It seems the National Trust and the Campaign to Protect Rural England are becoming desperate. Over the past six months they’ve run a brilliant scaremongering campaign against the draft National Planning Policy Framework, claiming that the government is putting the entire countryside at risk of development. But on Monday they issued a report claiming that, in fact, the opposite is true and that the NPPF will have very little impact upon growth and new development. Confused? Read on.
The draft NPPF was launched last July and was met with a barrage of opposition from groups like the National Trust and the CPRE - although it’s interesting that the people who actually live and work in the countryside, like the NFU and the Countryside Alliance, support the NPPF. They know that the countryside has to be a living, working place where development is essential for its long-term prosperity.
The re-drafted NPPF is out shortly, and everyone in the housing world should be hoping that three of its core principles are retained. First, a plan-led approach – where local authorities set out the housing and other needs of their district and allocate the land to meet them, whilst preserving the best landscapes. Second, a presumption in favour of sustainable development where land is allocated for a specific purpose, or where plans are silent. Third, no return to a blanket brownfield-first policy, which did so much damage to some of our urban areas.
The government, to their credit, believes that the planning system acts a brake on growth and fails to deliver the homes we need at a price we can afford. That is certainly the view of most credible commentators on land use and planning.
But this latest report commissioned by the National Trust/CPRE (and written by an economics outfit called Vivid), takes the opposite view. As an exercise in evasion, dissembling and obfuscation it’s hard to beat and makes for an hilarious read, since both organisations appear to have moved from a position where the entire countryside is at risk of being “concreted over” to a position where none of it is now at risk! Or at least in the “short term”. The report aims to prove its point by bringing in all manner of non-economic issues, but its basic headline is that planning reform won’t boost growth. I can only guess that this bizarre volte face is based on their view that the NPPF is a Treasury-led document and that if the economic arguments are undermined then the whole document will fall.
Yet the National Trust/CPRE have always put forward the firm view that planning controls do not act as a barrier to economic growth, so it is axiomatic, by their lights, that any change to the planning rules won’t affect growth. This report is therefore internally incoherent and a pointless commission! Not only that, but its conclusions are refuted by a plethora of more credible reports, notably Kate Barker’s 2004 and 2006 reports on housing affordability and land use, and a series of reports from the LSE’s Spatial Economics Research Centre, which all show that our planning system hinders economic growth, raises house prices and increases market volatility. Who would you rather believe in this debate?
So this really is desperate stuff on the part of the National Trust and CPRE. The problem with scaremongering is that it can come back to hit you in the face. Like the boy who cried wolf, people stop believing you after a while. I’ve consistently argued in these blogs (and the CPRE, at least, seem to accept this), that we need to build at least 5 million homes over the next 20 years to cope with population grown. No more than 2 million can be built on brownfield sites (and I think the CPRE accepts that as well), which leaves 3 million to be built beyond the existing urban footprint, either on well-planned urban extensions or new settlements. But this is where the National Trust and the CPRE fall silent (actually the Trust is pretty clueless on housing issues). Rather than engaging in a rational grown-up debate about how and where we should build these new homes, and protect the best countryside into the bargain, they rely on scaremongering or emotive terms like “sprawl” and “concreting over the countryside” to make their arguments. It’s like a child sticking its fingers in its ears and screaming. No sensible local authority, with a sensible local plan in place, is planning to create sprawl or “concrete over the countryside”. What’s more even if three million homes were built on greenfield land this would take up only about two thirds of one percent of the existing countryside, or just 1.3 percent of the unprotected countryside.
The National Trust and the CPRE really should re-think their tactics. After all, we all know what happened to the boy who cried wolf.
Have your say
You must sign in to make a comment
Colin Wiles writes about
affordable rents,
Big Society,
Boris Johnson,
cih,
cpre,
David Lawrenson,
David Orr,
Ebenezer Howard,
Germany,
grant shapps,
house prices,
housebuilding,
housing crisis,
housing strategy,
housing supply,
Iain Duncan Smith,
kate barker,
London,
national trust,
NFU,
NPPF,
planning,
Policy Exchange,
Private rented sector,
riots
Readers' comments (10)
F451 | 15/02/2012 9:56 am
Maybe they were advised by Simon Hughes - or are otherwise just taking a more Liberal stance on the matter.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
mrkfm | 15/02/2012 1:03 pm
I’m not sure what the National Trust knows about these issues and wouldn’t take seriously anything they say, however I have the opposite opinion of George Monbiot who makes the following point which if true is extremely alarming and suggests that we are moving towards weak planning which will ruin the environment whilst creating the kind of urban sprawl which does not create sustainable communities:
"Development means growth", the new document says, and "without growth, a sustainable future cannot be achieved". All development thereby becomes sustainable, and all sustainable development must be approved. "A presumption in favour of sustainable development", the draft insists, must be "the basis for every plan, and every decision … the default answer to development proposals is yes".
