… “Zoning is certainly not a panacea for speed,” says Janet Askew, president of the Royal Town Planning Institute, whose research has focused on regulatory systems in planning. “It is an incredibly complex process, with zonal plans undergoing convoluted discussions before they are agreed. The fact that land is zoned for housing doesn’t mean it goes through the planning system more quickly aht all.”
To Askew, introducing a zonal system makes little sense, because once land has been designated for housing in a local plan (which goes through a statutory consultation process), it will almost certainly get permission. “It simply threatens to remove power from the local authorities to negotiate over the crucial details of a scheme, in terms of mitigating what impacts it could have on the area,” she adds. “It completely flies in the face of localism.”
Kate Henderson, chief executive of the Town and Country Planning Association, agrees, arguing that granting automatic planning permission for housing schemes would “undermine any possibility for making good quality places where people want to live.”
“Our real concern is if you can’t have a conversation about things like internal space standards, accessibility and green space, we’re really risking creating slums of the future,” she says. “We appreciate the government wants to speed things up, but it shouldn’t just be about quantity but quality. If planning is deregulated any further, we’ll end up with places that we’re going to regret building.” …”
…”“What we really need is to rebuild the planning service,” says Henderson. “It is demoralised, deregulated and poorly resourced, which makes it challenging to make decisions quickly and efficiently. Rather than imposing harsher penalties, it should be about investing in skills.”
By prioritising his abstract dream of productivity over the reality of making decent places to live, Osborne risks ushering in a new generation of poorly planned and hastily built housing that will bring none of the community benefits the planning system is there to provide. Instead of relentlessly chipping away at local authorities (as a distraction from addressing the real obstacles to housing supply) he should be strengthening planners’ ability to plan – not to mention lifting the borrowing cap, reviving affordable housing grants and stopping developers squatting on empty land for years.”
East Devon Watch 