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Letter: Scrap Planning Inspectorate
I refer to the letters from Peter Martin, Roger Linn and Geoff Copley concerning the ludicrous Keymer Road, Hassocks, appeal verdict.
By what moral authority does the Planning Inspectorate dictate local planning decisions?
This outfit is not elected by anybody, is not answerable to anybody and yet has unchallengeable power over people’s environment. These are all the characteristics of a corrupt Stalinist bureaucracy.
We are told that the NPPF together with the Localism Act will give more power to local people to make local decisions.
The “Big Society” is supposedly about – and I quote - “putting more power in people’s hands and a massive transfer of power from Whitehall to local communities”.
How can this be the case when a single official appointed by the Inspectorate, unfamiliar with the locality, can overrule the dozen or so elected locals who form the Council’s planning committee?
There are no rights to challenge the official’s opinions, and most of the decisions are subjective interpretations of the local planning policy.
When the deciding factor is a subjective judgment why should one unaccountable inspector be more correct than several locally accountable councillors? The Inspectorate’s role in appeals should be restricted to interpreting strictly objective points of law. Inspectors also tend to ignore local infrastructure factors not incorporated within the local plan, such as the impact of their decisions upon schools, traffic, water availability etc, which any local councillor would be aware of and take into consideration. The Inspector, living miles away, does not live with the consequences of the decision he has imposed.
The abolition of the Planning Inspectorate’s authority to overrule any council’s decision would accomplish four key Government objectives in one easy step.
n It would empower locally elected and locally accountable people to make decisions over what happens in their neighbourhood, increasing real democracy and making “The Big Society”, seem more than just an empty slogan.
n It would reduce bureaucracy by removing a whole tier from the decision making process
n It would save local councils money as they are currently obliged to prepare - at considerable expense - a defence of their decision during any appeal
n It would reduce the numbers of “jobsworth” public sector workers thus saving taxpayers money.
Unless The Planning Inspectorate is reformed, local planning democracy will remain suppressed and the “big society” a meaningless slogan.
I urge everybody to write to your MP, and Mr Eric Pickles MP and Mr Greg Clarke MP, the ministers responsible, to make our voices heard or we will suffer more injustices in the future.
R Crouch
London Road
Cuckfield
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