Independents across England Raise Alarm on "Stalinist" Government Trojan Horse

 

England's Green and Pleasant Land
UNDER THREAT

 

Denise Wyatt, Planning Spokesperson for Somerset Independents says:

Denise Wyatt

"The Conservative Government has put forward a Planning White Paper. What this means is that they want to change how planning works in England. The proposals look disastrous, and are a blatant Stalinist attack on residents' democratic rights under the Trojan Horse of promoting those very same rights.

Our friends in Lincolnshire at Lincolnshire Independents have submitted their response and published it on their website. 

Somerset Independents is now publishing its response, submitted before the deadline two weeks ago. It includes our promotion of MORE, not LESS democracy, including the right of appeal for residents on planning applications, I have long thought that it is wrong that developers have this right but residents do not.

We have no doubt that other independent groups share our concerns. Whilst all independents will not agree on every aspect, there is a great amount of common ground, and the excellent Lincolnshire response covers that common ground.

Will the Tory Government listen? I doubt it, but it is worth a try!

Let us know what you think of our response by contacting us."

"Response to Planning White Paper Consultation from Somerset Independents

29^th October 2020

This Planning White Paper is a Trojan Horse for development without local democracy and without local accountability. It is a cynical ploy to exploit Covid-19 and to blindside the public. It must be scrapped without delay. If it is not, then the public will know that this Government wants to centralise decision-making in a Stalinist coup.

This Planning White Paper is a manifesto for development and developers that claims that more of the public will be involved in the planning process. Yet more public involvement is a pretence of this Planning White Paper. The White Paper is a smokescreen for dishing out contracts to PropTech and GIS firms (p.26 et al) that have already failed to provide mapping systems for the public to be able to participate in the planning process.

The current local plan process does not involve the public. There is more than enough evidence here in Somerset. Putting more emphasis on the local plan part, and less emphasis on the individual applications, would exclude even more people than is the case now. It is unacceptable already.

Somerset Independents agree with our colleagues in Lincolnshire Independents that house-building targets are too high to protect our environment and too high to tackle climate change. Such high targets already mean that the local plans are regularly ignored or sidelined by the councils, because the pressure is too much. And these targets being “nationally-determined, binding” (p.23) is wrong. They should be locally-determined in a democracy. The proposals smack of the Soviet Union, not the UK. Yet this Government seems to enjoy promoting its autocratic and centralising tendencies (we reference Lady Hale’s recent comments on this) that have failed our country on Brexit, on the Supreme Court judgement on suspending Parliament, and on Covid-19. It should not make the same mistakes with the planning system.

The problems that already exist with the current planning system that exclude over 90% of residents would be exacerbated by this Planning White Paper. Power must not be taken away from local residents. They need to be given more power. But this Planning White Paper does not do that. Instead, it pretends that “going digital” will magically fix this, but the same people will continue to be involved and the very large majority will continue to be ignored or excluded.

The claim in the White Paper that it is the planning system that puts “delay” in, is just nonsense. The current involvement of the public is appropriate and time deadlines are appropriate (8 or 13 weeks) but public participation needs to be increased, not decreased as proposed in this anti-democratic White Paper. The vast majority of applications are approved without committee and without public participation. If anything, the number with public participation needs to be increased, with more involvement of the public, not increased. Yet this White Paper excludes the public more.

Site notices, notices in newspapers and notifications of local residents need to be expanded at the application stage, because public participation is already not enough. Any new digital methods of involvement need to be done as well as the existing arrangements, not instead of (p.24). How many times have residents complained that they were not told about a development? This is the normal feeling in the current system. We have had to fill in for the failing planning process, in order to involve the public but such public participation should be part of the system, not an adjunct to it.

Any involvement of the public must now allow for virtual meetings in the planning process (p.24). With safeguards on thresholds, any change to the planning system must now also allow for groups of residents to send applications to the Planning Inspectorate as an appeal. This would make the system fairer than it is now, with only applicants being able to appeal.

The centralising tendency of this Government is clear again (p.24) when it says “The Infrastructure Levy will be more transparent than Section 106, and local communities will have more control over how it is spent.” Yet it is not clear how a nationally-determined Levy, which appears to be suggested in the White Paper, can be locally-decided.

Again, we agree with our colleagues in Lincolnshire Independents that “the Government’s squeeze on local councils now extends to centralising planning in a framework where local decision-making could become a thing of the past and leave local residents without a proper voice on applications”. This is why we have described this Planning White Paper as “Stalinist”. It would suit the Soviet Union command economy, instead of a democracy where local residents are listened to and their concerns acted upon.

On the environment, on food security and on climate change, brownfield sites plus wildlife corridors plus agricultural sites must be prioritised. Already in the current system, they are not. And this White Paper does not address this.

For example, Mendip District Council has approved the Sandys Hill Lane development in Frome on farm land, but still the Saxonvale brownfield site remainsderelict. There are many other examples of divergence from the local plan. So this White Paper, by excluding even more of the public from the entire process, would make this problem even worse, when it should be ensuring that it is made better.

Conflicts of interest amongst councillors are not managed in the current system. Somerset Independents has made representations to the LGA on their consultation on Councillors Code of Conduct. And developments that local residents do not want, are given the go-ahead by councillors that are closely linked with developers. Is this what the Government wants? If this White Paper goes ahead, it will confirm that the Government does want an anti-democratic system to be promoted and made worse.

This Planning White Paper is a Trojan Horse for development without local democracy and without local accountability. It is a cynical ploy to exploit Covid-19 and to blindside the public from what they entitled to – greater involvement in their local area and local democracy.

For the above reasons, now is not the time to be changing the planning system. This Stalinist Planning White Paper should be scrapped and more democratic alternatives that address the real issues brought forward instead."