In particular, the target that all planning applications should be determined within 13 weeks – something we have had rather a lot of trouble with in East Devon when contentious planning applications have been rushed through with the excuse that the target must be met:

http://www.lgcplus.com/briefings/planning-performance-targets-may-be-driving-perverse-behaviour/5070872.article

Full article from today’s Daily Mail (link at the end of the article)

The countryside could be swamped with thousands of unwanted homes under new planning laws, a minister warned yesterday.  In an outspoken attack, Ed Vaizey says his own government’s ‘presumption in favour of development’ is artificially raising estimates of housing demand.  In a letter to planning minister Nick Boles, the culture minister lays bare Tory fears that the coalition’s decision to tear up planning laws risks alienating traditional supporters and costing votes.

Mr Vaizey, who is one of David Cameron’s closest allies, says the projected levels of housing need in parts of the countryside – including his own Oxfordshire constituency – are up to three times the true figure.  He warns this has ‘significant consequences for many local communities which are now faced with levels of growth that will fundamentally change the nature of settlements’.  He calls for an ‘urgent review of the planning methodology that leads to such massive numbers of homes being planned, so that more realistic outcomes result’.  He says councils are being forced to earmark more and more land for housing or risk falling foul of the development presumption that leaves them little power to block projects they think excessive.

In his reply, Mr Boles defended the push for new housing, saying: ‘One of the key constraints that is affecting growth in some of our most prosperous and dynamic regions are high house prices and affordability. I am sure you will agree this is something we are all working hard to change.’  And he suggested that Mr Vaizey had got some of his facts wrong. He said the new assessment of housing need ‘did not automatically invalidate’ local housing plans and confirmed building on the green belt should be allowed only in exceptional circumstances.

Mr Boles said Oxfordshire should consider creating a new garden city if local communities were unhappy with the idea of expanding existing developments.  Mr Vaizey had warned that the lax rules around infrastructure meant that developers often delivered vital services such as roads and schools years after the houses are built.

The result, he says, is that ‘new and existing residents suffer a severe decline in services for a number of years’. Mr Vaizey’s comments are focused on the situation in Oxfordshire, where there is controversy over official projections that the county needs 100,000 new homes.  He says demographic trends in his own district of the county, the Vale of the White Horse, suggest an extra 468 homes a year are needed. But the ‘national methodology’ has produced a figure up to three times higher.

Four local councils in Oxfordshire have raised concerns about the plans. These include West Oxfordshire, which is run by Mr Cameron’s election agent Barry Norton.  Mr Norton said official housing projections were wrong and were likely to be challenged by the council.

The Prime Minister this week defended the planning changes, and said the result was that ‘planning applications are going up, house building is going up – a 23 per cent increase in houses built’.  He said the planning system was locally driven, and denied claims that Tory councils were blocking housing developments.  He added: ‘We’ve been building in West Oxfordshire more houses than was actually set out under our plan. I don’t accept that all these councils are nimbys.’