Last week the government finally published the 167-page Planning and Infrastructure Bill with its plans to reform the planning system.
This impacts every single community and, since West Sussex has taken far more than its fair share of development, planning has always been a topic I have studied closely.
We all know that the current set up is inexcusably slow and reform is necessary to speed up building on brownfield sites and in cities which unlike rural areas, have infrastructure in abundance. The reforms copied from the previous government’s Banner Review are good and should slightly reduce the cost and the endless delays created by judicial review.
However, this government is not to be trusted. Like many, I am very concerned by powers the government intend to give themselves for the compulsory seizure of land – even farmland or green spaces. Governments take such powers by illustrating a few extreme cases but then before we know it, are interfering on the flimsiest pretext. It’s a bit like snooping powers which were talked about for fighting terrorism and ended up with local councils using them to see if households had put the wrong items in their recycling bin. Many councils already use rate-payers money in their own speculative development schemes and can even give themselves planning permission. This could be a charter for climate obsessed councils to build solar panels all over local farmland at your expense.
