Conservative planning green paper would hand back power to local residents in St Albans

Anne Main has today welcomed major new policies from the Conservatives to reform England’s planning system. The new planning green paper proposes a new planning system to help deliver sustainable development by scrapping top-down Whitehall targets and unelected quangos and putting local people in the driving seat of local planning.

Under a new policy initiative, entitled Open Source Planning, Conservatives would:

• Abolish the unelected regional planning quangos and scrap the East of England Plan’s controversial housing totals.
• Maintain Green Belt protection and allow sustainable development elsewhere in accordance with the local plan.
• Allow communities to create ‘bottom-up’ local plans, helping St Albans residents to shape and protect the character of their neighbourhoods.
• Tackle ‘garden grabbing’ and over-development in residential roads, giving St Albans District Council new powers to protect the character of neighbourhoods.

Anne said:
“This Government’s current planning system seems to be constantly imposing targets on St Albans and putting our green belt at risk as a result. Current planning rules are too complex and many decisions are taken by unelected officials, ignoring the views of local residents.

“It cost a lot of local taxpayers’ money to challenge the East of England housing targets because local people didn’t want to be burdened with ever-escalating housing totals, and the East of England Single Issue review on Gypsy and Traveller sites proposed targets against the wishes of local people. These are examples of policies imposed on us from Whitehall by the regional quango.

“This new green paper would put the people of St Albans in the driving seat, transferring power from Whitehall bureaucrats and Labour’s unelected regional quangos. Come a General Election, local people with an interest in shaping their community will be considering these issues very carefully. This vision on planning very much reflects the concerns I have heard on the doorstep. Local people want to have a say.”