SHAKE UP OF THE PLANNING SYSTEM COULD HAVE BIG EFFECTS IN YOUR AREA OF KENT!
Published: 20-05-2010
Gemma Watts, PR & Events Manager, Protect Kent
20 May 2010
The new coalition Government has this morning announced changes they plan to make to the planning system. Here is Protect Kent’s view on how this may affect us in Kent.
"We will rapidly abolish Regional Spatial Strategies and return decision-making powers on housing and planning to local councils, including giving councils new powers to stop ‘garden grabbing’."
Getting rid of the South East Plan will remove a lot of housing targets across Kent, but could undermine regeneration efforts in places like Ashford, Dover, Sittingbourne and Dartford.
Protect Kent feels the good news is that it will take away the policy support for railfreight depots like KIG - too late to affect KIG, but will hopefully kill off the BIG freight depot proposed for Wrotham, Platt and Borough Green.
'Garden Grabbing' has been a bane in West Kent in particular where gardens have been sold off and packed with houses and even apartment blocks.
"In the longer term, we will radically reform the planning system to give neighbourhoods far more ability to determine the shape of the places in which their inhabitants live, based on the principles set out in the Conservative Party publication ‘Open Source Planning’."
It will be interesting to see how this pans out. It could be good, it could be chaos. The devil will be in the detail. The uncertainty that all this will cause will slow down a lot of planning processes.
"We will abolish the unelected Infrastructure Planning Commission and replace it with an efficient and democratically accountable system that provides a fast-track process for major infrastructure projects."
Victory! (sort of). Protect Kent campaigned vociferously against the IPC. However, the Conservative plans before the election were to just give it a new. We still need to keep a close eye on how this develops.
"We will publish and present to Parliament a simple and consolidated national planning framework covering all forms of development and setting out national economic, environmental and social priorities."
This sounds great but we are concerned it could turn out to be slightly more complicated. We do, however, fully support the next point:
"We will maintain the Green Belt, Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) and other environmental protections, and create a new designation – similar to SSSIs – to protect green areas of particular importance to local communities."
"We will explore a range of measures to bring empty homes into use."
Protect Kent feels this is a very good thing. A big chunk of the housing shortage could be addressed by bring back into use the tens of thousands of houses that are lying empty. Unfortunately the next point is not as good as it could be very damaging:
"We will promote ‘Home on the Farm’ schemes that encourage farmers to convert existing buildings into affordable housing."
"We will create new trusts that will make it simpler for communities to provide homes for local people."
This sounds good, but the detail may create more problems than it solves.
"We will introduce new powers to help communities save local facilities and services threatened with closure, and give communities the right to bid to take over local state-run services."
This also sounds good. Post Office closures and similar have caused a lot of problems in rural communities in Kent and increased car-dependence.
"We will require continuous improvements to the energy efficiency of new housing."
Protect Kent questions exactly what this means. Either increasing building standards over time or that once built new houses should become more energy efficient? The below point is equally as vague and could mean incentives for inappropriate development:
"We will provide incentives for local authorities to deliver sustainable development, including for new homes and businesses."
-Ends-
Associated Districts
- Swale
- Sevenoaks
- Shepway
- Thanet
- Tonbridge and Malling
- Tunbridge Wells
- Maidstone
- Canterbury
- Ashford
- Dover
- Dartford and Gravesham
- Medway