Trials begin for neighbourhood planning reforms
Communities in 17 local authority areas have begun trialling the government’s neighbourhood planning reforms.
The 17 councils and areas involved in the trials include:
- Birmingham City Council: Balsall Heath
- Bristol City Council: Lockleaze
- The London Borough of Southwark: Bermondsey
- North Tyneside Council: North Shields Fish Quay
- Allerdale Borough Council: Cockermouth
- Blaby District Council: Blaby
- Exmoor National Park Authority: Lynton
- West Dorset District Council: Cerne Abbas
- Shropshire Council: Much Wenlock
Each area will be handed £20,000 towards developing a neighbourhood development plan. A further 33 grants from a £1m fund will be made to projects applying to be front runners.
Councils in the areas will be expected to work with community groups and parish councils on the preparation of draft plans and neighbourhood development orders.
The Department for Communities and Local Government said the documents would be prepared under the current legal and policy framework ahead of the new provisions in the Localism Bill.
Under the proposals, local people will be able to decide what types of development should receive automatic planning permission. Where the plan is backed by a local referendum, the council will have to adopt it so long as it is in line with “wider ambitions for growth in their area”, the DCLG said.
Ministers claimed that the changes set out in the Bill would hand local people “a real voice in deciding the look and feel of development in their areas”.
Decentralisation Minister Greg Clark said the reforms would see communities begin to welcome development “rather than resist it at all costs”.
He said: "Planning has increasingly become one of the most contentious issues in Britain, with communities becoming pitted against development. Often the reason is that local people feel alienated from the planning process, with no influence over changes to their area.
"Neighbourhood planning will help to reverse that position by giving communities the ability to shape development in their area rather than being dictated to.”
