This week the government published concrete proposals – in the unfortunate phrase of one minister – to rewrite England's planning laws. Using the comforting language of localism and sustainability, the document sets out with a decent ambition: to involve the people affected by planning decisions in the process of making them. It simplifies a complex system which, some argue, is an unnecessary restraint on economic growth. Its critics say it threatens disaster for large parts of rural England, presaging almost uncontrolled sprawl. The draft national planning policy framework is caught at the crossroads between communities, the state and the marketplace. The fear is that the latter will triumph.
In the 1930s Britain built its way out of recession. John Betjeman's Metroland was the result. There is more than a hint of that in the new proposals, which have been subject to contradictory pressures inside government. Some departments have emphasised the right of people to decide what is and is not built near their homes which might lead to less development, not more. Others, such as the Treasury and the business department, under fire for the stagnant pace of economic growth, want to ease England's exceptionally tight planning restrictions.
One reason why this is such an expensive country to live in is the restricted supply of property. There is nothing progressive, in a nation with a growing population, about choking off the supply of new homes, which only further enriches people who already own property. And if Cambridge, for instance, were allowed to become a well-planned science city of one million people, rather than a small medieval core surrounded by fenland, Britain would undoubtedly be richer in immediate economic terms – but not environmental ones.
Not all building is bad and not all green land (not the same as greenbelt) is sacrosanct. What matters is the process by which development is decided and where it takes place. On this the new proposals are deficient. They have not only been attacked by the Campaign to Protect Rural England and the National Trust but also questioned by the Royal Town Planning Institute. The latter fears that "economic growth is generally set to trump the aspirations of local people expressed in local and neighbourhood plans". Polite talk of community empowerment and sustainable development may turn out to mean very little when set against a wealthy developer.
The crucial change in the new proposals is what ministers call "a presumption in favour of sustainable development". In short, that means proposals which comply with as yet ill-defined local plans (half of local authorities do not have one) will get an almost automatic go-ahead. There will be restrictions, especially in national parks and in greenbelts. And the local plans, which must comply with national guidelines, will not allow a free-for-all. But as it stands the proposed planning framework is far too feeble when it comes to specifying how local plans will be drawn up and enforced. It also supports a category of neighbourhood plan which could allow development on the say-so of a group of self-appointed local people of questionable provenance. To some ears, this sounds like a builders' charter. "Neighbourhoods will have the power to promote more development than is set out in the strategic policies of the local plan," say the proposals.
The government says it is being misunderstood: that it wants simpler, cheaper and better development, not more. Perhaps. But development is something that cannot be reversed and planning should involve restriction as much as encouragement. As things stand, the presumption in favour of sustainable development will reward developers while neglecting sustainability. That is the precise opposite of everything ministers promised.
