Not Exactly Decentralisation......

I'm grateful to Prue Bray, who has pointed out a rather worrying statement on March 23rd by Conservative MP Greg Clark, the Coalition minister for Decentralisation. You can find it here.

It's about 'planning for growth', which sounds good in terms of improving the economy, but there are some alarming bits for people concerned about over-development:

.....there is a pressing need to ensure that the planning system does everything it can to help secure a swift return to economic growth. This statement therefore sets out the steps the Government expects local planning authorities to take with immediate effect.

So new policies come into effect immediately.

Authorities should work together to ensure that needs and opportunities that extend beyond (or cannot be met within) their own boundaries are identified and accommodated in a sustainable way, such as housing market requirements that cover a number of areas, and the strategic infrastructure necessary to support growth.

So a council like Rochford may have to accept extra development to cover the needs of other areas such as, say, Southend? (this has happened before, but perhaps not as directly as now proposed.)

local planning authorities... should... consider the range of likely economic, environmental and social benefits of proposals; including long term or indirect benefits such as increased consumer choice, more viable communities and more robust local economies (which may, where relevant, include matters such as job creation and business productivity)

Does that phrase about increased consumer choice give more leverage for new supermarkets to be built? (some residents may welcome this, many others will be concerned about the viability of town centres)

.......To further ensure that development can go ahead, all local authorities should reconsider, at developers' request, existing section 106 agreements that currently render schemes unviable, and where possible modify those obligations to allow development to proceed; provided this continues to ensure that the development remains acceptable in planning terms.

So even where developers have agreed to fund new open space, education or health provision or highways improvements, developers can pressurise councils to CANCEL these funding agreements?

Mr Clark is the Minister for Decentralisation. That should be about giving councils more power and freedom, not less.

Save Planning Alerts!

Planning Alerts has been a really useful website, I'm really disappointed to have received the following email tonight:

As some of you may already have spotted in the news, Planning Alerts has
been effected by legal action by the Royal Mail:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7700621.stm

We are left with the choice of paying the Royal Mail up to £4,000 a
year for access to the postcode database and eitjavascript:void(0)her running a much less
accurate and useful service or shutting PlanningAlerts down altogether.
If are concerned about this, please consider doing the following:

-- Write to your MP --

Tom Watson MP has tabled an Early Day Motion in Parliament calling on
the Royal Mail to allow non-profit organisations to use the postcode
database for free. Please write to your MP asking them to sign this
Early Day Motion (number EDM 2000) and protest at the actions of The
Royal Mail.

You can write to your MP here: http://marples.writetothem.com/

-- Sign the petition --

Nearly 1,200 people have so far signed a petition on the Prime
Minister's website, please add your name:

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/nfppostcodes/

-- Blog / write to your local paper--

Please consider writing a blog post in support of PlanningAlerts or
writing to your local paper.

Yours,

The PlanningAlerts.com team

Asda

In the past year my biggest local matter to deal with has been a planning application in the ward I represent for a neighbourhood centre. Nothing wrong with that , you might think. There were even conditions on the outline planning consent for 'a range of uses valuable to the local community' and that the traffic numbers would not be 'demonstrably detrimental to the convenience or safety of highways users'

But the application that came in last year was from Asda - for a supermarket, plus some smaller shops, flats and a only a couple of units that could be for community uses.

It was a big local issue. Officers recommended approval, but the two Lib Dem ward members (Ron Oatham and myself) moved refusal and won by a fairly narrow margin. Asda have gone to an appeal on their first application and submitted a second one to the council. This keeps the store at the same size, but gets rid of the flats and replaces them with more units for community use.

Local opinion is split roughly 70-30 against Asda (although in terms of letters to the council it's more like 40- 1). The local chambers of trade, and our local Tory MP , Mark Francois, have been very much against. Local residents were mostly concerned about traffic and the effect of a 23-million-pound-turnover edge-of-town store on our existing shopping centres.

To cut a long story short, we moved refusal on the second application last Thursday and won 26-6. Ron got a round of applause and I got so many pats on the back that I can still feel the dents in my shoulder.

Will Asda continue with their appeal, or will they go for something smaller and more acceptable? We will see.

But if anyone out there has experience of seeing those nice chaps from Asda at a planning inquiry, I'd be glad to hear from you.

Round One

The planning application from Asda for a 'neighbourhood centre' was turned down at our planning meeting last Thursday . In fact I moved refusal, my ward colleague Ron seconded it , and we won the vote by 12 votes to 9 with 5 abstentions. As you can see, it was a tight vote.

Why did we go for refusal? It's a long story.

Afterwards, the guy from Asda apparently said to the guy from the local chamber of trade. "Round One to you, but we'll see you at the appeal...."