I hadn't paid as much attention to the new Planning Bill as I should have done, but Camilla Cavendish's article changed that this morning. See Jackie Ashley as well.
There's a genuine tension here: we all want better national infrastructure, until it starts being built on top of our own community. Securing local democracy v. streamlined planning processes that don't last for ever and over-enrich my former colleagues at the bar. By all accounts, it's a tension reflected on our front bench (see here and here).
Camilla Cavendish makes a compelling case that government indecision is at least as much a cause of delay as the current planning laws. Conservatives were absolutely right to oppose this Bill, which makes central government even more powerful and even less accountable. Planning is highly political, and should not be sub-contracted out to yet another Quango.
This would have been a good opportunity for the Party to show that it no longer automatically sides with Big Business, without picking an unnecessary tokenistic fight. But we haven't made very much of this, possibly because of the internal disagreements that were apparently obvious quite literally on the front bench of the Chamber. If we are going to take a stand for local democracy, we need to be clear about what our own streamlining proposals are. If this Bill gets through the Lords, what changes will we make to it when we get back to government? And can our front benchers do some joined-up and accountable planning too, so that they manage to agree and then hold a public line?
