Further written evidence reported to the House
Planning Bill
9:15 am
Hugh Ellis: Yes, there is. I think it is important to stress that Friends of the Earth and other organisations in the green sector are very supportive of the kind of sustainable development that we need to achieve. But the caveat to that is that such development and infrastructure needs to be delivered in a fair way and in a low-carbon economy. I think our real concern is that the Bill does not meet those two challenges. Our worry is that—particularly in relation to carbon—there are insufficient mechanisms to link the Climate Change Bill, for example, to the national policy statements and to the work of the independent planning commission.
Our concerns on public involvement in participation are also very significant. We think the Bill rewrites the important 1947 settlement on planning, which included democratic accountability and public participation as vital parts of the general planning regime. The system that is presented to us raises a number of concerns in relation to the testing of national policy statements, particularly where those statements are site-specific and involve people’s rights to be heard. The lack of democratic accountability in the IPC is a very significant issue, as are the very limited rights for people at inquiries, particularly the removal of an effective right to be heard.
At the end of the day, we are not looking for a system for non-governmental organisations. It is not a system that should work for the Friends of the Earth; it is a system that should work for the wider community. It is in fact non-aligned individuals—ordinary citizens—who will find this new regime most difficult to deal with. Overall, if we are interested in sustainable development, we need a system where people agree with the process, even if they disagree on outcome.
We do not think the Bill has generated a consensus about the process, and as a result of that there is likely to be, based on our judgment and experience, a very significant increase in public protest around major decisions. We think that consensus is there to be had; we hope there will be a dialogue about achieving that consensus, because it is in no one’s interest ultimately to have a system which is illegitimate in the public eye. Nobody will be able to deliver anything, least of all business, without at least the consent of local populations and the wider society.