Category: Local Government

The speech made by Theresa May, the then Shadow Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, on 14 February 2002.

I often find when I do radio interviews that I am asked for my correct title. When I tell them it is Shadow Secretary of State for Transport Local Government and the Regions they usually recoil in horror. Can we shorten it they say?

I guess that to many people at first sight there is little that seems to marry together the various bits of this wide department, but I believe there is much that brings the issues together. It is what I call the Quality of Life department because it deals with the matters that affect people’s everyday quality of life – The things that can make the difference between a good and a bad day.

How was the traffic taking the children to school, did the train run on time – or at all. How long did you wait for the bus? Did you trip up on that uneven pavement the council’s left for months – and they haven’t collected all the rubbish sacks again and the street lights weren’t working last night.

And the traffic’s so much worse since they built that new development on the outskirts of the town – goodness knows what it will be like if that superstore gets the go-ahead. And now of course the primary school’s full – do you know how long it took me to get an appointment at the doctor’s surgery and what’s more the new houses don’t even look nice.

Although the word environment no longer appears in the Department’s title and responsibility for the environment has moved to another department, the DTLR’s responsibilities palpably deal with the overall environment in which we live and the quality of life we experience.

At this stage I should perhaps deliver an Opposition health warning. Our process of policy renewal has only recently started and I will not be able to set out for you tonight specific policy proposals. What I do hope to do is to stand back and identify the issues as I see them and show the direction in which our thinking is developing and I should say that in some areas there is some agreement with the Government at least on the aims of policy if not on delivery.

But on one thing we are clear. As we develop policy we want to produce policy that meets the needs of people’s lives. This is not about Westminster knowing best. It is about understanding how people lead their lives, the problems they face and the issues that need to be addressed and developing policy to do just that. So involvement of people is important.

Central to the question of environmental quality of course, is the planning system.

Everyone is agreed that the planning system in England and Wales is in need of reform. The sorry saga of Terminal 5 exposed how the appeals system is cumbersome and costly. In my own constituency I see the resigned frustration felt as residents face a third planning inquiry on the development of motorway service areas on the M4.

I think most would agree that there are too many tomes of regulations and guidance – the plethora of RPGs, PPGs and MPGs on top of UDPs and Structure Plans are inaccessible and unaffordable for local people and for business.

My own concern is that these problems, together with the inconsistency of decisions, the uncertainty of timetables, and lack of information has generated a lack of confidence in the planning system. Too often developers feel they don’t get a fair crack of the whip as they despair at the last minute intervention of local lobby groups, and individuals and community groups feel that the odds are stacked against them as the developer has all the money and the means to keep coming back with application after application.

So I agree with the Government that we need to make changes in the system, but I am not convinced that the Planning Green Paper is the answer. And indeed upon reflection, many planning professionals and business leaders are increasingly voicing their concern about its impact.

I don’t want to spend long on the Green Paper tonight. I simply want to say this.

We wholeheartedly support the removal of unnecessary planning red-tape, but we do not support proposals that look as if they will strip local communities of their voice and weaken environmental protection.

The problems with planning are not just of cost, delay and lack of certainty. Whitehall politicians and regional bureaucrats too often override the wishes of local communities, resulting in loss of local character, uniformity of architecture and unsustainable development.

The Green Paper proposes that 90% of planning decisions will be decided by officers, rather than elected councillors. This isn’t the best way to speed up planning decisions – and whereas business may welcome not being subject to the whim of elected councillors, local people will feel their democratic check on plans has been removed.

And then there are the concerns about the proposals for dealing with major infrastructure projects. Will Parliament have the time for the complex issues such proposals raise to be properly addressed?

Certainly, planning should be made more accessible to business. But weakening local residents’ say on local planning is a retrograde step.

So I don’t think the Planning Green Paper is the answer.

Indeed maybe it addressed the wrong question. What it assumed was that the issue was about delays and the need to speed the system up for business. I suggest that the fundamental question is how to restore integrity in the system and hence people’s confidence in it.

