A Joint Vision for Planning
14th January 2021
Government should rethink damaging planning proposals and plan back better, urges coalition of 18 organisations.
The government should rethink major elements of its controversial planning proposals and work with stakeholders to deliver a planning system that puts people, climate and nature at its heart.
The call comes from CPRE as part of a broad and united coalition of 18 housing, planning, transport, environmental, heritage and public health organisations that have worked together to forge their own alternative ‘Vision for planning’ in response to the government’s Planning White Paper, published in August last year. The government is expected to make a further announcement in March about whether and how it will take forward the proposals in the White Paper.
The joint ‘Vision for planning’ was launched yesterday (14 January) at a virtual debate with speakers including the Housing Minister the Rt Hon Chris Pincher MP.
Commenting on the new joint ‘Vision for planning’, Tom Fyans, deputy chief executive of CPRE, the countryside charity, said:
‘Today, we’re calling on the government to plan back better and work with us to develop a planning system that puts people, and tackling the climate and ecological emergencies, at its heart. We all deserve a home we can genuinely afford to live in, and to have a say in shaping the communities around us. And for over 70 years, a toolbox has been in place to make sure that can happen: the planning system. But as things stand, under the government’s current proposals, the opportunity to influence what happens and where in our communities would be halved.
‘Before Christmas, the government announced a welcome revision of its housing numbers ‘algorithm’. However, this was only one small part of a range of potentially damaging proposals put forward by the government last year. That’s why we’re calling on Ministers to take an equally pragmatic approach to improving policies relating to community voice, affordable homes and access to green spaces. Together, we can develop a planning system fit for the 21st century.’