Home > Press releases > 1998
16 Feb 1998
Roger Higman, FOE's Senior Planning Campaigner said today:
“Government plans for Regional Development Agencies are seriously
flawed. The new Agencies are being given sweeping powers to allow building
on common land,green belt and even National Parks. They will be accountable
neither to Parliament nor to local people.”
Amongst other things, the RDAs will take over the work of the development
agency English Partnerships. Last month, FOE attacked plans by English
Partnerships for a 90 hectare development in London's largest wetland
site, Rainham Marshes, part of a Site of Special Scientific Interest.
The planned development includes a petrol station, drive-through restaurant
and warehouses, using about £16m of public money. The site is home
to water voles and birds such as teal and redshank.
FOE fears that the RDAs will be used to achieve massive house building
targets at a regional level, without any local control, and without the
Environment Secretary being fully accountable for his actions to Parliament.
Only last week, Planning Minister Richard Caborn warned councils in the
South East of England that they could be forced to accept at least 100,000
new homes over their existing plans.
FOE is demanding amendments to the Bill to ensure that the RDAs can only
exercise their planning and land functions under guidance agreed between
local councils and central Government.
NOTES FOR EDITORS
[1] Key clauses in the Regional Development Agencies Bill have been attacked
for giving sweeping planning powers to new unelected quangos. The Bill
sets up nine Regional Development Agencies which will be run by Boards
of between 8 and 15 people appointed directly by the Environment Secretary.
Clause 20 of the Bill gives the RDAs powers to make compulsory purchases
of land to further their aims and objectives. These are defined elsewhere
in the Bill as “to further economic development ... promote business
efficiency ... (and) enhance the development and application of skills”.
Clauses 24 and 25 of the Bill also give the RDAs extensive powers over
planning policy in “any part of the area of a regional development
agency which, in the opinion of the Secretary of State, is suitable for
regeneration or development”. This is despite promises from Planning
Minister Richard Caborn (in the DETR paper“Modernising Planning”)
that “statutory planning at the regional level will have to await
a democratically accountable statutory body to undertake it”.
The Bill states explicitly that the purposes of RDAs apply as much
to rural as to urban parts of each area.
[2] Key land statistics
|
Common Land |
1.5 million acres in England and Wales. Examples include parts of Epping Forest, the Malvern Hills, the Forest of Dean, Wenlock Edge, the New Forest, and Hampstead Heath |
|
Green Belt |
15,557 sq km in England (1993), including 4,856 sq km around London |
|
Forest Cover |
2.5 million hectares in the UK (1995/6) |
|
SSSIs |
2.0 million hectares in Great Britain (1996) |
|
Land Changing to Urban Use |
5,500 hectares (1993) |
[All the above figures from DETR Digest of Environmental Statistics, 1997]
|
National Parks |
cover some 5.5% of the land mass of the United Kingdom. |
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