This localism bill will sacrifice our countryside to market forces

The government's 'sustainable' new planning policy invites corruption and will sink us in urban sprawl


Simon Jenkins
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 28 July 2011 21.00 BST


With parliament in recess the government this week sneaked out the most astonishing change to the face of England in half a century. A "national planning policy framework" replaces all previous regulation and encourages building wherever the market takes it, crucially in the two-thirds of rural England outside national parks, green belts and areas of outstanding natural beauty. Farms, forests, hills, valleys, estuaries and coasts will be at the mercy of a "presumption in favour of sustainable development". The "default response" to any planning application is to be "yes".

The word sustainable should never appear in an act of parliament. It is a weasel word, an adjective not qualifying a noun but lightly dusting it with vague political approval. Sustainability is the sort of Blairism that gave us downsizing for sacking and humanitarian intervention for war. The only sustainable meadow is a meadow. Sustainable development is a contradiction in terms. It means development.

The localism bill now before parliament is a straight developers' ramp. Drafted by the local government secretary, Eric Pickles, and the business secretary, Vince Cable, it stresses business and "national economic policy" over conservation at every turn. It is the outcome of intense lobbying by the construction industry. Pickles and Cable are mere purveyors of building plots to the capitalist classes. The words development and business occur in the bill 340 times, the word countryside just four.

The bill and addendum breach the core principle of planning, that the long-term use of land, the scarcest of resources, should take precedence over an owner's right to profit. That is why there are no bungalows on the white cliffs of Dover and no wind farms on the Chilterns. It is why, when you look out over the Severn valley, you do not see Bristol merged with Gloucester.

Great champions of the countryside, such as Octavia Hill, Oliver Rackham, Clough Williams-Ellis and Marion Shoard, sought a regime in which rural England kept its head above the tide of urbanisation. Protection was embodied in the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act and a presumption, given the irreversibility of urbanisation, against building on green land.

I have read parliamentary bills all my life, but the localism one is the most wretched capitulation to a single lobby I know. It is a junk heap of cliche. It asserts that building must be allowable "for prosperity … for people … and for places". It need only be economically, socially or environmentally sustainable – "components to be pursued in an integrated way, looking for solutions which deliver multiple goals", whatever that means. Development need only show it is "planned and undertaken responsibly". There is no definition of "responsibly". Such vagueness puts every rural acre in play as "worth a try".

Planning, once proudly independent, is now effectively an arm of Cable's department. It is told that it "must not act as an impediment to growth". This stands on its head the purpose of planning, which is to guard the public interest irrespective of market forces. Its whole point is to be an impediment.

Under the bill the old upper-tier regional targets and spatial strategies are scrapped, with local authorities to write new ones based on what "local people" want. These are to be guided by parish councils and "business forums". The latter can be any group of 21 people who "live or work" locally. These shadowy, self-selected people are charged not with ascertaining local opinion, but with allocating plots for building and even promoting "more development than is set out in the local plan". In particular they must help "deliver" a 20% increase in land available for housing.

Should a neighbourhood be so reckless as to want to protect its environment, the planning authority is obligated to "meet local development needs" with "sufficient flexibility to respond to rapid shifts in demand". This confusion of need and demand is an elementary economic howler.

Worse follows. Half the councils in England have no strategy plans at all. In this case, planning approval is to be assumed. It is also to be assumed "wherever the plan is silent, indeterminate or where relevant policies are out of date", a stunning Orwellian phrase.

This bill is philistine, an abuse of local democracy and an invitation to corruption. Its impact statement accepts that local electors may "resist development proposals that are not in line with their aspirations", in other words they may opt for conservation. Yet when developers appeal, inspectors are told that their duty is to concede on grounds of overriding national policy. The bias is shameless.

Two groups, apart from developers, will benefit. One is planning lawyers, who will be rubbing their hands in glee and saluting St Eric and St Vincent. The other will be a new army of "Swampies", who will defend rural England with the same anarchy as Pickles is attacking it. With the countryside facing a return to the ribbon-and-sprawl of the 1930s, litigation and direct action will be conservation's only defence.

There is no argument that planning is too slow. That does not justify throwing out baby, bath water and all. There is no evidence that a shortage of green land is impeding growth. House-builders and hypermarkets already hold large land banks. There is no "need" to build on green-field sites anywhere in Britain. There is merely a "demand" from those wishing to profit from it.

There is now probably more developable land left over from manufacture and lying unused in England than ever in history. It is mostly serviced, with infrastructure, housing, schools and a working population to hand. By definition it is more sustainable than virgin countryside. It is there that planning should direct development.

Countryside needs no sentimental defence. Most Britons find it beautiful and want it preserved. When the Chipping Norton set see what they have unleashed on their rolling acres they will doubtless be appalled. But we are back to the NHS, forests and student fees, to ministers in a hurry being exploited by lobbyists on the make.

This time it really matters. For the unprotected countryside to become the lasting victim of the credit crunch is tragic. Vince Cable last week patronised America for being in thrall to "a few rightwing nutters". So is he.

