PLANNING Where are we now?
Following the election and the Conservative pledge to revisit the planning system constructed by Mr. Prescot's office, some first intimation as to what is to come were revealed to us at a meeting of the Chiltern Society Planning Committee to which we are affiliated. These are still early days but the first impressions are as follows:
Regional plans will be discontinued, but without them the role of the Regional Authorities themselves is seriously diminished. This leads us to another election promise made by the coalition namely returning power to the local communities. This has to be good news leading as it does to devolution of power downwards and may well mean that the Parish Council will have more say.
In July the South East Plan itself was abolished. The whole concept of central planning and the imposition of the massive housing targets will be replaced by local assessments of local needs. South Bucks District Council had a very low housing target and has revised it upwards so this aspect should not affect us in Taplow. However we now have a key government guidance document PPS3 which has been modified to remove the minimum build of 30 units per hectare requirement; to designate gardens as greenfield and not developed land; and to no longer require planning permission for change of use from single to multiple dwellings.
The downside in the changes, as far as we can ascertain, is that there are two grounds for appeal. 1. procedural and 2. to show that the proposal is not in accord with the Local Plan. We have a problem it seems in that the Government wish to create a presumption in favour of sustainable development (whatever that means) and make it unlawful to refuse...............Mary????????
How it will work in practice no-one knows. The Local Plan is supposed to be drafted in a flexible manner. However if developers are not to run a coach and horses through it the Local Plan should be relatively watertight. These two requirements appear to be contradictory. We can imagine that Planning Legal Beagles and developers might have a field day.
The South Bucks District's approach to the development of a new Local Plan is still unclear...............??????????? Mary
