Green Belt Its Not All That Green

25 February 2007 - Source: timesonline.co.uk

We are in her wood-panelled office on the "MPC corridor" at the Bank of England, where the four external (nonBank) members of the monetary policy committee are based. Hers overlooks the most-photographed part of the City, the junction where the Bank and the Royal Exchange are located.

This is not, however, an interview about interest rates and monetary policy, although she cannot resist a chuckle that the morning's papers are full of stories of the Bank's apparent hawkish-ness. A Bank paper to mark the approaching 10th anniversary of independence in May, which looks back at the past decade, has been interpreted in some quarters as a firm signal that interest rates are about to go up again.

We are here to talk about Barker's other role. The former Ford economist and CBI chief economic adviser has now carried out two major reviews on behalf of Gordon Brown, in the two days a week she is not engaged in Bank duty.

The first, on housing, was published nearly three years ago, in March 2004, and called for between 70,000 and 120,000 additional homes to be built each year to meet housing needs and reduce the rate of house-price inflation. It also called for a big expansion of social housing.

The second, published in December, was on land-use planning on looking at the relationship between planning, productivity and general economic performance, and will be followed shortly with a white paper.

The planning review was in response to widespread criticism of the existing regime, particularly from business, which has attacked the snail's pace at which applications are assessed, and the apparent bias in the system against development for economic reasons.

Both reviews touched the rawest of “nimby” "not in my back yard's nerves. One writer said they were a signpost to a "Brown and unpleasant land" the green belt was concreted over. John Gummer, the former Tory environment secretary, said it was a case of “Barker up the wrong tree”. Barker herself was given the tabloid treatment when it emerged that she and her husband had opposed a neighbour’s planning application.

In fact, while her report suggested that planners should look again at which land is designated as green belt, people have got the wrong end of the stick.

“People think the green belt is about the environment but the prime function is really a planning designation — it is about keeping places apart,” she said. “To put it another way, the land it is protecting is not of particular environmental benefit.”

The original green-belt idea many decades ago has been distorted by changing commuting patterns. In some respects, the green belt is bad for the environment because it encourages longer-distance commuting. A high proportion of London commuters now live beyond the green belt and that is also becoming the norm in other cities.

“There are a whole lot of different and new environmental pressures that have come along,” she said. “There are quite a lot of reasons for thinking you might want to look at it again. But I’ve been anxious to add that where the green belt is keeping regeneration going, people should carry on with it. That applies much more in some of the northern areas of green belt.”

But while she is sticking to her view that the green belt in its present form should not be sacrosanct, she is emphatic that everybody should have access to green space. In some cases that will mean offering incentives to councils to convert derelict land into parkland.

The second controversial aspect of her review was the proposal that the “needs” test for new retail developments be abolished. Town planning officers, surveyed by Friends of the Earth, warn that this will kill off town centres and lead to a flood of out-of-town developments.

Again, Barker insists that people have got it wrong. “I became much more supportive of ‘town centre first’ as I was conducting the review,” she said. “This is certainly not a free-for-all. I thought of it as a very modest proposal.”

So, while retailers will not have to pass a “needs” test for new developments, other important hoops will remain. In planning jargon there will still be “impact” and “sequential” tests. “There will be questions such as: Is there a better site for this in the town?” said Barker. “If there isn’t a good site, is it going to have an impact on the town centre? For the majority of cases something like a needs test will carry on.”

But there is a limited role for planning in protecting independent shops, another bone of contention, she believes.

“Planning can influence the size of shops and the use, but it should be blind to who is applying,” she said. “My feeling is that it [ownership] isn’t for planners.”

Most of all, however, she is keen to emphasise the positive aspects, particularly for business, of a shake-up of planning. It is not, she said, all about getting speedier approval for big infra-structure projects such as Heath-row’s fifth terminal, although her proposals, including a new independent planning commission, should help. Taking decisions away from politicians, as with the Bank on interest rates, will be helpful, she believes.

Rather, she suggests, the main benefits are likely to come lower down the scale. “My sense is that planning is insidious in its effects and it does have quite an impact on the ability of businesses to respond to changing circumstances. And I became particularly concerned, conducting the review, about the impact on small businesses.

“Small businesses are often very unfamiliar with the system and make mistakes with their applications, so they do need more help,” she said. “There are also issues about the access of small businesses to land and property, and planning authorities need to be more aware of that.

“Planning does have an impact on productivity, along with other things. One of the real difficulties . . . is that you never know about the things that don’t go ahead because people think there is no point applying for this.”

Having said that, she insists that business should not get everything it wants, because of the need to balance conflicting pressures. Her proposals to cut tax relief on empty properties and vacant land were not pro-busi-ness, and neither was the proposed new tax on land for development, now making its way through the Treasury Does the government respond quickly enough to these expert reviews? “I did get frustrated about how long it took to get a government reaction to the first review,” she said.

She will step down from her MPC post in May.

Would she carry out another review if Brown asked? “I don’t think that’s a good question to ask me. They’re enormously enjoyable, but they’re also enormously stressful.”

Barker’s key points

- Ensure benefits of economic development are taken more fully into account in plans;

- Encourage planning bodies to review green-belt boundaries;

- Set up independent Planning Commission for big projects;

- In retailing, remove the requirement to show ‘need’ for development;

- Streamline planning process so development plans take no longer than 18-24 months;

- Establish a ‘positive planning culture’ in which applications are normally approved unless costs clearly outweigh benefits;

- Give local authorities fiscal incentives to encourage development;

- Remove from minor commercial developments the requirement for planning permission.

 

• CrownLand registers the land in your name with the HM Land Registry.
• Once purchased you have 100% legal ownership of your land.
• You have the ability to sell your land any time, at any price, to who ever you wish.
• Our land is always sold as freehold, the land is yours forever until you sell it.
• Just 10% deposit secures your purchase.