On Thursday 12 December the government announced new planning rules, which will allow developers to bypass elected local councillors and require councils to review greenbelt land.
Reacting to this, Daisy Cooper has called on the government to “stop ignoring local communities”, whilst also demanding that the government allow St Albans District Council (SADC) to immediately use their Draft Local Plan to shield against free-for-all development on green belt areas.
Daisy has criticised this new National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) for failing to recognise that the most effective way to deliver the right homes in the right places with the right infrastructure, is by having local communities on board.
Rather than hearing the voices of local communities and authorities best placed to know what developments are needed in their local area, today’s announcements show that the government are pursuing top-down planning targets “directed from Whitehall”.
Daisy has also criticised these announcements for failing to address the “root problem” underlying the housing crisis – a desperate lack of social housing – and is calling for the government to give local authorities the powers and resources to build 150,000 new social homes across the country, every year.
She has previously raised these concerns when responding to the government’s NPPF consultation earlier this year, and is disappointed that the government have not taken them on board.
This also follows Daisy’s recent letter to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, in which she highlighted that until SADC’s Draft Local Plan is approved by the government examiners, they could still have to fend off a tsunami of planning applications from developers wanting to build on precious green belt areas, which are earmarked to be protected in the Draft Plan.
She demanded that the government recognise the urgent need to grant SADC powers to stop this destruction of green belt land, by issuing a Ministerial statement to give the Draft Plan additional “weight” now.
This Draft Local Plan is already a landmark achievement after two failed attempts by previous Conservative administrations at St Albans district council, to deliver a successful plan – a move which could have prevented much of the damaging speculative development on unprotected green belt which we’ve seen in recent years.
As things stand, now that the St Albans Liberal Democrat administration has taken the Draft Local Plan to examination stage, the district is protected from the absurdly high new housing targets coming into effect for several more years.
This wouldn’t have been the case if the District Council had delayed the development of the Draft Local Plan as suggested by local Conservative and Green councillors who called for the development of the local plan to be paused.
Commenting on Thursday’s announcements on the NPPF, Daisy Cooper MP said:
“It’s so disappointing to see that this new government are following the same approach as the last Conservative government, by pursuing top-down whitehall imposed housing targets that don’t deliver the homes we really need and don’t protect the greenbelt.
“I have long-argued that we need a bottom-up approach that starts by identifying the homes we need to tackle the local housing crisis.
“The government should give local councils such as ours the powers and resources to build the social homes that will tackle years-long waiting lists, overcrowding and homelessness.
“The government should give local councils such as ours the powers to regulate the number and location of Air B&Bs so we can strike the right balance for our area between tourism and homes for long-term lets, to stop the scandal of young people and families being priced out of our area.
“And the government should be giving local councils such as ours the ability to demand that developers build infrastructure first or alongside new developments.
“None of that has been announced today. Instead we’ve had just more central government dictat that will ride roughshod over local people’s views.
“We Liberal Democrats know and understand that development should be done with communities, not ‘to them’.
“The government must recognise that our district council has moved heaven and earth to submit a Draft Local Plan ahead of this new framework being published, and give our community’s voice the weight it deserves in the planning system.
“The government must give St Albans District Council the ability to use its Draft Local Plan to shield our green belt from free-for-all development immediately – not at the end of the examination process.”
And in her recent letter to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, she said:
“I would urge you to issue a Ministerial statement – directing the Planning Inspector to give this Draft Local Plan more weight from the get-go – for two compelling reasons.
“First, the District Council has done everything possible to meet the new government’s earlier deadline, imposed by the draft National Planning Policy Framework changes published in July. It would be deeply unfair if the Council’s efforts to meet this earlier deadline were not recognised or reciprocated with similarly urgent action by the government.
“Second, we know that the government want to see a plan-led system and so does our council. But St Albans District Council is facing the prospect of a tsunami of planning applications from developers, trying to ‘get in under the wire’ by exploiting the period between the Draft Local Plan being submitted and approved.
“Developers and landowners have identified 355 separate greenbelt sites across our district on which they want to build – that’s a total of more than 57,000 homes they are seeking to build on our precious countryside. So I urge you to act so we can achieve that plan-led system.”
Including the following on the government’s broader planning reforms (through the NPPF):
“You will recall from my detailed consultation response in September this year, that I am firmly of the view that green belt should only be sacrificed for development where the homes built on it can be genuinely affordable social homes. I look forward to your response to that consultation, and sincerely hope that the government share my aspiration for a new generation of much needed social housing.
“However, as it stands under the Conservatives planning framework which is still in operation, there is no such distinction and the big developers are ready to take full advantage of that. Once adopted, this draft local plan for our area will finally protect our precious green belt from the years of Conservative failure to tackle these applications. But in the meantime, we need urgent action from you to ensure the policies in our draft plan are given significantly more weight. That would mean that developers could no longer ride roughshod over our local planning service and build in the green spaces our communities are so desperate to protect for future generations. And Planning Inspectors would no longer be forced to accept appeals.”