The future for planning: a campaigner’s perspective

East Midlands Councils

27 February 2014

Paul Miner, MA MRTPI FRGS

Senior Planning Campaigner

• National campaigns to protect wider countryside, and to reduce noise and light pollution

• Local planning expertise: network of county branches and district groups

• Planning Hotline, Thursday afternoon, available to CPRE members

• Planning Help website

What is CPRE?

Planning to protect the countryside

• Pledge to maintain national protective designations

• New legislation aims:• deregulation • more local

autonomy • community

involvement

•Planning policy changes

The Coalition and planning

Planning to protect the countryside

The NPPF One Year On: Good, Bad and Ugly…But uglier than we hoped

CPRE: ‘Countryside Promises, Planning Realities’

•Major housing schemes allowed against local wishes

•Less brownfield development or affordable housing

•Many local councils without adopted local plans in place

Planning to protect the countryside

Localism and Growth and Infrastructure Acts• General power of competence

• Neighbourhood plans

• Pre-application consultation

• Town / village greens

• National projects

• ‘Poorly performing’ LPAs in special measures

Planning to protect the countryside

•Some take up of Local Green Space •Major development test: transport schemes in Chilterns, Peak District and Blackdowns•Green Belt under more threat•Reduction of 26% in National Park cash grant•Death by a thousand plans: PDRs, offsetting

The wider countryside: Going…going…gone?

Planning to protect the countryside

•Don’t sacrifice our countryside

•A fair say for local communities

•More housing – in the right places

Planning to protect the countryside

CPRE’s Charter to Save the Countryside

Our vision for 2026: Built environment

The built environment

• Most development is on urban brownfield sites

• A small expansion of urban areas

• Green Belt is reinvigorated

• More ‘green infrastructure’

• Better urban design

• More people living in the countryside

Planning and local democracy

Our vision for 2026: planning and democracy• Government-wide

duty to consider land use implications of new policy

• GDP replaced by new methodologies

• Strong democratic input

• A new role for neighbourhood planning – a lead role in transition to a zero-carbon society

Lifestyles, values, and attitudes

• Significant reduction in travel

• The countryside a place for enjoyment for everyone

• People are more engaged in how their food is produced

• Changes to the national curriculum

Our vision for 2026: Lifestyles and values

Climate change and the countryside

• Land management helps retain and absorb carbon

• The countryside protects us from flooding

• Rural renewables, including small wind turbines

• Wood fuel from wildlife-rich, low input coppices

• New habitats, coastal marshes and wildlife corridors

Our vision for 2026: Climate change and energy