The major overhaul that the UK’s planning system needs - The Guardian

Robert Booth is right to say that the planning system has become highly politicised and unpredictable (Debacle over Sphere in London spotlights UK’s problem with planning, 14 January), but this has been cynically and deliberately brought about by central government dancing to neoliberal tunes, not by town halls.

Successive governments have wrongly seen planning as an economic threat rather than the major player in sustainable development that it should be. And communities need to have their voices heard, including via locally elected representatives. Both councillors and local people often point out shortcomings in developers’ more destructive demands – and in rosy visions of “can-do planners” dreaming of carving their names on the landscape in new towns. Instead, they’re reduced to shouting from the margins.

Environmental challenges such as climate change, food and water supply, drainage, flooding, sea defence and protection of nature, and societal challenges such as inequality, social housing and regional imbalances, are growing. We need a stronger and wider planning system.
Jon Reeds
Smart Growth UK

Your article omits several crucial points, including the massive cuts in planning services in local government since 2010 and the importance of informed democratic input to planning policy and decision-making. The article appears to support the case for deregulation of planning on behalf of disgruntled developers who didn’t get permission to build what they wanted.

Let’s hope the next government will learn from examples of badly designed extensions and conversions of offices to flats that have gone ahead in England under expanded “permitted development” rules (ie with no planning oversight), despite spoiling our suburban streetscapes and producing substandard living accommodation. They should not try to change planning legislation, but should increase funding of local government to enable it to tackle key issues such as increasing resilience to climate change via long-term strategic planning.
Kay S Powell
Retired planner, Cardiff

Property developers are not blameless for uncertainty in the planning system. It’s a matter of routine for developers to accompany planning applications with a “viability assessment”, pleading that they cannot provide the affordable housing that is required under local planning guidance.

These viability assessments allow developers to set their own benchmark for what makes for a profitable development, and duck out of building homes that people can actually afford if they don’t hit that profit benchmark. Local planning authorities, if they are mindful of what kind of development is most needed in the local community, are then faced with the choice of contesting a developer’s proposals or conceding to its demands, for fear of getting nothing.
Jerry Flynn
London

James Dolan’s decision to abandon his Sphere concert venue planning application in London must be the biggest ever example of someone going home and taking their ball with them.
Allan Forsyth
Salhouse, Norfolk

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