For too many people their first inkling of a major development locally comes when they see an application notice or an article in the local paper. Neighbours talk. A residents action group is set up and immediately the focus is on stopping the development. The system immediately becomes adversarial.

How much better if there was more involvement of people up-front so that discussions on what was needed locally and how it could be provided took place before decisions on a particular proposal.

But there is another aspect of development proposals which I think is too often overlooked and that is the quality of the buildings and their design.

Sadly for a variety of reasons today there are not many local authorities who are able to say that they have within their planning departments people with the design skills needed to make proper judgements about these quality issues. Indeed for too many planning departments particularly in the south east it is very difficult to get enough staff, let alone staff who have the skills to assess the design quality of a proposal.

And when you do get them they rarely have the time to look at such issues. Indeed too often planners are so stretched that the process is simply mechanistic.

That doesn’t improve the quality of the built environment which is so important for the quality of life. There is a very real need to look at what is happening in our planning departments. The problem for local authorities with stretched budgets is that education and social services naturally take precedence over planning.

We need to understand rather better the way in which good design and planning can impact on the quality of life. We need to give far more attention to developing buildings that reflect people’s way of life and the needs of the local community and of the wider environment.

Allied to this is my concern that planning needs to take more account of the context of development. Planning decisions particularly on significant developments need to be able to be set into the context of wider infrastructure issues – not just roads but can the local infrastructure for example on schools cope with the impact.

And I do believe in this context again that design is important. If the housing application for the edge of the rural village is for identikit boxes which bear no resemblance to the village architecture or show no respect for the environment then they are more likely to be rejected by local people and the developer is more likely to find an inquiry on his hands with all the delay, uncertainty and cost that entails.

That is not to say that all design must mirror the style of the area into which it fits. After all rural villages generally show a diversity of types of housing and of design. They have evolved over the years and evolution of design is important. And uniformity within a development can also create problems. But if the development stuck on the end of the village that nobody wanted is also badly designed it adds fuel to local discontent which has an impact on those who live there and on how they fit into the local community.

So taking time and care on design is important. It should always be so, but it is particularly important when the pressure on space and on greenfields and Green Belt is as great as it is today.

Today we see Government continuing to push a centrally-driven housebuilding policy. We believe in home ownership and support the construction of more quality housing to buy and rent. But the issue is where they should be put and what sort of houses they should be.

Building houses in the Green Belt and perpetuating the neglect of our inner-cities, just fuels migration to the suburbs, and in turn, encourages yet more demand-led greenfield development.

The state of our cities matters. Over the years governments have introduced regeneration programmes but too often today local communities find themselves mired in the red tape of these programmes.

Yet planning is a practical way that our inner-cities can be helped, if we take a more holistic approach and if we focus on the quality of the built environment.

As the President and possibly others will know I am wont on occasions such as this to refer to Alice Coleman and her book Utopia on Trial.

When I read Utopia on Trial it all seemed such common sense yet common sense that had been ignored by planners and architects alike. Buildings and spaces should be designed with people in mind and with an understanding of people’s need for identity in place and space. Designing buildings and spaces to give people greater safety both in reality and in perception is important. It can in itself help to provide the environment that improves quality of life not destroys it.

And design needs to understand people’s sense of place and identity with place. Buildings and spaces over which no-one feels ownership and for which no-one feels responsible encourage the destruction of the environment and the reduction in the quality of life.

I was interested to read an article in the Estates Gazette about a seminar run by the Estates Gazette and Grosvenor Estates last autumn during which Sir Terry Farrell referred to large scale urban development as “a game of chess where nobody says what moves they are going to make next”. These are the problems faced in this system – exacerbated by the lack of confidence in it. At the same seminar Hugh Bullock Director of Gerald Eve said “We are beginning to see the realisation that urban regeneration is about rebuilding local elements of society”. Again quality of life comes through as an issue.

