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Local Planning

The Government talks a lot about involving people in local planning, but in reality it balks at giving communities legally enforceable rights to raise concerns and objections as these rights might impede developers and their projects. People can be "involved" and consulted all right, just so long as this involvement can be ignored. In short, the Treasury regards the planning system as anti-competitive.

Most of the changes to the planning system will come under plan making. In the present system, Local Plans set out how an area should develop and the council makes decisions about individual planning applications. The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill, due to come into force in April 2004, will abolish all Local Plans and replace them with Local Development Frameworks (LDC).

Regional plans have new legal weight and are where major developments in your region will be decided. Although you have a right to be heard on local plans, you don't on regional plans. We don't know exactly what opportunities there will be for public participation at regional level. But we do know that there will be no right to be heard at public examination of policy. Something called the Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS) will be a key driver for what ends up in your LDC.

The new local planning system is a confusing one (even to experts), but one that we must nevertheless engage in and spread the message about rights, democracy and environmentally, sustainable development. Along with other non-governmental organisations (NGOs) Friends of the Earth and its local groups network are still lobbying hard as the legislation goes through Parliament to extend communities' rights and give planning a real purpose.

Birmingham Friends of the Earth's planning campaign has seen us defending allotments from development, busting several guts responding tothe Unitary Development Plan (UDP) in 2002, fighting applications for large development in the West Midlands greenbelt, arguing for the protection of green spaces, and selling off Masshouse Circus at 50p a chunk.

We receive the local Planning Department's weekly list of planning applications, which allow us to spot and challenge potentially nasty developments at the earliest stage.

Briefings and other documents

Planning campaign press releases

• Fifty years old today and everyone wants a slice of the Green Belt (2nd August 2005)
• 800 rights of way at risk (23rd September 2003)
• Peddi-power! City greenbelt sites saved from development (29th August 2003)
• Masshouse Circus - 50p a chunk! (1st May 2002)

Press centre: an archive of Birmingham Friends of the Earth press releases 2000-present

Action Briefing articles 2003-6

• Billesley Lane Allotments: the plot thickens (Jan-Feb 2006)
• From cover-up to Power Up: Freedom of Information and the planning system (Oct-Nov 2005)
• Fifty years on, everybody wants a slice of the Green Belt (Aug-Sept 2005)
• Green roofs for urban wildlife (Apr-May 2005)
• Victoria Jubilee Allotments: the final installment (Feb-Mar 2005)
• Peddimore: into the Green Belt, out of the woods? (Dec 2004-Jan 2005)
• Environmental Vandalism in Tile Hill, Coventry (Aug-Sept 2004)
• MPs in on the act? (June-July 2004)
• At last, a planning blueprint for the region... (June-July 2004)
• Victoria Jubilee Allotments (Jun-Jul 2004)
• Victoria Jubilee Allotments: the campaign continues . . . (Apr-May 2004)
• Post office closures: new dawn or last post? (Apr-May 2004)
• Peddi-power: Sutton greenbelt sites saved from development (Oct-Nov 2003)
• The lost paths of Birmingham (Oct-Nov 2003)
• Billesley Lane Allotments 'downsizing' (Oct-Nov 2003)
• West Midlands RPG meeting and social (Oct-Nov 2003)
• Tesco in Walsall? (Oct-Nov 2003)
• The WTO and the new planning system (Aug-Sept 2003)
• Victoria Jubilee Allotments under threat (Aug-Sept 2003)
• Where's the RPG response? (Aug-Sept 2003)
• Walsall on the UDP (Jun-Jul 2003)
• The West Midlands RPG (Jun-Jul 2003)
• Billesley Lane Allotments update (Apr-May 2003)
• Multi modal studies and the future of planning (Apr-May 2003)
• Oswestry’s green lung (Apr-May 2003)
• Tesco in Quinton? (Feb-Mar 2003)
• Billesley Lane disappointment (Feb-Mar 2003)
• Deal time: ‘Out-of-town’ school paves the way for ‘In-town’ superstore (Feb-Mar 2003)

More Action Briefing articles in our archive.

The National Stadium campaign 2001

• Briefing: Right city, right region, wrong location (September 2001)

Links

• Friends of the Earth - planning www.foe.co.uk/resource/local/planning
• Campaign for Planning Sanity www.planningsanity.co.uk/
• West Midlands Planning Aid http://westmidlands.rtpi.org.uk/planaid.html
• Birmingham City Council www.birmingham.gov.uk

This page last updated: 25th May 2006