Government plans to overhaul the planning system to make it easier for homes to be built have been described as “a disaster for Cornwall”.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced this week that he wanted to “build, build, build” and make construction of housing and infrastructure a key part of the country’s coronavirus recovery.
Mr Johnson says that he plans to introduce ’the most radical reforms of our planning system since the end of the Second World War’.
As of September, changes set to come into force include: Builders no longer needing to submit planning applications to demolish and rebuild vacant and redundant residential or commercial buildings if they are rebuilt as homes; a wider range of commercial buildings being able to be converted into residential buildings without planning permission; and change of use for commercial premises being given more easily, so, for example, shops will be able to become cafes or offices without having to gain planning permission.
In March, housing secrtary Sir Robert Jenrick launched a map of brownfield sites which councils would be encouraged to use first for building housing.
And the Government says it will incentivise councils which meet their housing targets, with a commitment to carbon neutral and ’a green revolution in house building’.
But the wider intent of planning reforms, the detail of which has not yet been seen, is what is worrying some Councillors in Cornwall.
The Government says its ambitious White Paper will’speed up the decision-making process so homes can be built quicker where they are needed the most’.
The Liberal Democrats and Mebyon Kernow fear a loss of control for Cornwall over what, and where building takes place in the county.
MK leader Dick Cole has asked what it means for the Neighbourhood Plans which have been drawn up by local people in their own communities.
MK said: ’We support large scale investment in public services and appropriate infrastructure as part of any recovery plan.
’But we are very worried about statements from the UK Government. The housing minister Christopher Pilcher has already publicly confirmed that he is looking to loosen restrictions in planning law, in particular to make it easier to push through housing schemes.
’The planning system already favours the developers over communities and we consider that any further loosening of the planning system would be a disaster for places such as Cornwall.
’Are they going to streamline planning so that large scale housing developments can go through regardless of what people living in the community think?’
Concerns have also been raised by Liberal Democrat councillors in Cornwall.
Duclie Tudor, who is chair of Cornwall Council’s strategic planning committee, said: ’Boris Johnson says the Tories want to ’Build Build Build’. The last time a Conservative Prime Minister said those very same words (David Cameron in 2011) it meant giving the whip hand to developers who’ve since built hundreds of unaffordable homes in locations across Cornwall. Developments that were refused by Cornwall Council but won on appeal to Government Inspectors.
’Today the Government seems intent on forcing through more deregulation, this time under the guise of providing infrastructure, which takes local decision making out of the planning process altogether.’
Liberal Democrat group leader Malcolm Brown, who sits on the central planning committee and strategic planning committee at Cornwall Council, added: ’I have been a member of planning committees in Cornwall since the 1990s and a large part of my casework has always been about planning.
’I have seen countless examples of how London has imposed planning decisions and policies on Cornwall that have been bad and highly damaging. I also feel that the Conservative Party are far too close to the big housebuilders who care about profits not building communities.’