Latest news with #PlanningBill
Daily Mail
7 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Get Britain building ... ponds: Angela Rayner urged to use planning reform to cut red tape on small lakes to help wildlife and combat flooding
is being urged to use Labour's reform of the planning system to make it easier to dig ponds to help ease the impact of flooding and create more havens for wildlife. Tory MP Rebecca Smith wants the Deputy Prime Minister's plan to cut red tape around construction to include the rules governing the creation of new bodies of water. Currently, because they often involve excavating earth to create a depression the creation of new ponds can be deemed engineering work or even mining activity that requires planning permission, she argues. The South West Devon MP has tabled an amendment to Ms Rayner's Planning and Infrastructure Bill that would give new water bodies with a surface area of less than 0.2 hectares - around a third of a football pitch - 'presumed consent'. She told MailOnline: 'Where there is water, there is life. Ponds are a fantastic habitat for wildlife, like the common toad and blue-tailed damselfly. 'As well as breathing life into local landscapes, they protect communities from flooding by storing up the excess water during heavy rainfall. 'For too long, new ponds have been bogged down in unnecessary red tape because, somewhat bizarrely, removing the earth to create them can count as engineering or even mining. 'If you are a farmer or land owner who wants to nurture local wildlife and fight flooding, you should not have to navigate the planning in order to do the right thing.' Earlier this week, an analysis from the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the Met Office warned that northern Europe could see some very wet winters over the next five years, which is one of the key climate hazards for the region, bringing with it the risk of flooding. Her push has been backed by experts including the Freshwater Habitats Trust. Its CEO, Professor Jeremy Biggs, said: 'By creating new ponds, we can add clean water to the landscape, protecting our threatened water plants and animals. 'Extending permitted development to cover the creation of wildlife ponds would speed up this vital work, and help us to restore freshwater habitats across the country.' The Government has set out proposals to cut red tape and for planning decisions to be shifted away from councillors and towards expert officers as part of efforts to meet Labour's pledge to build 1.5 million homes by 2029-30. Trained planning officers rather than committees of elected councillors will be responsible for deciding on developments of up to nine homes under the plans, as well as most minor and technical applications. The Government is considering 'streamlining' requirements on biodiversity net gain including the option of a full exemption for those minor developments. Housing Secretary Ms Rayner rejected that she was compromising green protections to get homes built, telling broadcasters: 'No, we're simplifying the process for houses if there's under 10 houses built, and between 10 and 49. 'So we're going to simplify that process. We're going to put more expert planners on that process as well, but we won't be compromising on nature,' she said during a visit to new housing development visit near Didcot, Oxfordshire. Kitty Thompson, head of campaigns at the Conservative Environment Network, added: 'Ponds are an effective tool for boosting biodiversity and building climate resilience on our land. Yet creating them can be needlessly difficult under current planning rules. 'That's why this amendment is so important. It removes unnecessary red tape, empowering farmers and landowners to create new habitats for our wildlife and providing vital natural storage for water during periods of heavy rain. 'Giving ponds permitted development rights is a small change that can have a big impact for nature recovery and flood alleviation across the country.