Urban regeneration is not only valuable in its own right and in terms of the quality of life for individuals in urban areas, but it its also important in redressing the balance of demand between urban and rural development. It takes pressure off greeenfields and that benefits urban areas and those who live in them as well as rural areas and those who live in them.

We should be protecting our green spaces. New housing should be targeted at areas with the most brownfield land and towards areas most in need of regeneration, rather than blindly applying arbitrary, regional and national targets. There should be no binding national or regional housebuilding targets, forcing Green Belt to be replaced with urban sprawl.

Instead, central government must concentrate on working with local government and local people to help create residential cities where people want to live. Urban renewal and environmental protection go hand and hand, and the reform of the planning process must recognise this.

Urban renewal has another benefit of course and that is in terms of sustainability. Living close to the place of work reduces the number or length of journeys people make. It can reduce the reliance on the car, particularly if good urban transit systems are in place. So planning urban design and transport are part of the same jigsaw puzzle and those taking individual decisions need to know the whole picture before they can piece together the individual pieces.

Sustainability is important in other ways too. I am pleased to have in my constituency a project of Integer homes that are designed for energy efficiency right down to the Alpine sedum growing on the rooves. They are a housing association project so they are designed as affordable housing for which affordability has been taken a stage further. Initial estimates suggest that they could reduce energy costs by 30-50%. I have to say there have been teething problems since the first residents moved in but then every new building has such problems.

Of course we need to give them time to settle down and the proof of pudding has yet to come after people have been living in them for say a year. But if they do what they claim then I believe this and other developments like it will be another important example of the role design can play in providing for sustainability.

Doing all this of course needs architects and planners and politicians who understand the issues and who are willing to move forward and be innovative.

At the Estates Gazette seminar I referred to earlier John Gummer said what we need is a different approach and attitude from politicians. Planning should not be about gate-keeping but about enabling.

I know Mr President the importance that the Royal Institute is now placing on requiring students to show the necessary skills to embrace the needs of sustainability within their work and I welcome that and support you in that work.

The aim of all involved – planners architects and the politicians who are taking policy and individual decisions – should be planning and designing for people and planning and designing for the future.

By setting policy and making decisions that recognise and meet the needs of people and the wider community, by understanding the role played by good design and the quality of the built environment in improving the quality of life then we can all be not gatekeepers but enablers.

The speech made by Theresa May at the Conservative Spring Forum on 23 March 2002.

I’m delighted to be responding to this session at the Spring Forum – and my goodness haven’t we heard some exciting examples of how Conservatives have been working to improve their local communities – making life better in your areas.

Over the next few weeks we all have the opportunity in the local government elections to take the message we have heard today out onto the streets and show people that up and down the country it is Conservatives who are listening to their concerns and worries, it is Conservatives that are recognising the problems in their local communities and it is Conservatives who are delivering practical solutions that meet people’s needs.

The Conservative Party is the party that listens, that cares and that delivers – delivers for all in society, from Bromley to Bradford, from Cambridgeshire to Calderdale.

Local authorities are responsible for a wide range of services that directly affect people’s everyday quality of life and often it is the most vulnerable in our society who depend on them most.

Good local government is about improving people’s quality of life – about making life better.

Just think about the impact a council has on people’s day-to-day life – imagine someone walking out of their front door. Has the uneven pavement been mended? Is the street clean or full of litter? Has the rubbish been properly collected? Do the street lights work?

Have the potholes in the road been repaired? Has the traffic got worse since the council gave permission for that new development on the outskirts of the town? Why did they bring in that one-way system? And now of course the primary school’s full. Mrs Smith next door is worried because her husband’s still in hospital – they simply can’t get him anywhere in a care home locally because they’re all closing.

To find answers to these problems – to make life better – councillors need to have the freedom and flexibility to make decisions that suit their local area.

Today that power has been taken away in so many ways. This Labour Government has increased centralisation, increased bureaucracy and increased the regulations local councils have to cope with.