This localism bill will sacrifice our countryside to market forces | Simon Jenkins | Comment is free | The Guardian

I think I am pretty much in agreement with the author in the sense that I, too, would like things to look pristine and nice in the future...

OTOH,

"It need only be economically, socially or environmentally sustainable – "components to be pursued in an integrated way, looking for solutions which deliver multiple goals", whatever that means."

No. It means something. Whether it's only weasel words on a paper to hide some construction spree is a different question. The author might have his own ideas about that (and so do I - although I think the Conservatives might be torn between their desires to satisfy a construction lobby and the risk of alienating rural voters they depend on...) but it doesn't mean that the words means nothing...

"There is no argument that planning is too slow. That does not justify throwing out baby, bath water and all. There is no evidence that a shortage of green land is impeding growth. House-builders and hypermarkets already hold large land banks. There is no "need" to build on green-field sites anywhere in Britain".

I'll have to trust the author to know more about British land related topics than I do. All I can say is that, in London, prices for housing keep going up and up. Clearly, the supply is not keeping pace with the demand...

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Originally Posted by Gilles de Rais

No. It means something. Whether it's only weasel words on a paper to hide some construction spree is a different question. The author might have his own ideas about that (and so do I - although I think the Conservatives might be torn between their desires to satisfy a construction lobby and the risk of alienating rural voters they depend on...) but it doesn't mean that the words means nothing...

A generous assumption. I think a lot of management-speak is designed to mean nothing, so nobody can be held responsible for anything.

Quote:

Clearly, the supply is not keeping pace with the demand...

Yes but he was talkking about greenfield land. There is quite a lot of brownfield that is not developed becuase it is more expensive.

Originally Posted by contracycle

A generous assumption. I think a lot of management-speak is designed to mean nothing, so nobody can be held responsible for anything.

Oh, I don't doubt that they put 'sustainable' in there just to make it look okay but haven't got the first clue about how to do things in a 'sustainable' fashion nor even the intention to try.

But it's like any compliance issue - it's either dead words on paper or it's actual practices that keep the spirit of the regulations intact rather than just its letter...

Quote:

Yes but he was talkking about greenfield land. There is quite a lot of brownfield that is not developed becuase it is more expensive.

I was just pointing out that I think that, in London at least, we might need a new strategy for building more stuff. I certainly would favour brownfield re-development in many London areas. Wholes areas (such as East End or the area around King's Cross) could do with getting newer and somewhat taller buildings than what they have now... Not every bits of London have historical value. Not to mention that that never stopped the English before... I am still amazed at them okaying the Gherkin in the middle of the City... And it's not the only bizarroid thing - The Barbican center surrounding several antique churches... All those things look like weird choices to me. But hey, whatever. The point then is that, surely, the buildings in zone 2 could be built higher too...

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Originally Posted by Gilles de Rais

But it's like any compliance issue - it's either dead words on paper or it's actual practices that keep the spirit of the regulations intact rather than just its letter...

Well it's only a compliance issue if the words actually mean something in the first place, which is not IMO necessarily the case, or if there some bona fide intention, which I'm pretty sure is not the case.

Even assuming this verbiage is actually meant to mean something, I suspect it's just greenwash; a vaguely friendly-sounding bunch of bollocks which in practice is going to mean cementing over the greenbelt.

Quote:

I was just pointing out that I think that, in London at least, we might need a new strategy for building more stuff. I certainly would favour brownfield re-development in many London areas.

So would I, but developers don't. Brownfield usually has to be cleared, and sometimes has to be decontaminated from the residues of previous usage, and just isn't as pretty as greenfield sites. So there is constant pressue to undercut the protections given to greenfield, and the stuff cited in the OP seems to pretty comprehensively do that. Which will have a negative effect beyond just urban sprawl, because mostly what will get built on greenfield is pretty high-end commuter residences, rather than the affordable housing that the city needs.

Agreed on the greenwash aspect of the thing. My only point was that it CAN mean something. If they wanted it to.

As to the greenfield stuff and commuter community - London isn't the USA. I don't think people will accept as easily spending 1h-1h30 in their cars, morning and evening to go to work and come back...

However, while I would prefer all kind of developments to take place in bits of zone 1 & 2, the reality is also that whatever bring prices down (and increasing supply at the higher end of the market will do that) will bring prices down for everyone. Supply is supply and things will redistribute themselves.

In Paris, at some point, studios and T1 were rare and commanded a premium (they might still). However, as a consequence (and also after the success of "Friends"), people have started flat-sharing. It didn't use to happen... and I think studios lost a chunk of their premium as a consequence. Gated communities while less than ideal for London could still do some good... Demand does adapt to Supply.

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Lots of people already commute long hours, but more by train than car. I've had a 1h15 each way myself, and plenty more have similar, given prices in London. Again, I'm not arguing against increading the supply - I'm arguing aginst the cynical dismantling of greenbelt protections.