The Campaign to Protect Rural England has responded to the Government’s proposed changes to the Planning System.
CPRE believes that planning is crucial to empowering local communities and making
sustainable, liveable places. Ensuring everyone has a decent home, that meets their needs
and that they can afford, is essential to that, both in town and country. Equally, it is vital
that new development is planned intelligently; our countryside is precious and fragile and
urgently needs better management in the face of the climate and nature emergencies.
Critical to this is that land is not lost to development unnecessarily. More new homes are
undeniably needed, and there is plenty of scope to use previously developed urban land
to help address this need.
It is their view, however, that the proposals will mainly hinder these aims, principally
through their reliance on centralised prescription and formulae instead of on judgement
and local evidence. They state that the consultation itself is symptomatic of Government’s apparent reluctance for meaningful input. It asks respondents to comment on a wide range of specific details, but doesn’t consult on the policy principles that underpin the proposals, despite these being often the most important points people will wish to address.
The full response from the CPRE can be read here.
The Chichester Society was one of many organisations contributing to this response – it’s response can be found here