Is there a politically acceptable solution? Can the houses needed be provided? Local resistance to change is strongest in Tory held areas, but Labour councillors find the threat of losing their seats to angry local residents just as worrying. Perhaps this is why an official government report ( see July 2022 blog below: Planning reform is not achievable) concluded that planning reform, put simply, seems to be unachievable. Here are two examples which illustrate the mountain to be climbed to win sufficient local support.
This month in the London Borough of Barnet new proposals, recommended for approval by the council planners for more than 2400 new homes in blocks of up to 13 storeys, a previous employment site, located in an area currently mainly consisting of one and two storey homes and in place of an existing consent for 1350 homes, were rejected unanimously by all political parties. A plea on behalf of a group of local churches by spokesman Rev Harbage, who said “Given the existing permission for flats, we want to see this new planning application as an opportunity for the area. We want to increase health and well-being provision for new and existing residents” failed to move the hearts and minds of the councillors. One Labour member said he was concerned that approving taller buildings could open the gate to developers seeking to maximise their profits. Another Labour member said could see no benefit at all of increasing the height and bulk of the development. Local Conservative MP Theresa Villiers, who leads the 50+ rebellious backbench challenging Michael Gove in the House of Commons said buildings up to 13 storeys were wholly out of character. Notably the Green Party candidate in May’s local elections, David Farbey also spoke against the proposal. The committee deferred the application to the next meeting of the committee, when members will vote on the reasons for refusal which will be drawn up by the officers and voted on, says the Barnet Post. Here is a sharply defined example of conflict embedded in the planning system. Put simply, how is the support of local residents, local conservationists and their leaders to be achieved? Without their support nothing can happen. Despite that in existing urban areas like London new homes are needed, and open countryside does not exist. Higher densities appear to be the way forward, provided upgrades to local services and local infrastructure are also provided.
What would make local residents withdraw their opposition? Would they pay other local residents elsewhere to export the housing to a different location to protect local house prices? Or would they accept the additional homes if they in turn are paid to do so? Or would they agree, if the whole project is put back, say one decades before works starts, reducing some of the initial shock? . Simply saying no whether to 1350 new homes, or to 2400 new homes does not look like sustainable policy making. If the developer appeals and wins, opportunities for community gains may be lost.
A different example of opposition to change and its consequences exists in rural Wokingham, for decades a target of developers seeking to provide the dynamic Thames Valley with new homes in the open countryside on unprotected land. Developers have, since the seventies had a field day in central Berkshire, much of it at Wokingham’s expense. All the same neither the local council nor the local MP, Sir John Redwood stopped the tide of haphazard and inadequately supported development despite warnings. Ask today’s residents. Instead their leaders opted to be part of one lobby “There is widespread resistance to continuing development in many parts of the region. That resistance is informed, politically potent, and increasingly effective”.. (SERPLAN, into the Next Century, 1989).
Others at the time offered their view of the future, and this writer put forward a Berkshire solution if the anticipated levelling up did not happen. Michael Heseltine said “The 1980s have paved the streets of the south east with gold. But it is to the regions of Britain that the Dick Whittington’s of the 1990s will travel, attracted by the opportunities, lower costs, and higher quality of life there that will offset the pull of an increasingly expensive and congested south east” (The Economist, The World in 1990).
The problem and the solution were summed up by this writer of this blog as “Many people who know live or work in the Thames Valley share a concern that whilst it is a prosperous part of the United Kingdom, all is not well. Congestion on the roads; lack of affordable housing for vital workers; and acute staff shortages show that, despite the prosperity, something is wrong. There is a fear that the problems of today may become acute as the years go by. …………….This paper proposes a way forward. It is radical. Its success depends on the foresight of the community. Bearing in mind that it proposes a community three times larger than Foxley Wood, which generated much debate and plenty of opposition, the timing may seem foolhardy. This is not so”. (Growth v, Quality of Life, 1990)
For nearly eight years Sir John Redwood agreed to let this writer, despite not being a constituent read his regular diary and occasionally replied to observations, which was appreciated. After July 2022 this arrangement was ended. The difference in views on how to manage Wokingham’s growth pressures, above all how to strike the right balance between residents concerns at the amount of home building and the growing, unsolved problem of unaffordability remain in place. In some ways Wokingham is a bell weather example. The location suffers the penalties of high growth; its residents enjoy an above average level of prosperity; but personal debt burdens are high. Pressures on services are high and the erosion of open countryside, as the councils has plenty of unprotected land, is remorseless. Local planning policies react to local pressure but fails to a take a long term, spatially realistic and generational based perspective.
The stalemate appears to be set to continue. The official report published in the summer needs no change.
Ian Campbell
20 December 2022