RTÉ News
09-05-2025
- Business
- RTÉ News
Courts not place for applications once planning gone through
The courts are not the place for planning applications to be decided once the planning process has gone through, Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said. He was speaking at the official opening of a wastewater treatment plant in Arklow, Co Wicklow. At the event Uisce Éireann CEO Niall Gleeson said objections to infrastructure projects are not helping the environment, are costing the taxpayer millions and are stopping young people from getting homes. Minister for Housing James Browne was also at the official opening of the Uisce Éireann's Arklow Wastewater treatment plant, a €140 million project delivered on budget and six months ahead of its construction deadline. Mr Gleeson contrasted the project with another similar one in north Dublin, that got planning the same year as Arklow but has been held up by judicial reviews ever since. He said the common good is not being served by people using judicial reviews when they do not like decisions of An Bord Pleanála, and it costs the taxpayers and the state millions. "Environmentalists are really just effectively delaying projects, I mean we are … the environmental improvers here. We are improving the environment", Mr Gleeson said. He understands people have concerns but "others are just serial objectors, and they are not adding any value and in fact the common good is being ignored in this whole process". Responding to Mr Gleeson's comments, Mr Martin said they have set up a new division in the Department of Public Expenditure to examine the delivery of new projects on time. The Taoiseach said wastewater treatment plants are one of the "most effective things to clean up water, the environment, the rivers estuaries and the seas" and the judicial review process is being streamlined. "We just passed a Planning Bill. It took us four years to get what was a fundamental re-evaluation of our planning system and the Minister will be bringing forward proposals in terms of the establishment of the Planning Commission, which I think will help and through that Act we have streamlined the JR process also. "That has to be commenced now, but we do have a written constitution so these are not issues you can sort out at the stroke of a pen." Mr Martin also said the courts should not be where planning applications are decided. "Once we go through planning, once you go through the local authorities, once you go through An Bord Pleanála, the pre-planning for all of that, the courts should not be ultimately the place where planning applications to get determined in my view." The Taoiseach also said there is a review of the National Development Plan ongoing, and they will allocate additional money to Irish water "at scale" for additional projects, parts of which will be ringfenced for the growth of towns to allow for development of housing.
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Keir Starmer is turning Britain into South Africa
Ask which country Britain should model its economy on, and you'll get a range of answers. Some would opt for the United States and its turbocharged national prosperity. Others, a more dirigiste European model, or perhaps the authoritarian state-managed capitalism of China. Almost nobody is going to name South Africa. After almost two decades of miserable stagnation, the rainbow nation is poorer today than it was in 2007. Rolling blackouts blight the lives of citizens and businesses, infrastructure is visibly crumbling and new land seizure laws have stepped up the government's war on farmers, frightening off investors with predictable consequences. It's unfortunate, then, that Sir Keir Starmer and his comrades seem to see this as the ideal path for the UK to follow. The rush to decarbonise the grid, seemingly driven less by practicality than ideology, is opening Britain up to a future of 'demand flexibility' as intermittent generation fails to provide enough power to meet requirements. The state of the roads is a subject of perennial complaint. And now the Government is inching towards expropriation of land and property. Nestled in the Planning Bill currently making its way through Parliament is a nasty clause giving the state the right to seize your home and land for less than its market value. This already exists, to a certain degree: the last government decided that councils could issue compulsory purchase orders for property without including what's known as 'hope value' – the value added on top of the current use value of a property by the possibility of future planning permission. The Planning Bill would strip back the safeguards to this clause, allowing local authorities to issue these orders without the consent of central government in order to build social or affordable housing. It doesn't take a great deal of thought to see how badly this could work out. The 'hope' value of housing or land will be partly reflected in the price paid for that asset. Disregarding it entirely raises the prospect of people being forced to sell for less than that price, leaving them out of pocket. For farmers already facing the prospect of being forced into sales by changes to inheritance tax, this could be another brutal blow. It could also prove a blow to urban households, too; these laws cover family homes with every bit as much force as they cover vacant brownfield sites. Proponents of the law argue that it is all but inconceivable that it could ever be misused. Critics with a more realistic view of the long, sordid history of local authorities behaving in corrupt or grotesquely stupid ways might beg to differ. Put a mechanism for the cheap expropriation of land and property in front of cash-strapped councils looking to balance soaring statutory obligations for spending with stagnant income, and it seems far from impossible that they'll attempt to find a way of turning a discount on land into a source of funds, or successfully lobby for changes to the law to allow them to do so. It's not an appealing prospect. And it's a prospect that's not confined to local Government, either. 