It lists the kinds of sustainable development that councils will now be expected to approve. They include motorway service stations, roads to the airport and advertising hoardings. If these are sustainable, what isn't?
... the main impediment to house building in recent years has not been planning, which now approves some 80% of housing proposals, but money. In the comprehensive spending review last year, the government – doubtless motivated by its newfound concern for the poor – cut the affordable housing budget by 60%. Credit has dried up, effective demand has shrivelled, the housebuilders are going bust.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Colin Wiles | 15/02/2012 1:34 pm
mrkfm - there is a difference between development control and strategic planning. 80% of applications may well be approved, but if insufficient land is released for housing that is a strategic issue that is quite separate from DC. Money is a short term issue - once mortgages become available there will be a surge of demand without a corresponding increase in supply, leading to a house price boom. The only solution is on the supply side - to release more land.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Rob Lennox | 15/02/2012 2:04 pm
I agree that the NT/CPRE tone is wrong. However, nothing that you say requires a default yes to development that must be judged to be 'significantly and demonstrably' outweighed by dis-benefits before it can be turned down.
As mrkfm rightly says, what does this position rule out? If housing is a priority, then single it out in within local plans, release extra land, but do it whilst respecting a satisfactory definition of sustainable development and a concern for valued heritage and countryside which is currently under-protected in the language of the NPPF.
There is space for a pragmatic line on the NPPF. Most environmental and heritage groups support its principles, on the whole. If only the recommendations of the CLG committee were followed, I think the heritage sector would be very satisfied.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
mrkfm | 15/02/2012 2:20 pm
Hi Colin
Releasing more land is certainly something that is needed but it’s how it’s done that's the problem.
It seems that without strict planning, based on what I noted above, there will be any form of development happening without consideration for its purpose which could store up more problems than it resolves.
Perhaps we can all agree that the National Trust hasn’t a clue but as is noted above, the planning framework appears to be a complete mess which will lead to things such as urban sprawl and therefore it is not scaremongering to suggest it when the framework effectively states that all development of any kind is sustainable.
We can’t ignore these issues because as we know in every other area of policy since the Tories got back in, what ends up happening is profits being made by friends of the government whilst the rest of us lose out.
There was an article I read last year about Tescos who effectively destroyed a local vilage in Scotland as it intentionally ran it down for its own benefit as it has the power to manipulate planning processes. Just as in the past Labour built lots of high rise houses that created ghettoes.
As Monbiot pointed out, this is a blatant product of corporate power and it would be naive to just presume that the current reforms will provide the homes we need.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
mrkfm | 15/02/2012 2:33 pm
Just wrote the last note as Rob was writing his which is more eloquent than mine!
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Stephen Ellams | 16/02/2012 11:18 pm
Colin, may I suggest you 1. Join the campaign for simple English. 2. Then put yourself in the position of thousands of householders all over the country and ask the question how did we get to this current situation?
Common sense appears to have gone out of the window. How can building on Green field sites over brown field sites in any situation be acceptable. Have you an understanding of Land banking?
If you have ,then please justify!
Steve Ellams
Projects Cordinator Wharefedale and Airedale Review Group West Yorkshire
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Colin Wiles | 17/02/2012 7:24 am
Stephen - there are 300,000 existing planning permissions. That's enough for just over a year's supply if we were to meet Kate Barker's target for new homes. The brownfield first policy caused a disastrous increase of densities in some areas, including garden grabbing. Other uses should be considered for brownfield land including open space. Islington, for example, has virtually no open space and it is simply wrong to cram yet more building on every scrap of brownfield land that becomes available.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Stephen Ellams | 17/02/2012 3:25 pm
Hi Colin
Sorry you have not answered the Question of "Land Banking"
If as you state 300,000 permissions exist why so many?
Steve Ellams
W.A.R.D.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Colin Wiles | 19/02/2012 7:44 pm
Stephen see this article. The answer is because housebuilders speculate in land and need a supply for the future. You cannot expect any housebuilder to be building right now when demand is low due to mortgage scarcity. But demand is building up and will cause a boom as soon as mortgage credit becomes freely available (because supply is inelastic) http://www.24dash.com/blogs/colin_wiles/2012/02/14/Putting-our-housebuilding-in-order/
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment