Fixing the planning system so it works for communities

AS local residents know only too well, our planning system is broken. To make matters worse, the Government is failing to step in and help local communities.

On the face of it, the Government talks about ‘localism’ and ‘local plans’ but the reality is a system in which the Government puts local choice and local councillors in a straitjacket.

The National Planning Policy Framework was meant to provide the basis for reasonable growth in housing to meet the needs of local families. It was supposed to help guide development in communities in a way which was sympathetic to the existing area and allow communities to shape their own future.

Instead, it has become a go-to charter for eager developers to show-horn in over-sized housing developments despite reasonable objections from local people.

It has skewed the system in favour of those who want to build and make a profit over those who want to enjoy our countryside and protect their neighbourhoods.

We do need to build more homes, to help younger people can get a foot on the housing ladder and make sure that our children and grandchildren are able to buy homes in the places they grew up.

However, the Government is failing to manage this in a way that protects our green spaces.

For example, it is failing to do enough to make sure brownfield land is used for development rather than countryside.

The current planning system also allows major developers to claim that demand isn’t being met or that the lack of available alternative land requires permission to be granted – regardless of local opinion.

Councillors then face the impossible choice of granting permission, knowing that the development is not suited to their local area, or refusing planning permission, safe in the knowledge that developers will appeal, costing the council tens of thousands of pounds only for permission to be granted by the Government.

It is lose – lose for councils who try and stand up for local people when the developers have the government in their corner, writing rules purely designed to enable builders to build despite objections.

As demand for housing continues to grow and more and more people choose to leave big cities, it is even more important that local communities like Woodley and

Earley and towns and villages across Berkshire have the right to shape their own futures.

Matt Rodda is the MP for

Reading East