'Wealth tax' might be the most dangerous two-word phrase in fiscal policy, but that hasn't deterred central Government from creeping in that direction. Increased surveillance of land values, raising inheritance taxation by pulling pensions and other assets into the scope of the tax, and a constant drumbeat of more or less explicit proposals for taxing people's savings and capital appear to suggest that the Left is once again debating the most damaging tax it can. It's notable that no firm proposal need ever see the light of day for some of the damage to be felt. As with speculation over changes to the taxation of pensions or capital gains, a mere suggestion that such a tax could be in the offing would result in people changing their behaviour in economically costly ways. This, in turn, is why chancellors have shied away from the policy in the past. People save and invest in Britain under the assumption that they will be able to reap the fruits of their decisions, and with the knowledge, too, that future governments will be highly tempted to expropriate them. Present day governments can offer no cast-iron guarantees that this won't happen. Promises and laws made and passed today can be reneged on or repealed tomorrow. All they can do is point to their track record of behaviour, and the point that despite tremendous temptation, Britain has eschewed this policy. With the tax burden already soaring, and no sign of falling demands for spending in sight, however, the temptation to meet today's fiscal demands by burning tomorrow's prosperity is growing. Setting up the infrastructure for expropriation today could lead to South Africanisation tomorrow. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
03-04-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Keir Starmer is turning Britain into South Africa
Ask which country Britain should model its economy on, and you'll get a range of answers. Some would opt for the United States and its turbocharged national prosperity. Others, a more dirigiste European model, or perhaps the authoritarian state-managed capitalism of China. Almost nobody is going to name South Africa. After almost two decades of miserable stagnation, the rainbow nation is poorer today than it was in 2007. Rolling blackouts blight the lives of citizens and businesses, infrastructure is visibly crumbling and new land seizure laws have stepped up the government's war on farmers, frightening off investors with predictable consequences. It's unfortunate, then, that Sir Keir Starmer and his comrades seem to see this as the ideal path for the UK to follow. The rush to decarbonise the grid, seemingly driven less by practicality than ideology, is opening Britain up to a future of 'demand flexibility' as intermittent generation fails to provide enough power to meet requirements. The state of the roads is a subject of perennial complaint. And now the Government is inching towards expropriation of land and property. Nestled in the Planning Bill currently making its way through Parliament is a nasty clause giving the state the right to seize your home and land for less than its market value. This already exists, to a certain degree: the last government decided that councils could issue compulsory purchase orders for property without including what's known as 'hope value' – the value added on top of the current use value of a property by the possibility of future planning permission. The Planning Bill would strip back the safeguards to this clause, allowing local authorities to issue these orders without the consent of central government in order to build social or affordable housing. It doesn't take a great deal of thought to see how badly this could work out. The 'hope' value of housing or land will be partly reflected in the price paid for that asset. Disregarding it entirely raises the prospect of people being forced to sell for less than that price, leaving them out of pocket. For farmers already facing the prospect of being forced into sales by changes to inheritance tax, this could be another brutal blow. It could also prove a blow to urban households, too; these laws cover family homes with every bit as much force as they cover vacant brownfield sites. Proponents of the law argue that it is all but inconceivable that it could ever be misused. Critics with a more realistic view of the long, sordid history of local authorities behaving in corrupt or grotesquely stupid ways might beg to differ. Put a mechanism for the cheap expropriation of land and property in front of cash-strapped councils looking to balance soaring statutory obligations for spending with stagnant income, and it seems far from impossible that they'll attempt to find a way of turning a discount on land into a source of funds, or successfully lobby for changes to the law to allow them to do so. It's not an appealing prospect. And it's a prospect that's not confined to local Government, either. 'Wealth tax' might be the most dangerous two-word phrase in fiscal policy, but that hasn't deterred central Government from creeping in that direction. Increased surveillance of land values, raising inheritance taxation by pulling pensions and other assets into the scope of the tax, and a constant drumbeat of more or less explicit proposals for taxing people's savings and capital appear to suggest that the Left is once again debating the most damaging tax it can. It's notable that no firm proposal need ever see the light of day for some of the damage to be felt. As with speculation over changes to the taxation of pensions or capital gains, a mere suggestion that such a tax could be in the offing would result in people changing their behaviour in economically costly ways. This, in turn, is why chancellors have shied away from the policy in the past. People save and invest in Britain under the assumption that they will be able to reap the fruits of their decisions, and with the knowledge, too, that future governments will be highly tempted to expropriate them. Present day governments can offer no cast-iron guarantees that this won't happen. Promises and laws made and passed today can be reneged on or repealed tomorrow. All they can do is point to their track record of behaviour, and the point that despite tremendous temptation, Britain has eschewed this policy. With the tax burden already soaring, and no sign of falling demands for spending in sight, however, the temptation to meet today's fiscal demands by burning tomorrow's prosperity is growing. Setting up the infrastructure for expropriation today could lead to South Africanisation tomorrow.
