2 The case for reform
7. The Coalition Agreement set out the Government's
intention to publish a "simple and consolidated national
planning framework". It also pledged to build on the principles
of the Conservative Party publication Open Source Planning
by giving neighbourhoods "far more ability to determine
the shape of the places in which their inhabitants live",
and to create a presumption in favour of sustainable development
in the planning system.[13]
The latter was set out in the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
section of the Coalition Agreement, but more detail on the planning
reforms was later provided in a joint Treasury and Department
for Business, Innovation & Skills publication, The
Plan for Growth, in March 2011. In this document, the new
presumption was described as "powerful [...] so that the
default answer to development is 'yes'". The National Planning
Policy Framework would be "inherently pro-growth", and
the Government wished to "set clear expectations that with
immediate effect local planning authorities and other bodies involved
in granting development consents should prioritise growth and
jobs".[14]
8. The presentation of the NPPF as "inherently
pro-growth" led the National Trust to comment that
the Government appears to be fundamentally changing
the purpose of the planning system. We are particularly concerned
that in doing this the fundamental principles of maintaining a
balanced planning system whereby no public benefit is given weight
over another is under threat.[15]
9. In a debate in the House on the NPPF on 20 October
2011 the Minister, Greg Clark, sought to reassure that:
it is not our intention to change the purpose
of the planning system. There has been some suggestion that the
proposals represent a fundamental change in what the system is
about, but they do not. They will, quite rightly, balance the
environmental, the social and the economic, and there is no change
in that regard.[16]
10. We asked the Minister to outline in oral evidence
to us the Government's intentions in reforming the planning system;
his response was couched in terms of localism and transferring
power to communities, and did not refer to economic growth. He
spoke of the need to change the current system because it was
"very centralised and very top-down in its impositions"
which "can have the effect of alienating people from the
process."[17] Community
engagement in the process of producing Local Plans would be promoted,
in his view, by a much simpler policy framework, and the ultimate
aim was for "decisions to be taken locally."[18]
We will examine further the implications of the Government's localist
ambitions in Chapter 6.
11. RTPI Chief Executive Trudi Elliott warned that
"it is unwise to talk about the costs of planning without
also talking about the benefits of planning to the economy".[19]
These include what Adrian Penfold, author of the 2010 Penfold
Review of Non-Planning Consents, referred to as "the abattoir
effect"—the certainty the planning system gives to
developers that, having made an investment, they will not see
it devalued by, for example, planning permission being granted
for an abattoir next to their residential or office development.[20]
'Place-shaping' is also a valuable process: although restrictions
on erecting tall buildings across Westminster incurs an indirect
cost on businesses which might have wished to occupy such buildings,
nonetheless there is a more general benefit in Westminster not
being an area of dense high-rise development.[21]
12. We received much anecdotal evidence as to whether
the planning system is currently an obstacle to growth or whether
other factors are more important in slowing the economy and curtailing
the level of house building. There were different views as to
whether any problems that did exist with the planning system were
more to do with process than policy or guidance. We found no conclusive
research, however, that planning policy or guidance is a particular
constraint on economic development. For the purpose of this Report
we have chosen to concentrate on the specific content of the draft
NPPF, rather than the rationale for its production. The costs
and benefits of the planning system are an issue which should
be the subject of further independent research and is one which
the Committee may wish to return to at a future date.
13.
13 HM Government, The Coalition: our programme for
government, May 2010, pp 11, 18 Back
14
HM Treasury and Department for Business, Innovation and Skills,
The Plan for Growth, March 2011, para 1.34 Back
15
Ev 108 Back
16
HC Deb, 20 October 2011, col 1082 Back
17
Q 304 Back
18
Q 306 Back
19
Q 273 Back
20
Q 274 Back
21
As above Back
|