Now I accept that previous Conservative governments do not have a blameless record in their approach to local government. But what started as an attempt by central government to protect people from the worst excesses of bad local councils has now, under Labour, been made a means of control, a tool for imposing Westminster’s priorities over local priorities.

In 1997 just over 4% of a council’s funding was ring-fenced today, it is 15%. And that’s without counting the money that’s spent on the extra bureaucracy and regulations imposed from Whitehall.

Central government telling councils how to spend your money.

Today, local authorities are judged against close to 150 performance indicators and must agree up to 66 plans with central government. Such burdens waste money and distort priorities. 66 plans – don’t tell me they’re a tool for better government – it’s just increased bureaucracy and a way of the centre exercising control.

And when it comes to regulations just look at the impact of the directive on fridges – enormous cost to local authorities and the risk of fridges abandoned in our streets and lanes. Abandoned cars will be next and then other white goods.

And against this background of red tape and central control Gordon Brown has made council tax a stealth tax .

Every year since Labour came to power they have promised that there was no need for large increases in council tax and every year council tax has gone up by three times the rate of inflation.

This year the average increase is 8.3% – more than four times the rate of inflation.

What’s more the government has slowly increased the amount of council’s funding that has to be paid through council tax – from 23% in 1997 to 27% today.

People are on average paying nearly £300 more on a Band D property than when Labour came into power.

Conservative councils are still showing that they can charge less council tax and deliver quality services.

How many of the top 20 councils charging the highest council tax are Conservative – none.

Looking at Band D properties, this year across every tier of local government Conservative councils cost less than Labour or LibDem councils.

In unitary authorities Conservative councils cost £132 a year less than Lib Dem councils.

In London Conservative councils cost £313 less than Labour councils.

On average across all types of council Conservative councils cost £135 less than Labour councils and £159 less than Lib Dem councils.

And which council costs most of all – Tony Blair’s own back-yard yes, Sedgefield where for Band D local people pay almost £1,200 a year.

Increases well over inflation and shifting the burden to the council taxpayer – yet another stealth tax.

A stealth tax that hits hardest on some of the most vulnerable in society like the elderly living on fixed incomes.

More red tape, more paperwork, higher cost, less freedom that’s the impact of Labour on local government.

The other day Stephen Byers department announced that government would streamline and rationalise the 66 plans they require from councils. Do you believe Stephen Byers – I certainly don’t.

Remember the three big lies – (the cheque’s in the post, Darling I still love you, and Trust me I’m Stephen Byers).

What better advert for New Labour could there be?

You can’t trust him on transport, you can’t trust him on local government and you can’t trust him on planning.

Just look at what he is promising to do.

He’s going to grade councils as high performing, coasting, striving or poor performing, but they will be judged not by whether they are doing what people want, but by whether they are doing what the government wants.

He’s going to introduce a new tier of regional politicians. That means he’s going to abolish county councils and have to restructure district councils at an estimated cost of £2bn – how many care home places could that fund.

He’s heaping yet more regulation and bureaucracy on parish and town councils including a code of conduct that means parish councillors, the unpaid volunteer backbone of our rural communities, have to declare not just their interests, but the interests of their relations, including would you believe it their nephew’s partner.

Little wonder parish councillors are threatening to resign across the country.

And on planning he’s going to bring in a new system that will increase bureaucracy for business, reduce the voice of local communities and bring in a betterment tax that will particularly hit small local firms.

In the annals of incompetent government Stephen Byers is a serial offender.

From the Post Office to PPP on the Tube, from increased rights for trade unions to reduced rights for local communities on planning, from Rover to Railtrack, Byers bungles cost us all dear.

But this Government’s interference and centralisation doesn’t just increase the paperwork in the town hall. It erodes local democracy so fewer people vote and it damages the effective delivery of public services and the ability of local councillors to respond to the needs of their local community.

