Planning laws are strangling the countryside

The Association launched a report yesterday (Tuesday, June 1) to rectify Britain’s ‘broken planning system’ and ‘reinvigorate the countryside’.  

William Worlsley, CLA president, said Britain urgently needed a planning system fit for the 21^st century to allow rural communities to live and work.

He called on the new Government to make the planning system ‘flexible and transparent’ and said that the cost of making planning proposals must be proportionate to the size of the development.

“Stable and flexible planning would deliver quicker and less expensive decisions while taking a balanced approach to sustainable development in a whole host of ways,” he said.

Current planning regulations are the number one gripe among the CLA’s 35,000 strong membership, which is why the Association spent a year devising its report – Planning for Change in the Countryside.

“We are asking the Government to loosen the grip on planning and give the countryside a chance to thrive,” said Mr Worsley.

“It is all about perspectives where five jobs in a village is a huge investment in the community, but five jobs in the city would be insignificant,” he added.

Alongside the need to let rural businesses develop, the Association says there is a desperate need for more rural housing to support new employment.

The CLA report is timely given the new Government is developing a fresh agenda for the countryside.

The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats both arrived into power on the back of promises to improve planning regulations and increase the availability of affordable rural homes.  

The CLA will now take its planning report to Ministers in Defra and other Government departments in an attempt to ‘fix Britain’s failing planning system’.

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