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The Government’s draft planning policy sides with developers against all other interests

Building houses on greenfield sites. Suburban sprawl: a builder carries a hod of bricks on a new estate at Lee in Hampshire Photo: Alamy

7:00AM BST 01 Sep 2011

SIR – Ed Howker is right to say that Britain has too few homes for sale (Comment, August 31). And you report the belief of Greg Clark, the Planning Minister, that when the state gets out of the way, ordinary people will choose to do what’s in the interests of the country and support more house building (Interview, August 27).

That was the promise of the Government’s localism agenda. But localism has been got at by the Treasury, and the state is not going to get out of the way. Rather, if Mr Clark’s National Planning Policy Framework is implemented, local authorities will be required to favour economic development. Far from getting out of the way, the state is siding with developers against all other interests.

The country needs more new homes. But the Government has chosen to swap one form of imposition – Labour’s top-down housing targets – for another, in which development is pushed through without proper respect for places or the people who love them.

Planning liberalisation is being promoted by the Treasury in the belief that it will aid economic growth. There is no evidence for this. The European countries with weak planning controls are performing less well than those such as Germany with strong controls.

But the battle over planning will not be resolved by Greg Clark. The Prime Minister will have to decide whether he wants to get involved, and whether he wants a planning system that serves the overall public interest or one that is skewed in favour of short-term economic interests.


Shaun Spiers
Campaign to Protect Rural England
London SE1

SIR – As past presidents of the Royal Town Planning Institute, this is the first time in more than 50 years that so many of us have come together to sign a public letter. The current debate in the media about planning reform, with claim and counter claim, highlights the importance of planning for economic growth, building communities and the conservation of our cherished spaces and places.

However, this debate has now descended into open hostility on all sides, with each party interpreting the same policy in very different ways.

The government also wants to bring in a new system almost overnight, reflecting the urgency of delivering localism and stimulating both housing and economic growth.

While we recognise this urgency and support the government’s overall objectives, the unintended consequences of this haste are greater confusion, uncertainty for the development industry and anxiety for communities.

Good planning is also about the long, as well as the short term.

What we need is a reasoned debate and clear thinking on managing this major change.

As the voice of the professionals, in the public, private and voluntary sectors, who will be charged with making any new system work, the RTPI stands ready to bring the parties together to address the confusion and to resolve the conflict.

Martin Willey
Janet O’Neill
Clive Harridge
Ron Tate
Professor Vincent Goodstadt
Mike Haslam
Nick Davies
Brian Raggett
Trevor Roberts
Tony Struthers
Jed Griffiths
Hazel McKay
Martin Bradshaw
Professor Peter Fidler
Robin Thompson
Chris Shepley
Stephen Byrne
John Anderson
Andrew Thorburn
Ewart Parkinson
Professor Graham Ashworth
The Royal Town Planning Institute
London EC3

SIR – Our Government seems to believe that its planning reforms will lead to more democratic and satisfactory planning decisions.

Human nature and village life being what they are, the reforms are more likely to open the door to corruption and coercion, which will take advantage of inertia and greed in communities. We will end up with smart, suburban, unaffordable houses all over our green fields.

Planning laws were not perfect, but they were better than the law of the jungle. I suppose it’s too much to expect Westminster and Whitehall to know anything about the rural jungle.

Charles Keen
Duntisbourne Rouse, Gloucestershire

SIR – All the discussions regarding loosening of planning regulations fail to acknowledge one truth: all planning regulations, no matter how restrictive, are prejudiced in favour of developers.

Developers can present proposals time and time again, with only minor amendments each time. They have only to win their argument for approval once, no matter how strong the opposition.

Opponents have to win every time. Once approval is won, development can take place. There is never another opportunity for the opponents to apply to have the development demolished and the original site reinstated.

Tony Sturley
Peacehaven, East Sussex

SIR – Now that we are to have planning “presumptions” in favour of building and wind farm development (report, August 29), could I propose a rival presumption in favour of the preservation of our beautiful countryside?

Tim Deane
Tisbury, Wiltshire

SIR – I would like to add Chippenham to Susan Johnson’s list of towns that do not want or need large-scale housing development (Letters, August 29).

Wiltshire Council is pushing for another 3,500 houses (current population about 38,000), most of them to be built on farmland. In a recent high-street poll taken, only two out of 120 residents said they wanted the houses.

Norman Hartnell
Chippenham, Wiltshire

SIR – Our countryside is under attack from developers, our school playing fields have been sold off for housing, our villages are set to have their carefully crafted local planning overthrown by government diktat. Now Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary, has a cunning plan – to protect and indeed add to our stock of bowling greens (report, August 30). I feel deeply reassured.

David R. Lewis
Purley, Surrey

