I have pulled together my thoughts on the Planning for the Future white paper, which will radically change our planning system in England. I will acknowledge first that it has some positives, which are ably summarised here https://capx.co/these-profound-reforms-offer-a-chance-to-build-more-and-build-more-beautifully/ 1/

I have five concerns:
1. It cuts down the rules, proposing lightweight local plans.
It's easy to *say* that you can simplify the rules, harder to do it (see NPPF, bonfire of red tape etc.) In reality, you almost always just move the rules somewhere else, out of sight.

2. It cuts down consultation
2a/ in local plans, residents get 6 weeks and instead of being able to simply oppose something, they have to give an alternative. Tough if you're not a planner! (currently residents get 18-50 weeks)

2b/ more planning applications will involve neither residents nor councillors, but be automatically approved
2c/ masterplans should be the place for local people to be involved - they can make a real difference. The paper talks about masterplans but with no local involvement

2d/ Neighbourhood plans look to remain largely unchanged, but with some minor tweaks. Again, this is a place to really ramp up local involvement, but appears to be an afterthought in the white paper.

3. Removal of the Duty to Cooperate in Local Plans
No reason is given for this - presumably it's just for speed because local councils having to at least talk to each other about their plans is a good thing.

4. CIL risk transferred from developers to taxpayers. Apologies that this is technical but... s601 abolition is good, standardised CIL regime is good. Developers being able to delay CIL payments and councils having to borrow to fund infrastructure may not be good

5. Overall there is a clear shift of power. Local residents and elected councillors will have far less power in the new system while planners, developers and central government will have more. There should at least be an open discussion about this.

That's all I've got right now. It worries me that the white paper is so big on technology, almost as if saying to people "we're making it easier for you to see what's happening" is meant to make up for people no longer having much of a voice in any of those changes. /END

Sorry...one more thing. There's a proposal that "temporarily" any development smaller than 40-50 units should not require affordable housing (either onsite or offsite). In many urban areas, that would effectively eliminate the affordable housing requirement altogether.

@threadreaderapp unroll