As David Cameron was reminded this week, politics and business rarely sit happily side by side – no matter how rarefied the dinner party. Nevertheless, after a prolonged, damaging and often poisonous row, life after the NPPF this morning seems oddly calm, harmonious even. Party funding, of course, is another story.
So, remarkably, politicians, the property industry and even the National Trust seem happy, even though consensus had seemed impossible just a few short weeks ago. And credit where credit’s due. Ministers, especially Greg Clark (pictured), have played a shrewd political game: consulting, cajoling and conceding just enough ground to make a much-needed policy change workable.
The BPF’s Liz Peace and Dame Fiona Reynolds, the director-general of the National Trust, have both been canny too, being seen to fight for their members while recognising the need to move on. Further rows, they acknowledged, would be in no one’s interests.
It is the divide between money and what is perceived to be in the national interest that has been at the heart of the debate over the future of the planning regime ever since it was first mooted by the Tories ahead of the 2010 election.
Much has been made of this divide in the national press, especially the Daily Telegraph. And the debate reached its nadir in coverage of an interview I carried out with Mike Slade last September.
The Helical Bar chief executive, who chairs fundraising body the Conservative Property Forum, was typically forthright in saying he was “always horrified” with the naivety of ministers on entering government. Pointing to housing minister Grant Shapps, he said: “He’s only a kid – why should he know what goes on in local authorities?”
Slade added: “They know nothing, they’ve never been in the real world, and they need to be told what the facts are; and the BPF, the Property Forum and lots of other people they engage with do that.”
If the language was a little incendiary, Slade did have a point. Politicians are at best generalists who rely on specialist advice and recommendation.
In the case of the NPPF, that will and should come from the property industry. It will and should come from dissenters too. Yet the Daily Telegraph used the quotes as further evidence of an arrogant property industry – a major donor to the Conservatives, out of touch with the wider population. It played straight into the hands of its Hands Off Our Land campaign.
In truth, the positions were never that far apart. The need for planning reform was widely recognised – no one was a fan of the previous regime. And all parties recognised the need for appropriate safeguards to be built into the system. It was a question of where the line should be drawn.
And even the Telegraph seemed placated this morning. The front page ran with: Campaigners hail “good day for those who care about countryside”.
So the newspaper may have been placated, though many of those posting comments on its website were unbowed. “There is no such thing as sustainable development,” said roverdc. “There is building and not building. Building removes green land from the equation totally, regardless of whether it meets the utterly irrelevant Eco rubbish criteria.”
damian.wild@estatesgazette.com
