Another member has written to Messers Betts, Pickles and Lewis expressing similar frustration.
“Dear Honourable Members
The NPPF is NOT working for local communities!
Further to the recent press release by the Communities & Local Government Select Committee on the operation of the NPPF I would like to draw your attention to further evidence that the NPPF is not protecting important local landscapes from inappropriate development and that Planning Officers appear to be ignoring sustainable planning principles outlined in the NPPF.
South Lakeland District Council (SLDC) planning officers regularly emphasise the ‘presumption in favour of development’ to their Planning Committee while failing to mention that all planning applications (even those for allocated sites in a Local Plan), must comply with core planning principles in the NPPF. These are outlined the NPPF (219 paragraphs) which also states (several times) that these sustainable planning principles are ‘material considerations’ when assessing planning applications.
At an SLDC Planning Committee meeting last December (attended by six out of 17 members), a planning application for a prime green field site, in the middle of Grange-over-Sands’ Conservation Areas, was granted. Committee members did not bother to discuss major infrastructure problems (drainage and roads), or the likely adverse impact on the town’s tourist economy. These problems had been raised at the meeting by local residents and Town Council representatives who also drew attention to the relevant paragraphs in the NPPF. No wonder people are losing faith in local planning procedures. This feels like a District Council dictatorship; not a local democracy.
We believe that District Councils are being ‘threatened’ with appeal cases by developers that they claim will be resolved in favour of granting planning permission. Also, we have evidence that our planning officers are also being pressurised into putting planning applications before the Planning Committee, due to perceived time constraints, even when the developer has not provided all the evidence needed to support their application such as an adequate flood risk assessment that considers the potential for flooding elsewhere.
We need more homes in areas where there are good employment prospects and good public transport links. We do not need them in areas with poor employment prospects, poor public transport links and inadequate infrastructure or where they will become second homes and have an adverse impact on Conservation Areas that are important to the local tourist economy.
I realise that you cannot do anything about specific issues raised above but I hope that the next Parliament will rectify some of the problems highlighted as a matter of urgency!
At the moment many of us do not know who to vote for at the next election because none of the main political parties have robust proposals for dealing with these serious planning inadequacies.
Yours sincerely”

We need to shout more loudly! Please demonstrate your frustration on 12 April.

Best wishes
Julie

Chairman of CoVoP
admin@covop.org