Conservation groups step up opposition to planning reforms

Opposition to some of the Government's planning reforms, in particular the proposals for an Infrastructure Planning Commission, has escalated.

A coalition of most of the UK's main environmental, conservation and civic organisations, representing five million members, has taken full-page adverts in four national papers to voice their concerns.

They claim the proposals "threaten to make a mockery of local democracy, stripping away your right to participate in major decisions about your area and threatening valuable landscapes, habitats, historic environments and local character".

The grouping includes the Friends of the Earth, The Civic Society, the National Trust, the Ramblers Association, the Campaign to Protect Rural England, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Wildlife Trusts.

In a separate but related development FoE put in a planning application (later withdrawn) to build a waste incinerator on the site of St Paul's Cathedral in London.

The pressure group said this move highlighted FoE fears that the public's right to have a say on major schemes is threatened by the proposed planning reforms.

However Communities and Local Government minister John Healey has reassured Parliament that the public will still be closely involved under the proposed new arrangements.

He said the Government's proposals on a new regime for major projects "will entail public consultation and will involve the public at every stage – in the preparation of new national policy statements and project proposals by developers and with reinforced rights of access to inquiries, which may take place as part of the planning process".

Read John Healey's Commons contributions (Commons Hansard 10 July, Column 1315)

Roger Milne

12 July 2007