Government Planning Reforms are Stripping Communities of their Democratic Voice
New report sets out seven enforceable rights to give people greater power over the places where they live
Government planning reforms continue to strip communities of their democratic voice and concentrate more power in Westminster, a new report warns today.
Published by Rights Community Action on the International Day of Democracy, Community Environmental Rights in England argues that people are increasingly shut out of decisions about the places where they live.
The report follows the Government's publication of a new National Planning Policy Framework. Rights Community Action says the changes limit people's ability to have a real and meaningful say over the places in which they live.
The report sets out seven rights which its authors say would give communities a meaningful role in shaping their neighbourhoods:
- a right to a clean and healthy environment
- a right to a healthy home
- a right to play
- a right to grow food on public land
- a right to roam and swim
- a right to participate in decisions affecting communities
- a right to challenge environmental decisions
It brings together contributions from seven women - environmental lawyers, planners and community campaigners - with a foreword by the Bishop of Manchester and an introduction by Chris Hinchliff, Labour MP for North East Hertfordshire.
Writing in his introduction to the report, Chris Hinchliff MP says:
“We’ve got to bin the rotten habit of smearing anyone who has something to say about the place they call home as a nuisance ‘NIMBY’ or ‘Blocker’. If the only opportunity people have to engage with placemaking is opposing the latest speculative planning application, or if they have been so cut out of the process that they disengage entirely, then the system has failed.”
The report warns that planning reforms have progressively reduced public participation and democratic oversight. It points to decisions being removed from elected planning committees, weaker opportunities for communities to be heard during plan-making and the absence of clear national guidance on public participation. Changes to the ability to challenge decisions when things go wrong are also reducing people's voice in what happens where.
It calls on the Government to restore robust participation rights and introduce new planning guidance to support community involvement in order to comply with the UK's obligations under the Aarhus Convention.
The report also supports a proposed new legal duty requiring the Government to report annually to Parliament on the extent to which communities can 'enjoy' their environmental rights.
The assessment would cover access to a healthy environment and land for growing, play, roaming and swimming. It would also examine whether people can contribute to and challenge local decisions, and whether communities can protect or acquire valued local assets.
Naomi Luhde-Thompson, Chief Executive of Rights Community Action, said:
"The Government cannot call the current system "devolution" while taking power away from elected councils and the people who live with the consequences of planning decisions.
"People are being told that their homes, health and local environment are obstacles to growth. Ministers describe basic safeguards as 'excessive gold plating', when they should be the minimum standards to protect people facing a housing crisis and a climate emergency.
"Making people powerless to influence their own local environment will not build public support for the homes and infrastructure we need. It will deepen mistrust and leave communities fighting decisions they had no meaningful part in making.
“These rights offer the Government a way forward. Give people a real voice, protect the things that make places liveable and require ministers to account for whether community empowerment is actually working.”
The Bishop of Manchester, the Rt Revd Dr David Walker, writes in the report that Britain faces a crisis in which too many people feel distant from the political decisions shaping their lives.
He argues that community rights can help reverse decades of centralisation and create a more inclusive democracy by enabling people to take greater control over the places where they live and work.
Quotes from the authors:
Ingrid Skeels, Co-Founder, Playing Out:
“Children’s right to play out in their communities is vital to their healthy development and real-life social connection. It’s also key to their sense of belonging, and so to the beginning of a lifelong journey as citizens with a voice and a stake in the places where they live.”
Kate Conto, Policy and Public Affairs Manager (England) at the Ramblers, said:
“Communities should have a meaningful right to enjoy the health and wellbeing benefits of walking in nature. People in England already have important rights to access the outdoors, but these rights are too often difficult to use in practice, with access unequal across the country. We need to protect and expand those rights, while investing in the paths, green spaces and infrastructure that make them genuinely accessible to everyone.”
Gita Parihar, senior environmental and human rights consultant, said:
“The right to a healthy environment underlines that green space is not just a 'nice to have'. Nature spaces reduce air pollution and heat in our warming world, improve physical and mental health and protect biodiversity. Limiting the ability of communities to protect them is outdated, misguided and harmful. An integrated approach that works for both people and the planet is essential.”
Community Environmental Rights in England is published on 15 September to mark the United Nations International Day of Democracy.
ENDS
NOTES TO EDITORS
Community Environmental Rights in England is published by Rights Community Action. Its contributors are Dr Naomi Luhde-Thompson, Pam Warhurst, Ingrid Skeels, Carol Day, Gita Parihar, Kate Conto and Dr Rosalie Callway.
The report includes a proposed amendment requiring the Secretary of State to publish an annual assessment of the effectiveness of the community empowerment provisions in Part 5 of the Localism Act 2011. A minister would then be required to move a Commons motion to consider that report.
Rights Community Action is a coalition of campaigners, lawyers, planners, facilitators, writers and scientists, united by a shared commitment to tackle the Climate Emergency – with people and for people, and the environment.
