Reforms which protect green fields welcomed
Arundel & South Downs MP Andrew Griffith has welcomed Government planning reforms which protect green fields across the South Downs from development and put backing behind locally-driven neighbourhood plans.
The reforms, announced by the Government on Tuesday, December 19, provide guidance to local councils on where they are able to build, and place more emphasis on sustainable development in more urban areas such as
London, Brighton and Manchester.
Mr Griffith has been one of the most vocal MPS in the House of Commons on the topic of planning, including hosting a debate on rural overdevelopment and raising the issue in his maiden speech.
During the debate hosted by the MP on planning in 2020, he said: “We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to get this right, and it is vital that we do. This is not about today, but about tomorrow – the future that we want for our children and grandchildren.
“Nature has bequeathed a unique inheritance on to us of which our forefathers built thriving towns and great enterprising cities while preserving a tapestry of villages, fields and woodlands.
“We must not preserve it in aspic, but neither must we replace the species-rich ancient countryside and dark skies of West Sussex at risk from overdevelopment.”
Mr Griffith said the new planning reforms reflect many of the arguments he had made.
In a statement on the day they were announced, Mr Griffith said: “West Sussex is on the frontline of inappropriate development, and I’ve campaigned energetically for planning reform ever since being elected.
“Today is a huge step forward with new protections for prime agricultural land, making it clear that under this government housing targets are now only advisory and ‘locking-in’ the supremacy of neighbourhood plans.
”We all want more affordable homes for young people but there is a clear dividing line on how to get that: communities in control making democratic decisions that are right for them or even larger, top-down targets imposed by Lib Dem councils as we are seeing locally right now.”