Communities should still have a say over housing allocations, it's organised NIMBYs that shouldn't

 

Q1. Do you believe local people should have a say over what development is delivered in their community with respect to specific planning applications and specific development sites?

This was the first question is a survey of 40 Conservative MPs conducted for NIMBY group, CPRE. Everybody's favourite NIMBYs were looking into (in a way that seems just a tad pushing) attitudes to the government's white paper on planning reform.

This question, presented with different elements of spin depending on the group doing the presenting, is the trojan horse for the NIMBY groups who want to maintain the ability to use local lobbying by a minority to prevent housing development and, in doing so, protect the interests of home-owners on the urban fringe.

The proposals in the white paper are to shift public consultation and engagement about the principle of development to the local plan stage instead of leaving it open to challenge when a planning application is lodged. So there are no proposals to stop the public having "a say" over the nature and location of development in their community, just proposals to stop that local plan stage being second guessed at planning committee.

There are something like 80,000 objections lodged to planning applications (and remember that petitions usually record as just one objection) every year in England. Some of these representations are sensible and genuine - 'the proposed exension next door blocks my light' or 'the new window looks straight into my daughter's bedroom' - and the development management process is very good at mitigating and resolving these problems (mostly, but not always, to people's satisfaction). But a load more of the objections are essentially 'I don't want houses in the field next to my house' with no justification beyond this desire. It is these objections that are marshalled by local politicians (and MPs keen to be seen as 'active' in their constituency) and encouraged by NIMBY groups like CPRE, and it is this purposeless objection to the principle of development that the government wants to end.

I know the objections are not always as bluntly and selfishly put - lots of stuff about 'community' (school places, doctors, cars on the roads, 'infrastructure'), is accompanied by faux-environmental issues (bats, badgers, orchids, trees, seasonal field flooding) all presented because the objectors think they might trigger a refusal rather than because they'd ever given a moment's thought to any of these things. What the zoning system does is remove the use of such things to prevent development - there'll still be an application process but it will be about compliance with design codes, mitigating identified risks and securing developer contribution to infrastructure. CPRE know that if all applications within a zone are what planners call 'reserved matters' and cannot change the principle of development then the power of the NIMBY group is diminished.

This is the biggest and most beneficial change proposed in the white paper. It removes the worst sort of politics from a planning system where a vociferous minority pushes aside the interests of other groups. You seldom see people writing to the council in support of development but this doesn't mean new housing doesn't have considerable support. I saw a glimpse of this with a proposed development in the next village. The Parish Council objected to the reuse of a redundant mill and associated land for housing - apparently it's a mill so it should be for employment. I popped a comment on the local Facebook forum saying what a silly response from the Parish Council and got dozens of likes - far outnumbering the loud and angry sorts who supported the Parish Council.

By shifting the decision about the principle of development up to the level of a plan, we don't remove the ability of local communities to have a say about development. What we do is reduce the political power of opposing housing and provide certainty to developers, which will enable us to have a fighting chance of getting the homes we need to today's a future generations.

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