The Environmental Transport Association (ETA) believes that the draft National Planning Policy Framework report (NPPF), born as it is in the depths of economic uncertainty, is flawed because of the British government’s erroneous belief that current planning law is preventing the people of England from achieving wealth and happiness.
The ETA has responded to a ministerial invitation to organisations and individuals to offer suggestions on what priorities and policies might be adopted to produce a shorter, more decentralised and less bureaucratic national planning policy framework.
Director at the ETA, Andrew Davis, said: “Land-use planning is considered a dry subject of little interest to most people, but if we had no planning law then lack of planning would be considered our number one problem today. “
The main outcomes of the NPPF should, in the ETA’s view, be:
- To give spatial expression to a coherent vision of England.
- To improve the quality of life by managing demand and reconciling differences in the public interest through integrating social, economic and environmental objectives.
- To secure public engagement in and ownership of choices over land-use change and development, and protect and renew communities.
- To encourage improvements in the quality of development, and to promote beauty and tranquillity, so people may be proud of where they live.
- To enforce regulations and international commitments on development, land-use change, and public engagement, including contributing significantly to delivering the British government’s legally-binding carbon emissions reduction targets
The policies in the NPPF ranging from housing to transport to minerals are all underpinned by a drive to permit development and not by sustainable development principles that recognise environmental limits. The planning system did not lead to the collapse in the financial system, or the collapse in the housing market. But the planning system is being appropriated to drive unsustainable, poor quality growth of a certain type forward. This will be at the expense of communities and the environment. The ETA recommends that the planning system should not be used as a blunt tool to ‘proactively drive development’.
The NPPF should be revised to set out a sustainable vision for England. It should recognise environmental limits as part of sustainable development, remove the presumption in favour of development, become neutral in the discussions over development and become truly local.
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