Planning White Paper - “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform ...” (Mark Twain)

Today the government’s White Paper (Planning for the Future) has been published with much publicity. In the introduction to the White Paper thePrime Minister opines:

“Thanks to our planning system, we have nowhere near enough homes in the right places. People cannot afford to move to where their talents can be matched with opportunity. Businesses cannot afford to grow and create jobs. The whole thing is beginning to crumble and the time has come to do what too many have for too long lacked the courage to do – tear it down and start again.”

I am reminded of the similarities to the comments from 2010, published in a Green Paper entitled: Open Source Planning, (produced by the Conservative Party) which stated: 

“The Government’s approach of retaining strong central control over planning means that, in many cases, people feel that they have no say over development taking place in their areas. Local communities feel that their views are being ignored and that they are having development imposed upon them. All too predictably this sense of disenfranchisement often leads to antagonism. The result is an inherently adversarial system with opposing parties spending large amounts of time and money fighting each other, rather than seeking an agreed solution. “

“Without a transformed planning system, our chances of getting the investment and growth we need will be hampered and possibly crippled, because today’s centralised, bureaucratic planning system gives local communities little option but to rebel against Whitehall and regional diktats and, all too often, against the notion of development itself. The result is that far from achieving central targets, we are seeing historically low levels of house building which fail to match the needs of our economy or our society.”

Since 2000, primary legislation with a significant planning element has been enacted in 2004, 2008, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2016, and 2020. Accompanying, this has been scores of secondary legislation (regulations). In addition as part of a continuing reform agenda a major policy review was also undertaken leading to the publication of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) in 2012 which itself subsequently underwent a major revision published in 2018 and a further amendment in 2019.

After ten years of perma-reform the White Paper is proposing  “a significantly simpler, faster and more predictable system” reading this brings to my mind the quote by Mark Twain - “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform ...”