PLANNING
Make planning simple! Says Decentralisation Minister Greg Clark. T
he French have an admirable phrase, “why make it complicated when you can make it simple?” That sentiment would not have found much favour with my
predecessors. Last year when I began to rethink national planning policy, I asked for copies of the existing policy. It had to be carried into my office in boxes. I could immediately see that this gave
rise to two problems: Firstly, only a planning specialist could possibly be familiar with it all. This makes a nonsense of a planning system that was intended to make local communities, not planning lawyers, the people who make the important decisions. Secondly, the more words that were added, the less clear it became in terms of what national planning policy was actually trying to do. The new draft National Planning Policy
Framework published for consultation addresses both problems. It reduces over 1,000 pages of documentation to just 52 - anyone interested in planning can now be fully familiar with national policy.
Just as importantly, the purpose of the planning framework is now plain for all to see. It is to help achieve sustainable development. We need to be clear-sighted about the need for growth. We need more houses: for young people; for families; and for older people living – thankfully – longer than they ever have before. It may be convenient to imagine that our population is stable or shrinking, but this is just plain wrong – the fact is that our population is growing. And yet, under the last Government, the number of new homes built fell to a lower level than in any year in our peacetime history since 1924, when
We need more houses:
for young people, for families and for older people...’
our population was only three-quarters of what it is now. To fail to provide the houses we need is to condemn today’s young people and their children to overcrowding, homelessness and poverty driven by soaring rents and house prices. No progressive should have any truck with a course of such cynical selfishness. The same is true of growth in the
commercial economy. Growth, that is to say, jobs and wages for people, doesn’t happen in the abstract. It happens in particular places. And almost every one of those places requires new buildings and new infrastructure to support it. To be against new buildings and new infrastructure is to be against growth, which is in turn to be in favour of people becoming poorer than they are today. There is no reason why growth should
mean ugliness. It can and should improve our physical environment. Anyone who thinks otherwise should tour our great cities, towns and villages and consider the diminished place that Britain would be if our forebears had been adamant in their opposition to new development.
Achieving sustainable
development is the plan.
PROPERTYdrum SEPTEMBER 2011 15
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69