Eddisbury News

Stephen O’Brien backs “open source” planning to help local people shape the future of our towns & villages.

Local MP backs radical new policies to make the planning system in Cheshire more responsive and accountable to local people

Eddisbury MP & Shadow Health Minister, Stephen O’Brien has welcomed radical new policies from Conservatives to reform England’s ‘broken’ planning system. A new system of ‘Open Source’ democracy and neighbourhood involvement will help deliver sustainable development across Eddisbury and Cheshire. Whitehall targets and unelected quangos will be scrapped and replaced with partnership working and new rules to incentivise and reward the creation of new jobs and sustainable housing in our area.

This comes as a official Government survey shows that only 1 in 3 people think they can influence the decision making process in their area, and just 1 in 5 people think they can influence national decisions.

Stephen O’Brien said: “Labour’s planning system is a source of immense frustration and concern for many residents and councillors across Eddisbury and Cheshire. The Government’s planning rules have become too complex with many decisions on local planning issues being taken by unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats, who all too often ignore the concerns and views of local residents.

“This bold Conservative vision will breathe new life into the planning system in our area and will put Eddisbury’s and Cheshire’s residents firmly in the driving seat to help shape our communities, transferring power from Whitehall bureaucrats and Labour’s unelected regional quangos. This will help deliver new jobs and sustainable planning for Eddisbury and Cheshire, whilst championing local democracy and protecting our small towns and villages.”

Under a new policy initiative, entitled Open Source Planning, Conservatives will:

• Abolish the undemocratic and ineffective tier of regional planning overseen by unelected quangos, including the scrapping of the unaccountable and distant North West Regional Assembly. This will allow locally elected councillors to make decisions on wind turbines, traveller sites and new housing developments, safe in the knowledge that - as long as it complies with their local plan - a Government Inspector or Whitehall bureaucrat will not overturn their decision.

• Use collaborative democracy to allow local communities to create ‘bottom-up’ local plans, helping Eddisbury’s residents shape and protect the character of their neighbourhoods.

• Tackle the scourge of ‘garden grabbing’ and over-development in residential areas, giving Cheshire West and Chester and Cheshire East Council new powers to protect the character of neighbourhoods in our area.

• Reward local councils and communities through incentives for the building of new homes and businesses, in contrast to the current regime where the Government grabs back the money generated by new housing and commercial developments.

• Maintain and enhance Green Belt protection, as well as, special protections for wildlife and the countryside, whilst allowing sustainable development elsewhere – as long as it is in accordance with the local plan.

• Use new local infrastructure blueprints to coordinate strategic matters crossing boundaries, with a new duty on public authorities – including the Highways Agency and Network Rail – to cooperate with both Cheshire West and Chester Council and Cheshire East Council.

• Abolish Labour’s new unelected and unaccountable central planning quango – the Infrastructure Planning Commission, whilst retaining a fast-track process to avoid planning inquiries dragging on for years, as well as, providing Members of Parliament with a new role to vote on and ratify national planning policy.

• Increase council and police powers to tackle unauthorised traveller sites and illegal trespass.

• A common sense Change to Whitehall’s restrictive parking rules to ensure more parking spaces are provided in family homes and near local shops, taking the pressure off crowded residential streets.

Notes:

PEOPLE CAN’T INFLUENCE DECISIONS

According to the Government’s own survey, just 35 per cent of people think that they can influence decisions in their local area and only 18 per cent of people feel they can influence national decisions; both figures have fallen since 2001 (the base year) (DCLG, Citizenship Survey, October 2009, p.2).

http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/corporate/statistics/citizenshipsurveyq1200910

OPEN SOURCE PLANNING

Conservatives have published their planning policy paper, Open Source Planning.

http://www.tinyurl.com/opensourceplanning

Its proposals include:

Create a new system of collaborative planning

• Give local people the power to engage in genuine local planning through collaborative democracy – designing a local plan from the “bottom up”, starting with the aspirations of neighbourhoods.

• Encourage upper-tier authorities (e.g. county councils and unitary authorities), which are responsible for infrastructure such as waste, roads etc, to compile local infrastructure plans.

• Give all local planning authorities and other public authorities a duty to co-operate so that there is a sensible conversation between all those involved in shaping neighbourhoods and the landscape.

Eliminate large amounts of unnecessary bureaucracy

• Abolish the entire bureaucratic and undemocratic tier of regional planning in England outside London, including the Regional Spatial Strategies and national and regional building targets.

• Amend the Use Classes Order so that people can use land and buildings for any purpose allowed in the local plan.

• Abolish the power of planning inspectors to rewrite local plans – so long as they comply with national standards are sensibly related to neighbouring communities, and have been developed by a fair and proper process, they will be approved.

• Limit appeals against local planning decisions (such decisions will be challengeable by developers or local residents only if they involve abuse of process or failure to apply the local plan).

• Change Whitehall’s restrictive parking rules to ensure more parking spaces in family homes and near local shops.

An open and responsive system

• Establish a presumption in favour of sustainable development: the presumption will be that individuals and businesses have the right to build homes and other local buildings provided that they conform to national environmental, architectural, economic and social standards, conform with the local plan, and pay a tariff that compensates the community for loss of amenity and costs of additional infrastructure.

• Ensure that significant local projects have to be designed through a collaborative process that has involved the neighbourhood.

• Give immediate neighbours a new role – with a faster approvals process for planning applications to which a significant majority of the immediate residential neighbours raise no objection. This will give developers an incentive either to design buildings in ways that do not adversely affect immediate neighbours (perhaps by involving immediate neighbours in designing these new buildings), or to reach voluntary agreements that recompense immediate neighbours for any loss of amenity.

• Increase councils and the police’s ability to tackle illegal development, trespass and unauthorised sites.

• Give councils stronger powers to tackle garden grabbing and over-development in residential neighbourhoods.

Infrastructure of national significance

• Abolish the unelected Infrastructure Planning Commission whilst retaining its expertise and fast-track process within government.

• Use private or hybrid Bills to promote very major linear projects like high-speed rail – ensuring a proper Parliamentary process.

• Ensure that all other major infrastructure projects like power stations: are considered at planning inquiries which have binding timetables, and which are governed by the national planning framework (see below), so that they focus on planning issues and are not held up by discussions of wider policy such as the desirability or otherwise of types of power generation; but are given final planning permission by a democratically accountable Minister, informed by the conclusions of the inquiry, with the decision subject to a specific time limit.

• Provide transitional arrangements for projects already before the Infrastructure Planning Commission to ensure that these projects are not disrupted or delayed.

Democratic national planning guidance

• Publish and present to Parliament for debate a consolidated national planning framework, which will set out national economic and environmental priorities, and how the planning system will deliver them.

• Issue a reduced number of simplified guidance notes, setting out minimum environmental, architectural, design, economic and social standards for sustainable development.

• Maintain national Green Belt protection, Areas of Outstanding Nature Beauty, National Parks, Sites of Special Scientific Interest and other environmental designations which protect the character of our country’s landscape, stop unsustainable urban sprawl and preserve wildlife.