Sky News
11-03-2025
- Politics
- Sky News
New planning bill could be the government's most important - but will it work in practice?
Could the Planning and Infrastructure Bill be the most important piece of legislation in this parliament? Today is the first time we have seen the bill - which is meant to clear out the blockages and get Britain growing again. As Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary Angela Rayner said today: "Far too often, it takes years and years and years of going through these processes. We want to streamline it, make it clear what our expectations are, and then deliver for people and get that infrastructure and the houses we desperately need." But, as our Battle for Growth series on Sky News has shown over recent months, when there are so many intricate and intractable blockages, this is a bold claim. Let's look at whether the Planning Bill would help with four specific projects. Firstly, there is the case of the Lower Thames Crossing. This would be a tunnel under the Thames to the east of London. But £1.2bn has been spent without a shovel in the ground, and the planning document runs to 359,070 pages. This bill looks to streamline who you have to consult. It reduces the number of public bodies developers have to consult. It also moves more council decisions away from councillors and towards council officers, meaning less local democracy, which can tie a process in knots. 2:55 Pro-growth campaigners are pretty happy with this - let's see if it works in practice. There is the carbon capture and storage facility on a new gas-fired power station in Teesside. Currently, the site in Teesworks sits empty, costing the developers £100m every three months. The bill seeks to deal with some of them, limiting from three to two the number of times "meritless" cases can go to court. But claimants don't deliberately bring meritless cases, so it is unclear what the impact is in practice. Meanwhile, the government has not yet found a way to deal with the international convention that allows taxpayer-funded green challenges to big projects of the sort that have delayed building in Teesworks. Sir Keir Starmer has repeatedly said he does not want to see any more bat tunnels - the £100m, one kilometre shed being built by HS2 in Buckinghamshire to protect an estimated 300 bats in nearby woodland. Ministers claim the bill would stop this from happening again, but experts cast doubt on the assertion. The bill creates a Nature Recovery Fund, which allows developers to pay into funds allowing building to proceed while wider action is taken to secure the environmental improvements. While this could work for some challenges - such as housing projects - it is unlikely to help solve the issues that caused the bat tunnel. Critics say this is because the core environmental regulations about nature habitats remain on the statute books. Finally, getting Britain connected remains a major challenge for this government, and they have made clear it means covering parts of the countryside in pylons. But that's the kind of thing that generates huge local campaigns like the ones marked on the map. This planning bill offers £250 a year for those affected by new pylons, in exchange for curbing the right to protest. But this has been dismissed as "peanuts" by campaigners who want much more. Meanwhile, the government is mulling much bolder reforms beyond this bill: different pricing in different parts of Britain. Cheaper bills for energy intensive business that relocates to nearby wind farms and power stations. Is this the real answer to bringing down bills? These two have promised a revolution. Growth campaigners say it's a good start but not enough. Local opponents say it already goes too far. Does it really change the incentives to get Britain building again? Or when we come to judge, will it really prove to have made a difference in three or four years?
