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Government "to hand planning system over to the private sector"

Jul 18 2005

Commenting on the Government's consultation paper, The Planning for Housing Provision, launched today, Friends of the Earth's Planning Advisor, Hugh Ellis, said:

"These plans mark the end of any attempt by the Government to deliver socially and environmentally responsible housing and totally ignore the need for sustainable economic development across the whole of the UK.

"The Government is intent on dismantling the democratic planning system and handing it over to the private sector in the mistaken belief that it has all the answers and that over-developing the south and east is the only way to grow the UK's economy.If people are ignored in vital decisions about the future of their own communities, then I'm sure we'll see widespread protest."

"The market will drive where new housing is built. This will result in a vast expansion of housing in areas of high demand such as southern and eastern England and continued decline and abandonment in northern communities. These proposals will have a potentially disastrous impact on the environment in areas like the south east where water resources are already scarce, air quality is poor, the strain on roads and railways is already apparent and the market led housing system has failed to provide affordable homes.

"The real priority is to provide truly affordable social housing across the country and to deal with the root causes of large scale abandonment of homes in the north."

The environmental campaign group believes that the recommendations are specifically designed to marginalise community participation in decisions about how much housing is provided and its location.

Regional Assemblies in England will decide the housing figures based on market information and this will be imposed on local authorities, who will have to `early release' their land if the private sector demands it. There will be no formal right for the community to object to this early release process and there will be no right for the public to be heard in the regional plan.

Notes

In summary the Government's proposals will:

• Result in price driven planning decisions, so based on market forces with the loss of democratic safeguards and rights of local people to meaningfully participate in the planning system.

• Undermine the Government's own Sustainable Communities Plan: The Government is already committed to focused growth in four areas in the south and east England. Some of these areas are controversial in themselves but the new system of planning for housing would mean a large scale expansion of growth beyond these areas. This undermines the logic of focusing development which can be better serviced by transport and social infrastructure.

• Abandon the 60 per cent brownfield site target. The new planning mechanism will lead to such a large-scale expansion of housing development in high demand areas that the Government will have to relax the brownfield target. Meeting affordability targets means no upward limit on housing numbers in areas of high demand. While there is ample brownfield site for development in many areas needing regeneration it is unlikely that there will be sufficient supply in areas of high demand.

• Deepen national and regional inequalities, so that areas of existing decline in many northern and western communities would be exacerbated as a result of focusing growth on growth.

• Have major environmental impacts. We are already seeing concerns in some regions about pressure on water, biodiversity and air quality and where the effects on other environmental limits are poorly researched.

• Fail to address social housing - the report does not offer any detailed new solutions to aid those people who are in the greatest housing need.

• Be technically unworkable, as trying to establish meaningful and effective national and regional affordability targets is extremely complex because of the varied and localised nature of housing markets and because affordability in the open market does not equate to affordability to meet social housing need.

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