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Secrecy and ‘deals’ squeeze out our role in the planning process
Planning policies are the only real means communities have of protecting local diversity and character. This power is in danger of being lost, argues Richard Simpson
ARE planning decisions being removed from effective democratic control?
The planning applications in the New Journal headlines recently – the Lighthouse at King’s Cross, St Edmund’s Terrace beside Primrose Hill, and Twyman House in Camden Town – are not just important in themselves.
They tell us something about the critical state of local democracy, and the public engagement through effective consultation which underpins that democracy.
And this not just an issue in Camden. It is a national problem, the result of central governments’ determination over 30 years to erode local decision-making as part of the drive for deregulation.
This is the same deregulation which has led to catastrophe in our financial systems.
It endangers our environment, it drives out the good planning officers we have in Camden, it weakens the authority of councillors, and it undermines participation in democracy.
Planning is the only real means that local communities have of protecting local diversity and local character: what makes each place special.
It may be the character of a local landmark, a roofline, a skyline.
Planning has a special role in making sure that we have local places to work and adequate housing to support a society where we can live together so that we can understand and enjoy the diversity of our communities.
Camden has policies to make these basic objectives possible.
And these policies are our policies.
Camden’s communities, in particular our conservation area advisory committees, have spent time – lots of time – helping to get these policies right.
Our councillors have approved them. We haven’t gone to all that effort just to see them ignored.
We want to see them followed rigorously. That’s where effective consultation comes in.
And that’s just what central government’s approach is undermining.
By setting a strict timescale within which local council’s should decide applications, it is too easy for effective consultation to be squeezed out.
Local communities are finding that we are not consulted, or consulted too late.
We have cases where applications, especially revised applications, are being presented for decision when the design cannot even be seen by the public on the day the decision is made.
This is a breach of public trust: it is deeply undermining for democracy and places councillors in an unacceptable position.
We are asking councillors to agree that if consultation has not been undertaken on a reasonable timescale, an application cannot be decided.
But public participation is being undermined even more dangerously.
Having set an impossible set of timescales for decision making, the government has introduced a pre-application process to get round the problem it has created.
This means that a development proposal is considered, often in detail, before it is formally, publicly, submitted as a planning application.
If this consideration is open and accountable, no problem.
The trouble is that it is usually secret.
By the time an application is officially submitted, the scheme has been sorted out in private discussions between developers and planners.
Public consultation is then a fig leaf concealing what certainly looks like a private deal. We are asking councillors to make sure that pre-application discussion is always open and accountable.
As governments have undermined local decision-making to make it easier for beggar-my-neighbour development, the neighbours have got angry.
A recent national survey shows that over the past three years, the number of people actively opposing planning applications has doubled.
This is a growing national issue, as people across the country recognise deregulation in planning as opening up the erosion of our communities, undermining both residents and local business.
In Camden, we need to work together – communities, advisory committees, planning officers, and councillors – to fight this attack.
And working together means making a reality, day-by-day and case-by-case, of an open, accountable, system.
Are our councillors in Camden going to support the means to real local democracy, effective consultation, and lead the fight for our communities, our democracy, and our environment?
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