The end of democratic planning
Dr Naomi Luhde-Thompson & Dr Hugh Ellis
The new Planning and Infrastructure Bill effectively ends the local democratic accountability of planning decisions. The latest changes in Planning and Infrastructure Bill fundamentally reverse the postwar Labour government's commitment to local decision-making.
Some of the implications relate to further curtailing opportunities for community engagement in major infrastructure projects. Others relate to the creation of Spatial Development Strategies (SDSs) – which positively prevent the public from having a right to be heard at their examination. But the single most dramatic move is to impose a national scheme of delegation, whereby government will centrally determine what kinds of applications will be determined by local planning committees, and which ones will be delegated to officers. The powers are extensive and can be used by this or future governments to completely bypass local democratic control over a wide range of decisions. According to the bill’s associated consultation papers on new thresholds for housing development, the government is considering delegating all applications for fewer than 49 homes – that is to say, most housing applications.
The original consultation paper suggested that delegation would apply only to applications that were in accordance with the plan. This meant that the public at least had a right to be heard when the plan was made. That safeguard has now been dropped so that any application, regardless of whether it conforms to the plan and so long as it is fewer than 49 housing units, could be delegated. This creates a system whereby a planning application for development which has not been considered at any stage of plan-making , can be delegated to officers. This bypasses the planning committee and removes the limited opportunity for members of the community to present their case in front of elected members. This means that for the first time since 1947, planning decisions can be made with no meaningful public participation and no local democratic accountability.
The net effect of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill is to create a system that locks out communities from decisions that affect their lives. The question is does this matter? There are three reasons why it does. The first is a matter of democratic principle. The 1947 Town Planning Act considered giving planning decisions to a central land board rather than to local authorities. But politicians at the time recognised that the decisions which have a profound impact on localities are best made at local level. In a democracy, people have a right to expect a measure of control over the decisions which affect their lives. Removing that accountability erodes the basis of our entire democracy.
Secondly, strong and meaningful participation shapes better development because it's based on detailed local knowledge and can meet people's needs in more meaningful ways.
Finally, removing community voices from legitimate democratic processes is counterproductive for those of us who want to see development take place. The government believes that communities will simply accept being locked out of decisions. But if the government tries to impose development without attempting to generate a meaningful consensus about growth, communities will resist, and they will do so through direct action. Community resistance to the roads programme of the 1980s, fracking, opencast mining and countless other forms of development, show how politically potent planning campaigns can be. Trying to squash democracy will hurt everyone.
What is so regrettable is that the end of democratic planning was avoidable. First, because people weren't causing delays in the system –partly because the opportunities for participation are already so limited; second, because a political consensus about the need for change was there to be seized – not just around genuinely affordable housing that meets local needs, but also about the need to transform our energy systems and make our communities resilient to flood risk.
Notes and Resources
Under the UK Trade Act that the following applies
Environmental and climate principles
Taking into account the fact that the Union and the United Kingdom share a common biosphere in respect of cross-
border pollution, each Party commits to respecting the internationally recognised environmental principles to which it has committed, such as in the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, adopted at Rio de Janeiro on 14 June 1992 (the "1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development") and in multilateral environmental agreements, including in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, done at New York on 9 May 1992 ("UNFCCC") and the Convention on Biological Diversity, done at Rio de Janeiro on 5 June 1992 (the "Convention on Biological Diversity"), in particular:
(a) the principle that environmental protection should be integrated into the making of policies, including through impact assessments;
(b) the principle of preventative action to avert environmental damage;
(c) the precautionary approach referred to in Article 356(2);
(d) the principle that environmental damage should as a priority be rectified at source; and
(e) the polluter pays principle.
2. The Parties reaffirm their respective commitments to procedures for evaluating the likely impact of a proposed activity on the environment, and where specified projects, plans and programmes are likely to have significant environmental, including health, effects, this includes an environmental impact assessment or a strategic environmental assessment, as appropriate.
3. These procedures shall comprise, where appropriate and in accordance with a Party's laws, the determination of the scope of an environmental report and its preparation, the carrying out of public participation and consultations and the taking into account of the environmental report and the results of the public participation and consultations in the consented project, or adopted plan or programme.