The Department for Transport Local Government and the Regions is what I call the quality of life department because with transport and local government together it is responsible for the things that so often make the difference between having a good or a bad day.

And across the country it is Conservative councils who are making the difference in their areas.

Just think about the problems we all face in our day to day lives.

What is number one concern for many people today – crime or the fear of crime.

Kent and Westminster have recognised this and delivered for local people.

Kent County Council has introduced rural community wardens in partnership with Kent police. Westminster Council has launched a city guardian initiative to reduce crime, anti-social behaviour and breaches of public safety; and their CCTV van, staffed by trained council officers, has played a significant role in reducing levels of crime in parts of the Borough.

Conservative councils delivering for local people.

But fear of crime is also about the environment in which people live and work. Graffiti ridden streets increase the fear of crime and petty vandalism is often a first step in criminality. We believe that cleaning up our streets is an essential part of the war against crime.

West Oxfordshire District Council has introduced an Environmental Hit Squad to crack down on fly tipping and fly posting. Tandridge District Council brought in a successful graffiti clean up initiative, with a £500 reward for information on perpetrators. Wandsworth Council doubled the number of litter bins on local streets all of which are emptied at least once a day and has a team of uniformed investigators who patrol the Borough enforcing laws on litter, fly-tipping and dog fouling.

Conservative Councils delivering for local people.

People get fed up being held up in traffic jams on the way to work – we all know how much better the roads are in the school holidays so getting school transport right matters. That’s why Runnymede Borough Council has introduced yellow school buses and Surrey County Council is soon to launch its Pegasus project for school transport for primary schools.

Conservative Councils delivering for local people.

People want their children to have the best start in life with a good education. Calderdale Council recognised this and has one of the most improved set of academic results at 16 years across the whole country.

East Sussex saw the need for a new university locally – it’s just been given the go-ahead and the first students will start in Hastings University in autumn 2003.

Conservative Councils delivering for local people.

People also want to see deprived areas in their towns and cities being regenerated – so the quality of life of people who live there can be improved. In Bradford the council’s decision to establish a ground breaking Urban Regeneration Company was described as “the single best piece of news the district has had for many long years”. The Council is pushing forward re-development such as the Broadway shopping complex and the plans to transform the Odsal stadium site with a new stadium, leisure and retail development, cleaning up a former landfill site and creating hundreds of new jobs. What a pity Stephen Byers has called the Odsal application in for an inquiry.

A Conservative-led council delivering for local people.

And people worry about those whose lives need re-building. Kent County Council has launched its Dependency Reduction Programme – which aims to support and help people trapped in dependency to lift themselves back into independence, employment and a better quality of life.

A Conservative council delivering for local people.

These are examples of how Conservative councils listen to their local communities, care about the quality of life for local people and deliver to make life better.

But if that is what Conservatives in local government can achieve despite the imposition and burdens from the centre think what more good we could be doing for our local communities if councils had their freedom.

If local democracy is to mean anything then the power to say whether or not a council is doing well should rest with the voters in the ballot box. In stark contrast to Labour’s principle of ‘earned autonomy’ – we believe that all councils should be given freedom.

Of course it is right that there should be powers to intervene where a local authority is clearly failing in its duty, but this should be the exception and we should always presume freedom rather than regulation.

It is now almost five years since Labour were elected. Five years since their warm words of decentralisation – how they would ‘give back responsibility to local communities’, ‘take the shackles off local government’ and create ‘powerful new roles for all councillors’. Five years on, not only has this not happened, but in many cases, the reverse has been the case –and Stephen Byers Local Government White Paper promises more of the same.

Strong local government unburdened by impositions from the centre is essential to the quality of life and to re-building local democracy. Local authorities need to be able to recognise and respond to local needs, exercising community leadership and championing local interests.

This is our model of local government. A model built on our key principles as a party of freedom, choice and independence.

