21 December 2010
Bureaucracy in the planning system is to be dramatically cut back and replaced with a new set of rules designed to stimulate growth and hand more power to ‘communities’, the government has announced.
In a written statement to Parliament yesterday, decentralisation minister Greg Clark said he planned to draw up a single national planning policy framework to replace the existing set of documents, guidance notes and policy statements.
He criticised the current system for being contradictory and full of unnecessary detail. Clark said the bureaucratic burden it imposed on the public, councils and developers acted as a brake on economic growth and shut out local people.
‘We have over 1,000 pages of policy and guidance that have made the planning system unclear and burdensome,’ he said, adding that the new framework would be a ‘single concise document’ that would ‘deliver a more effective, decentralised system’.
Clark also said he wanted to bring in a ‘presumption in favour of sustainable development’.
The statement emphasises the importance of a planning system that benefits a ‘community’ – however it remains unclear how a community will be defined in law. On the launch of the flagship Decentralisation and Localism Bill, ministers indicated that ‘communities’ would be roughly parish-sized, or the size of about two council wards.
Ministers are inviting submissions on the plans from interested parties, with a deadline of February 28. A draft framework will then be published, and formal consultation will follow.
Chris Gorman, spokesman for the Forum of Private Business, said the measure would help stimulate economic activity by making it easier for businesses to extend, alter or build new properties. ‘This represents a very rare, cost-free “magic wand” solution to our economic woes,’ he said.
‘At present, the planning system all too often works in favour of bigger businesses because small firms lack the finances needed to get an application approved.’
But, he added, ‘the devil will be in the detail’, and said that any benefits brought by liberalising planning could be cancelled out by giving local people more say.
Clark also revealed a ‘work plan’ for major national infrastructure. Arguing that large-scale projects were vital to economic growth, he said future decisions on energy or transport schemes would in future be taken by the relevant minister, not a quango.
The Infrastructure Planning Commission, which currently oversees such projects, is to be scrapped. Ministers will instead be advised by a new major infrastructure planning unit, to be established as part of the Planning Inspectorate.
The Local Government Association is yet to respond to the proposals.
