Labour Planning Chair Pete Ruhemann has attacked the Government’s new National Planning Policy Framework, saying it is a developer’s charter which will open the way to many more planning applications being approved on appeal against the wishes of local people and their elected representatives.
Speaking at a meeting of the Greater Reading Environmental Network on 30 November, Cllr. Ruhemann pointed out the starting point of the Framework was Chancellor George Osborne saying in his budget speech in March that the Government wanted the default answer to development to be yes. So the Framework includes statements like “Local planning authorities should plan positively for new development and approve all individual proposals wherever possible”, which is why it has been attacked by Friends of the Earth, the National Trust, The Daily Telegraph and planning professionals,
He added that because the Council’s own Core Strategy did not include the new mantra that the default answer to development should be yes, it might be held not to conform to the National Policy Framework, so none of its 38 detailed policies on housing density, district shopping centres, the rivers, accessibility, sustainable travel, open spaces and so on could be taken into account by Planning Committee when deciding on applications. With no local policies in place, developers would have a single simple mantra of the presumption in favour of development to get their way on appeal.
Cllr. Ruhemann added that the fact that this was a developer’s charter should not come as any surprise to anyone who had observed Conservative planning policy over the years. The Daily Telegraph had reported that planning Ministers had met property industry figures 28 times since the Election, and that a property forum was contributing £150,000 a year to the Conservative Party.
The Chair of Planning concluded: “While I always believed a Conservative Government would favour the developers, even I am astounded by the extent of their attack on the planning system. I believe my role, however, ought to be to continue to work with local communities and their representatives and to try and ensure their concerns are properly and soberly reflected in all decisions by Reading’s Planning Applications Committee. That’s our job as locally elected representatives. If Mr Pickles then insists on sending down Inspectors to ride roughshod over local feeling then he can answer for it.”
|