Unlike Labour we do not believe that Whitehall knows best. We believe in minimal state interference. We want to give people the opportunity to live their lives free from unnecessary and burdensome interference from the state. We want to see government taken down to the level where people can best exercise decision-making and choice.

So the Conservative Party is launching a policy review in local government that will re-define radically the relationship between central and local government.

We will roll back the intervention from the centre, remove regulations and restrictions on local government autonomy, reduce the amount of ring-fenced funding, cut the burdens imposed by central government, and revive local involvement in decision making.

We will be the party that gives power back to local councillors to make a real difference for their local communities.

Conservatives governing for the whole nation – the prosperous and the poor, the north and the south, the rural village, the suburban town and the urban inner city.

Together Conservatives will deliver community government making life better for all.

The speech made by Theresa May on 1 May 2002.

It is a pleasure to be with you today at this conference looking at the implications of the Government’s Planning Green Paper with of course particular reference to the structure of plans proposed and within that to the life or death of structure plans.

In his foreword to the Planning Green Paper the Secretary of State, Stephen Byers said

“..Some fifty years after it was first put in place the planning system is showing its age. What was once an innovative emphasis on consultation has now become a set of inflexible, legalistic and bureaucratic procedures. A system that was intended to promote development now blocks it. Business complains that the speed of decision is undermining productivity and competitiveness. People feel that they are not sufficiently involved in decisions that affect their lives…….We need a better, simpler, faster, more accessible system that serves both business and the community.”

Similarly in the written answer announcing the Green Paper the Secretary of State said “The present planning system is too complicated, too slow and engages insufficiently with local communities. We need to make it more efficient and more accessible so that it better serves everybody with an interest in the growth and development of their community.”

For once ladies and gentlemen, I can say that I agree with much of what Stephen Byers said.

I believe that we have a basic problem in that too many people do not have confidence in the planning system. There are a number of reasons for that. Of course there’s the problem of those who feel that the system has prevented them from doing what they wanted to do, be it extend their house or build a major development.

But for many individuals and communities there is a feeling that somehow the system doesn’t take account of their views or, often, of local needs. And we all know the complaints from business of the delay in decision taking, the inconsistency of approach and the uncertainty of the system. And that’s even before talking about the T5 inquiry.

So the Government was right in that some change was needed. We need to have a planning system in which people have confidence.

But beyond that I have real reservations about what the Government is proposing.

And in particular I take issue with them in their view that the Green Paper delivers, simplification of the system, involvement of local communities and meets businesses needs.

But perhaps an even more fundamental question is whether the system needs the degree of change that the Government is proposing.

Obviously I have spent some time since the Green Paper was published talking to and hearing from people involved in the planning system – planners, consultants, developers and local groups. The general verdict on the Green Paper is that it is like the curate’s egg, good in parts.

But perhaps the more overwhelming comment seems to be “does the system really need such fundamental change. After all we’re not so sure it’s the system that’s wrong just the way it is implemented….”

Perhaps the Government would have done better to pay more attention to the comments made by the CBI last year in their document “Planning for productivity. A ten-point action plan”.

That document was of course supported by the British Property Federation, the House Builders Federation and the British Chambers of Commerce.

In their Ten point plan the CBI identified three key areas in which the system “is perceived to fail its users”. They were:-

· the system is too slow, too often on decisions that matter

· the process involves too many uncertainties

· there is too much scope for poor decisions
They reflected on the inconsistency of performance between local authorities, but their solutions did not depend on a fundamental revamp of the system. Rather they proposed a focus on “consolidating and developing what works well in the system and rationalising where it does not work well”.

The problem not only for the Government, but also for everyone who uses or is involved on the planning system, is that the general consensus emerging is that the Green Paper does not meet the needs of business, or of local communities.

And that is certainly our position on the Green Paper.

The needs of business are not met in the Green Paper.

The key issue is that, far from simplifying the system, the new structure of plans that is proposed is more complex, more bureaucratic and I suggest will lead to more delay than the current system.

