The consultation paper The future of development plans has been given a cautious welcome by the Civic Trust. The structure plan process has been the target of quite unjustified criticisms, the trust says. “The trust’s concern, however, is less with precise definitions of titles of plans, and much more with the need for recognition of, and protection for, the strategic dimension in the development plan system.”
In the Green Paper as drafted, the Civic Trust does not believe that this protection is adequate. If the document remains unaltered then the capability of the counties properly to engage in the planning of their area will be seriously weakened and the creation of 333 separate and unrelated district development plans in England and Wales “could take planning back to the pre-1947 era”.
On development control, the Civic Trust suggests that industrial, commercial or residential developments over a certain size should be treated as county matters under a revised system.
Responsibility for determining such applications should be vested in the counties, whether or not there are in existence county policy statements in relation to those issues.
“Conservation” in the countryside tends to take on a different meaning from the same word in urban areas, the trust points out.
The use of the term “Rural Conservation Area” may therefore be confusing in circumstances where there are conservation areas designated in villages which are entirely within a rural setting.
The trust suggests that the term “Landscape Protection Areas” gets around the difficulty and represents a more accurate description of what the Department of the Environment is seeking to achieve.
