Coalition’s push for localism is undermined by planning inspectors
The Telegraph is with the National Trust on this issue – its “expose” style approach to reporting this actually straightforward and above board issue runs as follows:
“Local authorities have been asked by the government’s Planning Inspectorate in recent months to amend their local plans so that they provide more land for homes, allocate more rural land for development and even give up Green Belt for construction projects. Cases include South Oxfordshire, which was told to allocate an extra 255 homes to greenfieldland, and Harborough, in Leicestershire, which had to increase its target for rural house building by more than 2,000. The revelation, in council documents seen by The Sunday Telegraph, has alarmed countryside campaigners who are fighting against the Coalition’s proposed planning reforms, which will introduce a “presumption in favour of development”.
One positive element in this aspect of the anti-rural development side of the story is that some fact or at least interpretation of real issues accompanies the rhetoric. Lets hope we get more factual and practical issues to discuss as part of the debate which should enable the true pros and cons of rural development to be debated.