Government attempts to reform the planning system do little to resolve the different interests of developers and communities and may well lead to more court battles, says Nick Raynsford.

Planning has been a problem for the Government from the outset. Its early confidence that regional spatial strategies could be swiftly revoked, hit the buffers in the High Court.

Its naïve assumption that localism alone would deliver new house building was left in tatters as councils seized the opportunity to reduce not increase the number of homes provided for under the planning system.

Nick Raynsford: ‘Planning has been a problem for the Government from the outset’

And as the Treasury got to understand the implications of the localism agenda, it stepped in rapidly to reverse the thrust of the emerging Department of Communities and Local Government policy.

So growth was emphasised as the key objective of planning policy, with the Chancellor making it clear in his budget speech that the default position on planning applications should be to approve them.

This of course has gone down like a lead balloon with the various interest groups, such as the National Trust and the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), that had initially been very supportive of the Government’s planning agenda.

They feel betrayed by the U-turn in this Government direction of travel and forecast ‘battles against development across the country that will make the public revolt against the sale of the forests look like a tea party.’

In trying to defend its very uncomfortable position, the Government has resorted to two superficially attractive but ultimately unconvincing arguments.

First they have argued that their objective is to promote ‘sustainable development’, which resolves the conflict between advocates and opponents of developments. If a development is sustainable, they imply, then we can all fall in line in its favour.

But the reality is that this is a recipe for conflict over the definition of sustainability. The newly issued draft National Planning Policy Framework, perfectly correctly identifies the three key components of sustainability – economic, social and environmental. Inevitably the weight to be accorded to each component will vary depending on one’s perspective.

Business interests will understandably focus on the passage which talks of the need to ‘use the planning system to build a strong, responsive and competitive economy, by ensuring that sufficient land of the right type and in the right place, is available to allow growth and innovation …’

Environmental campaigners will equally understandably focus on the need to ‘use the planning system to protect and enhance our natural built and historic environment, to use natural resources prudently and to mitigate and adapt to climate change …’

It doesn’t take a clairvoyant to anticipate the conflicts that will emerge over say a proposal for a new out-of-town shopping centre, or an energy-hungry extension to an existing industrial facility.

The Government’s second defence is that by ‘simplifying’ the existing planning guidance, it is making it easier to understand. This it implies will help both business and local communities to navigate their way through what is currently very complex guidance and so get the right outcome.

Again it sounds plausible on the surface, but as the Town and Country Planning Association rightly point out ‘making something shorter does not automatically make it clearer.’

Indeed TCPA perceptively sees the new guidance as a potential recipe for litigation as different parties challenge in the courts decisions which in their view do not accord with their interpretation of the guidance.

Because the draft National Planning Policy Framework, like the Government, is trying to face in two different directions at the same time, it is almost inevitably destined to be fought over in the courts.

So far from the Government’s prospectus of a plan-led system in which communities are actively engaged in getting sustainable development, we are more likely to face a period of court-led planning decisions in which plans themselves as well as planning applications are increasingly determined by judges.

Business on the one side and environmental campaigners on the other may win difficult cases, and thereby hope to set precedents, but neither is likely to be satisfied by the fudge which the Government is trying to set in place.

The one group who stand to gain on all counts and must be rubbing their hands in anticipation are planning lawyers.

Nick Raynsford is a former local government minister