CPRE warns of upsurge in legal challenges if New Homes Bonus goes ahead

The government’s New Homes Bonus could lead to an upsurge in legal challenges, the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) has claimed.

The CPRE suggested that the scheme “appears to be little more than an attempt to buy off objections to uncontrolled housing sprawl”.

It said it had obtained a legal opinion on the draft proposals in December 2010 from John Hobson QC and Stephen Whale of 4-5 Gray’s Inn Square, which suggested that linking the outcome of planning decisions to financial rewards could mean decisions taken were “tainted and open to question”.

The CPRE said subsequent changes made to the scheme were unlikely to go far enough. “As a result, any planning permission for new housing linked to the New Homes Bonus would stand a good chance of being overturned in a judicial review,” it claimed.

Shaun Spiers, the charity’s chief executive, said: “The final details of the New Homes Bonus are a recipe for planning chaos, with potentially grave consequences for the countryside. How can any important planning decision be considered impartial and balanced when there is a big pile of cash sitting on the table? It is little more then cash for sprawl.

“The government is on very shaky legal ground here. We foresee an upsurge in legal challenges to planning decisions. But whatever the courts might decide, local communities will feel uncomfortable to know that financial incentives are influencing planning decisions.”

Spiers warned that if one of the consequences of the last government’s top down targets was the wrong sort of houses in the wrong place, the current government risked the same outcome by different means.

He added: “We do need many more new homes, but we need them to be of good quality, built in the right place and based on an assessment of local housing need.”