By Richard Johnstone in Manchester | 5 October 2011
Planning reforms will protect the countryside while allowing more homes to be built, decentralisation minister Greg Clark told the Conservative Party conference in Manchester yesterday.
He said the government was reforming the planning system to ensure that ‘the next generation... have more chances than we had’.
Ministers hope to simplify the planning system to promote sustainable growth. But the presumption to approve sustainable development has been criticised by the National Trust and some Conservative MPs.
Clark told delegates that new homes would be built ‘in the right places and of the right quality’. He insisted that planning reforms would still prioritise development on brownfield sites over the greenbelt by giving communities a greater say in decisions.
The National Trust has argued that removing the stated presumption for brownfield sites to be developed first could increase construction in the countryside.
But Clark told delegates: ‘There is no charity, no campaign, no concerned citizen who feels more strongly about cherishing our countryside than we do.
‘Of course, we’ll make use of brownfield land before greenfield land. We’ll make sure that planning decisions are taken by local people who know and love where they live, not by regional bureaucracies or visiting inspectors.’
