Localism

Memorandum from the Law Society (LOCO 060)

Localism

The Law Society is the representative body of over 100,000 solicitors in England and Wales. The Society negotiates on behalf of the profession and lobbies regulators, governments and others. This consultation response has been prepared by members of the Law Society's Planning & Environmental Law Committee. The Committee comprises 20 practitioners expert in these areas of law from a cross section of the profession, both public and private sectors, and from across the UK nations.

Localism is clearly going to affect many areas of life. These comments by the Law Society's Planning and Environmental Law Committee concentrate on its effect on planning decisions. Most regulatory environmental decisions are taken by the Environment Agency or by local authorities and we assume there are no plans to change that.

In planning, decisions have to be taken about use of land.  There is a balance to be made and the public interest has to be taken into account.  Inevitably, the more local one gets, the fewer people take the decision and they are more likely to be affected, positively or adversely.

It would be unrealistic to ignore the dislike most people feel about change, especially change to the local scene.  New supermarkets, housing, commercial development, wind farms, quarries and waste facilities generate huge opposition. In deciding whether to increase the localisation of decision making on such matters, the likelihood that objectivity and detachment would be lost should be carefully considered.  In the vernacular, "nimbyism" would be given a huge boost.  Increased refusals of planning applications are likely to increase the numbers of appeals to the Secretary of State. That would be counter-productive to localism as the decision would be taken by the Secretary of State or his planning inspectors, i.e. central government. So we would urge care in any further move to localise planning decisions.

For ease of reference, at present in England local planning authorities at district level take all planning decisions except in two tier-areas for mineral and waste planning (decided by Counties) and nationwide for nationally significant infrastructure projects (which are decided by the Infrastructure Planning Commission and under current plans when that is abolished by the Secretary of State). The position is the same in Wales except that there are no county planning authorities.

October 2010