Community led Strategic Planning: If Not Your Back Yard, Then Where?
Like many within the industry I watched the 21st June Parliamentary debate on planning with a mixture of excitement (“Ooo look at planning right there at the top of the political agenda!”) and horror (“but, but, the bill hasn’t been written yet!”, “what even is a Developer’s Charter!?”) Although the debate expanded to cover failures of the current system, the housing crisis, land banking, infrastructure, green space and the environment, the starting point was an issue of local democracy. Namely, the fear that a Planning Bill could remove the rights of residents to comment on (let’s be honest, object to) individual applications. The white paper proposes a simplification of Local Plans to focus on identifying land under three categories: growth, renewal and protected. In “growth” areas outline approval would automatically be secured. In such a system, respondents could comment on the details of development, but any objections to principle would be shifted forward in the proces...