The British Property Federation has rebutted claims that the property industry has become too close to the planning minister in order to push through reform.
The Daily Telegraph, which has launched a campaign against Greg Clark’s (pictured) proposed national Planning Policy Framework, today published excerpts from a leaked e-mail sent by BPF group policy officer Ghislaine Trehearne.
Trehearne’s e-mail to senior members says Clark is “delighted with the BPF and hugely grateful for our effort” – both in lobbying Downing Street to stand by the reforms and pushing the pro-reform argument in the press.
It adds that “on this occasion” the objectives of the Communities and Local Government department “definitely align with ours – so we can afford to be enthusuiastic in our support, with the advantage that we have now earned more Brownie points than we could ever imagine.”
The newspaper says the e-mail will add to fears that Clark is working too closely with developers, following its earlier report on donations from developers to the Tory party.
But BPF chief executive Liz Peace said this morning: “It’s quite unusual, but for once we actually agree with something that the government is promoting and so it is not surprising that we are giving it our support. We talk to CLG Ministers fairly regularly and they made the point that if we did indeed support the NPPF then we ought to make sure our voice was heard alongside the vociferous anti lobby.”
She added: “I don’t accept that this amounts to collusion – it’s simply us doing our job to support the interests of our members. And equally I don’t think it is unreasonable for a minister to have said that he was pleased we were mobilising support.
“As for ‘Brownie points’, it is always good to be able to support the Government when they are doing something that we approve of and we would like to think that this would at least mean we are listened to in the future when we have some less supportive comments to make – though we are not naïve enough to think that that would actually turn out to be the case.”
julia.cahill@estatesgazette.com
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