Localism or parochialism?

The Government’s Localism Bill gets its first debate in the House of Commons on Monday. As I blogged on 16 December, it’s a long and complex piece of legislation, and that’s just the bits on planning. We’ve been working through the detail, discussing it with officials and have even had a chat with the planning minister, Greg Clark.

So what do we think?

There are some things in there that we have long campaigned for, like abolishing the Infrastructure Planning Commission and returning decisions on major infrastructure to an elected person, the Secretary of State.

But the focus of the bill is on new arrangements for strategic planning, and new neighbourhood plans. We welcome proposals to engage local people in planning, but there must be adequate checks to ensure that localism does not become parochialism, and that the planning system delivers for the environment.

We have six key requests for the bill. It should:

• Ensure that sustainable development, delivered within environmental limits, remains the purpose of planning, including neighbourhood planning
• Provide a statutory basis for the national planning policy framework (that’ll have to be the subject of another post)
• Introduce new and effective arrangements for strategic planning across local authority boundaries, which deliver for the environment
• Ensure that neighbourhood plans provide a fair and transparent approach to community participation and local decision-making, and protect and enhance local environments, whether protected by statutory designations or not
• Provide a limited community (third party) right of appeal as a safeguard against development not in accordance with the development plan
• Ensure that decisions on nationally significant infrastructure projects in Wales are consistent with the planning policy of the Welsh Assembly Government 

If the coalition government is to succeed in being the ‘greenest government ever’ then it needs to make sure that we have sustainable development and strategic planning that is fair and effective for all.

Please help us make sure environmental protection remains a core part of the planning process by emailing or writing to your MP and asking that they call on the Secretary of State, Eric Pickles, to ensure that sustainable development and strategic planning remain statutory parts of the planning system. Please also ask them to talk to the MPs in their party who are selected to sit on the committee that debates the Bill to make sure they are aware of these issues.

Please send your letters as soon as possible to ensure that MPs receive them before the Bill reaches its Committee stage early in February.

If you want more information on what you can write, contact Ceri Smith at campaigns@rspb.org.uk

This could be coming to your neighbourhood soon, so tell us what you think!