The planning green paper has been condemned by a leading lawyer as “a missed opportunity” which will only make the system more complex.
Tony Williams (pictured), head of legal firm Veale Wasbrough’s planning team, said: “Planners, developers and environmental groups will be disappointed if the green paper is given the go-ahead.”
Williams added that the government’s proposals “offer little substantive change” and will not be “a panacea for the current planning bureaucracy”. Instead the changes would “simply replace one complicated process with another”.
Under the proposals, which are open for consultation until 18 March 2002, county councils’ planning powers will be scrapped, regional powers strengthened and the current system of Unitary Development Plans (UDPs) replaced by Local Development Frameworks (LDFs).
But, according to Williams, the introduction of LDFs will simply serve to slow down and complicate the system. “These LDFs will have to be produced every three years and reviewed annually, which will be difficult. Few local councils manage to produce a plan every 10 years. It strikes me as more, rather than less, planning.”
Williams added that community involvement would also suffer from the changes. “Such a massive restructuring of the current system does not square the circle as to how greater speed and efficiency can be achieved without curtailing the rights of the community to participate in planning for the future,” he said.
EGi News 19/02/02