Because we are going to see national guidance, structure, local and unitary development plans being replaced by:-

· National policy
· Regional Spatial Strategy
· Sub-regional planning strategies
· County mineral and waste plans
· Local Development Frameworks
· Area Action Plans
· Some Business Development Plans.

As SPISE, Sane Planning in the South East put it “Will replacing National and regional guidance and a one or two tier Development Plan with National Policy, National Advice, Regional Plans, Sub-regional Strategies, Local development frameworks and Area Action Plans make the system more manageable or more comprehensible? Are these any more likely to be consistent with one another and reviewed more rapidly?”

I think the answer is a clear no. The new structure will lead to a multiplicity of plans which will not only be more complex for business and individuals to navigate their way around, but will also put yet more pressure on scarce resources at local authority level.

Far from streamlining the system, the Government is making it more bureaucratic and more complex.

Central to the new hierarchy of plans of course is the abolition of the county structure plans and with it the role of the county councils in the planning hierarchy.

As an MP and a former councillor I know the difficulty of persuading people that when they object to a planning application they must object on planning grounds. I think the same test should be applied to the Government’s proposals on the hierarchy of plans. Is the abolition of county structure plans being proposed on good planning grounds?

I suspect the answer to that is no. Because I believe that the proposal to abolish the role of county councils owes less to the desire to streamline the planning system and more to the Government’s commitment to press ahead with regional government. And on that basis alone it should be given short shrift.

As I am sure you are all aware, in 1999 under the Government’s modernising planning agenda, the then DETR commissioned a study on “Examination of the operation and effectiveness of the structure planning process”.

The report concluded that “the statutory structure plan should be retained as the crucial link between enhanced regional planning guidance and local plans”. It also concluded that the structure plans should be redefined to reflect their strategic role and should be concerned with all matters that required integrated treatment at a sub-regional level.

The Government’s decision to abolish the county structure plans therefore flies in the face of their own research.

But it also ignores the key role played by county councils in delivering transport, education, waste management and social services.

Now those reading the Local Government Chronicle might have taken some comfort from the headline in the 11 April issue that “Falconer seeks to reassure counties”.

But a careful reading of that interview would have given no such reassurance. He said there was a role for counties. Was that because of their involvement in the issues I raised above like transport and waste management? Was it because of the importance of the involvement of elected representatives in the planning process? Was it because without the involvement of the county councils the planning process would ignore local needs and would not achieve the integration so beloved of government?

No – it was because in his words “they have lots and lots of structural planners”. So the counties will pay for the work but won’t be making the decisions.

We believe that the county councils should continue to be involved and to be part of the decision making process and of course the counties can provide that sub-regional level of plan.

We do not support the Government’s proposals on regional government and we will fight to keep the county councils. But it is not only the county councils that will be affected, because it has become clear that the regional assemblies would require not only the abolition of county councils but also the re-configuration of district councils in many areas – at a potential cost of £2bn. I think there are better things the Government could be spending taxpayers’ money on than setting up a new tier of politicians and bureaucrats.

But it is not just in making the system more complex that the needs of business are not being met. The Green Paper proposes a new stealth tax on business – a development tax – through the proposals to change the current rules on planning gain – Section 106.

I think most people would agree that Section 106 and the whole planning gain process is not working as well as it should. Many people feel it lacks accountability and that too often local communities are left with planning gain that has little to do with the impact of a development and lots to do with what the council wants to do locally but can’t afford.

Many would say that greater clarity and consistency would be a benefit. But the Government’s proposed tariff system would leave developers paying a tariff and on top of that possibly having to negotiate planning gain with the local authority.

How long would it be before the Treasury saw monies raised through the tariff as an excuse to cut authorities’ revenue support grant. Then would we see authorities being deemed to be raising funds through the tariff and having grant cut regardless of whether they were in receipt of funds through the tariff or not.

Greater clarity is needed, but also surely we need to get back to a system where the gain is clearly linked to the impact of a development.

