in some cases the nature of a county makes it both too big for detailed planning and too small for the higher level of broader planning that present circumstances require. We think that the removal of counties from the planning hierarchy is a mistake for two main reasons. Firstly, the huge gap between regions or sub-regions and individual districts needs to be bridged somehow, and county councils, with their existing experience, are likely to be able to do it at less cost than any alternative. Secondly, counties have for centuries provided a focus for local knowledge and loyalties, a factor that should not lightly be thrown overboard in the Government's chase to provide more outlets for business and development.
(b) Business Planning Zones. We note the relatively cautious wording of paragraphs 5.36-5.38, and the request for comments both on the concept and on "the safeguards that might he necessary to ensure that they deliver quality development'. We do not understand what the difference might be between such safeguards and requiring planning permission in the first place. Free-for-alls, however neatly disguised, have not been notably successful in the past, and we would prefer not to have more of them. But if they are introduced we think that the emphasis on 'ensuring that they deliver' should be accompanied by equal emphasis to ensure that they do not breach established planning principles. So far as green belt is concerned this means that they must not be in the green belt or conspicuous from it (PPG2 para 3.15).
(c) Appeals by third parties. We accept that there are problems as to what is significant' in a planning context but none of the arguments put forward represents more than a fear that granting the right would he an inconvenience. Given the damage that other proposals espoused in the paper would do to the planning system, allowing third party rights of appeal ought to he accepted as some recompense.
(d) Permitted development rights. Standards should be defined nationally.
(e) Planning obligations. We are replying separately to the Green Paper on this subject, but we think that the proposal to divorce the obligations from the planning matter in respect of which a need for some amelioration has arisen is utterly wrong. The proposal to turn the obligation into a general tax on development, whether in aid of affordable housing or anything else, is a retrograde step, which will cause much resentment.
Conclusion
11. Despite its many words in favour of a need to help business interests, the need for openness, speed, simplicity and community involvement etc., the paper utterly fails to convince. It does not seem to recognise that planning is to secure stability rather than frenetic change and constant updating; or that the present system for all its faults is fundamentally on the right lines. The new proposals will satisfy no-one except commercial interests, and they are not necessarily the best judges of the quality of life and securing an agreeing and lasting environment.
Reforming Planning Obligations
[The first paragraph is similar to that on the planning paper above]
As regards the Planning Obligations paper, we object strongly to the proposal to divorce the obligations from the matter in respect of which some need for amelioration arises. It seems to us fundamentally wrong, and open to manipulation, to make such situations an excuse to introduce a tax in aid of something which has no essential link with the proposal or the site in question. It may also encourage local authorities to be more willing to approve schemes which have serious defects or consequences, and which would ordinarily be rejected out of hand, in order to raise money for some other questionable political objective elsewhere. This would weaken confidence in local government, not strengthen it.
We can support only Option A of the alternatives listed in the appendix. We reject Option B because it would lead to more inconsistency between authorities and provide more scope for questionable local deals. We reject all other systems which turn planning into taxation by stealth.
Major Infrastructure Projects
[The first paragraph is similar to that on the planning paper above]
As regards major infrastructure projects, we support the proposal that the Secretary of State should have discretionary power to decide to which projects the new parliamentary procedures should apply, and that there should be no formal procedure for initiating such action. We assume that individuals and organisations like ours would be able to make representations to the Secretary of State, as confirmed in Sally Keeble's letter to our President on 8th October last.
We are anxious that MPs should be given enough information to reach a rounded judgement when they have their preliminary debate on the principles of a scheme. Our points are:
1) It would be only too easy to present MPs with a very broad outline of a scheme, so as to present it as 'a good thing', when more comprehensive information would show that, for some communities covered by the scheme, if not for all, it would be a very bad thing indeed. MPs as much as anyone else need some detail in order to reach an informed judgement. The questions are, what sort of detail, and how is it to he obtained and criticised? 1
2) The information they need must surely encompass not only the broad idea but also the financial, technical and operational feasibility of the scheme and the financial, technical and operational competence of those proposing it. Central Railways' proposals are a prime example of how not to do it.
3) Such detail must require independent assessment and something akin to an inspector's report (though not necessarily a formal planning report) which would be available to Parliament and open to public criticism before Parliament debates the scheme in principle.
4) It will not be easy to define the scope of the necessary pre-debate inquiry and report in terms which wilI enable Parliament and the public to be properly informed whilst not getting into the sort of planning detail which the green paper assumes will be debated later. But a definition must be achieved which recognises the fact that environmental considerations are at least as important as financial ones (more important in the view of many people), and must not be relegated to second-stage detail out of deference to pushing business interests.
5) The Secretary of State's proposals for defining the extent of the pre-Parliamentary analysis of schemes should themselves be the subject of public consultation before further decisions are taken.
Compulsory Purchase and Compensation
This paper needed only a short letter saying that we assumed that any decisions on the green paper will await the outcome of the Law Commission's deliberations referred to in it.
The minutes of our last meeting should have reached you before the expiry dates for comments on the papers. These texts of our replies will not, but I hope that you will be able to incorporate the
criticisms into documents to DTLR, your MPs or other appropriate bodies whenever you can. It is necessary to leave Ministers in no doubt that this attempt to sacrifice major planning safeguards in order to pacify pressures from business and developers arouses strong resentment and opposition.