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Planning review recommends big changes

Posted: 06/12/2006

Economist Kate Barker's long awaited review of the planning system is published today and calls for far reaching changes. It claims that current restrictions are harming the economy and slowing house building. If the proposals are accepted tens of thousands of homes and shops could be built on protected green belt land around cities, and communities rights to object to major developments seriously eroded.

Some of the changes the report recommends are

• Allowing councils to approve building on green belt land.
• A new independent Planning Commission to approve major projects such as nuclear power stations, airports and roads.
• Removing the need for planning permission for homeowners if neighbours agree with an extension.
• Making it easier to build out-of-town shopping centres.
• A new tax on landowners who fail to develop derelict or vacant sites.
• Replacing the green belt with "green wedges" or "green corridors" with gaps for homes and other development. Barker claims that radical change is needed because current restrictions are stifling choice and competition among businesses, and says that rising population means more homes are needed.

According to the report, much of the green belt is "low-value agricultural land, with little landscape quality and limited public access", and that large swathes of such "urban fringe" land is often run down and should instead be used for homes or businesses.

Barker even claims that parts of the green belt actually harm the environment by forcing commuters to "leapfrog" it with longer journeys to work that produce more harmful emissions. She admits there have been major benefits from the system in preserving historic towns and forcing developers to use inner-city sites but warns that there has been a "social cost", with only "higher income groups" able to buy homes in protected areas and poorer families in cities forced to cope with the loss of green space to infill development.

On big developments, such as power stations, Barker states that the current system of giving the Communities Secretary the final say on such projects should be phased out. A new independent Planning Commission would instead determine applications for "major infrastructure" projects for energy, waste, transport and water.

Plans that were "in the national interest", such as nuclear power plants and wind farms, would be subjected to the new system. Commenting on criticism that local communities will be 'steamrollered' by big schemes, she told a news conference at the Treasury in London: "We know there is a fundamental difficulty. We know that we need to have things in the UK placed somewhere like large energy projects, waste projects. We know that these are the kind of developments that communities, at first sight, are not likely to welcome near them. Equally it is in the national interest that these are proposed and provided somewhere."

Barker was critical about the delays and costs caused by the current planning regulations to both businesses and homeowners. She said that lengthy delays were hitting economic growth and deterring foreign businesses from setting up in the UK. In one controversial move, the report suggests developers could use "community goodwill payments... to pay households a fixed sum to help gain their acceptance for a project they would otherwise object to". But Barker denied that such a system would effectively sanction "bribery" of residents.

On planning rules relating to extensions to domestic dwellings, a New Zealand system of "side agreements" could remove the need for planning permission if neighbours agree to minor changes to one of their homes.

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