I said the Green Paper doesn’t meet the needs of business or local communities. Despite all the statements about local involvement in the Green Paper I believe that the proposals will lead to a reduction in the voice of local communities.

To an extent we see that in the move on structure plans – removing the role of elected representatives and moving decisions to unelected regional planning bodies.

But we see it most clearly in the proposals on major infrastructure projects.

Here the proposals have been driven by experience on Terminal 5. That was not a good experience, but it might be useful to reflect that the delay was not entirely due to the length o f the planning inquiry. The minister took a time in coming to a decision as well!

We are currently looking at how major infrastructure projects should be dealt with in the planning system, but I am sure of one thing and that is that a proposal that could lead to decisions being whipped through a committee on limited debate of the issues – even as little as an hour and a half – would cut out the voice of local communities and is the wrong way to go.

There is a similar issue at a lower level in the proposal to delegate 90% of an authority’s planning decisions to officers. Practise of course varies. But the Government is I believe wrong to think that the one size fits all approach will work.

Practise often varies because the nature of the applications and particularly the balance between individual applications and larger scale developments varies from authority to authority. I spoke recently to an authority which delegates more than 90% of its applications to officers, but which allows any Member to put any application on the development control committee agenda. But I also spoke recently to a council leader who said they were delegating less than 80% but that figure was about right given the sort of applications they received and their impact on the local area.

This requirement seems to have been born out of an assumption that delegation will automatically speed up the process. There is as far as I am aware no correlation between the two. But it misses the point that the quality of the decision making is also important. Failure to address this issue could lead to yet further alienation for local people and less confidence in the system.

Flexibility at local level on this issue must be right, so councils can reflect their particular needs and respond to the voice of their local communities.

The question of officer delegation brings me to one issue that should underpin the Green Paper but which is referred to only briefly. This is the whole issue of the resources allocated to planning departments and the role and remit of planning officers.

All the Green Paper proposals in the world are no good if the staff and resources are not there to implement them.

The Green Paper sets out two approaches. The first is that in recognition of their expectation of “real improvements in performance from local government” they are going to set up the Local Planning Advisory Service, working with the Best Value Inspectorate. It seems to me that this is just another example of their obsession with centralisation. It will add to an already over-inflated inspection regime.

It means more money going into central provision rather than local provision. The Green Paper touches its cap to the issue of resourcing, referring to the forthcoming comprehensive spending review.

But many planning departments are finding it increasingly difficult to recruit sufficient planners – and not just in terms of numbers but also in terms of experience and expertise.

I worry when I hear that at least one university is closing its planning school. Local authorities could well find themselves caught between a lack of basic supply and the more lucrative private sector. If the supply of planners reduces then local authorities will find it even more difficult competing with the private sector.

But this is about more than just numbers. I get the feeling that too much of a planning officer’s job these days can be described as a mechanistic process of assessing applications – which rules does it meet or break – rather than a process of assessing the suitability of an application – too little attention is given, perforce because of numbers, to issues of design quality.

I guess the key question is are our planners really planning or are they just processing according to rules set down by others?

If we are to increase confidence in the system then surely there needs to be a re-invigoration of the planning profession as well.

As a geography graduate who failed to go into planning I may not be best placed to address that question. As a politician dealing with planning issues I believe it is crucial – and you are well placed to consider that question.

The Green Paper gives the opportunity to address this issue as well as the details of the planning system. Of one thing I am sure. The issue should not be ignored, although it is not simply a matter for Government but for the profession as well.

Ladies and Gentlemen: I agree with the Government that there is a need to address the problems in our planning system that have led to a lack of confidence in the system for both many individuals and business.

The Green Paper’s approach of removing the county structure plans yet increasing the hierarchy of plans, thus increasing the complexity of the system and possibly leading to more delay, removing some decision taking from local level and reducing the voice of local communities, and reducing the role of elected councillors does not address that need.

The aim may have been laudable, but the Green Paper fails to deliver.