Pressure is growing on communities secretary Eric Pickles to take a less extreme line on strategic planning in England, with the Campaign to Protect Rural England warning lack of a replacement for regional plans would hit environmental protection, the countryside and local infrastructure.
Although CPRE has welcomed the end of top-down housing targets, the Government's principal justification for abolishing regional strategies, it says the local economic partnerships to replace regional development agencies would be too focused on economic development to replace strategic planning.
CPRE says removing strategic planning altogether would undermine local authorities' ability to fight greenfield sprawl, hit delivery of transport and affordable housing and leave nothing to plan projects between the national and local.
"We support the Government's drive to give local people more say in the planning decisions that affect their area but some issues need to be looked at more strategically," said campaigns co-ordinator Gerald Kells.
"It's no good planning public transport only up to the local authority border, nor can every community consider suitable locations for housing provision or waste management in isolation from their neighbours. These decisions need to be looked at collectively if they are to deliver the most sensible outcomes. The Government has instigated a major review of the planning system and we cannot afford, when flushing out the bad, to lose the baby with the bathwater."
It said any replacement for regional strategies should include a spatial strategic framework, manage councils' conflicting agendas and maintain an overview of implementation.
Progress against wider land use objectives and goals should be monitored to allow local authorities to react accordingly.
"This Government has set itself ambitious goals by setting out to be the ‘greenest government ever', to protect the green belt and to provide new homes where they're needed," said Mr Kells.
"However, these goals cannot be realised through local action alone. There must be a bridge between the local and national level if we are to make the sensible land use decisions. The cumulative impact of myriad local decisions will not necessarily result in an effective strategy."
