Think Tank Founded by Micheal Gove Says we Need Commission to Roll Back the Green Belt @VitaliJames

The heart sinks whenever the Policy Exchange returns to Planning as it has such a inglorious record of 100% failure in the planning sphere (remember the infamous Alex ‘Half Baked’ Morton, a much missed and risible figure of fun and dumb tank incompetence on this blog, whose legacy of housing programmes saw not a single house, not one built), and when its latest paper is from someone who its seems can only quote on his CV work for the Tory Party and as part of the climate change denying and billionaire owned SW1 and Tufton Street Mafia who have ruined and run down this country.

None the less it is I think the first time the Policy Exchange, unlike other think tanks, has dipped its toes into rolling back the Green Belt by repeating a policy Tony Blair proposed in 2001 (it never got into the 2001 manfesto). Now it seems the only Think Tank or Environmental body of any kind reesistng change re the Green Belt is the CPRE.

Note: CPRE: The’ we are Turkeys please abolish Christmas’ Nimby group they have been reduced to If the CPRE were a genuine lobby for the countryside not a narrow GB only pressure group they would campaign against authorities like (labour) Erewash who now propose to disperse high density urban edge development on former GB to Low density development sprawled around pretty villages – in fact they cheer these on and never once have objected to such a plan strategy – proof the CPRE is no longer a countryside beauty protection lobby, as Sir Patrick Abercrombie founded it to be, its original coalition now gone, but a lobby to protect the asset values of expensive property owners living just outside cities.

PE (Page 61)

To unlock homeownership, the Government should:…

Set up a Commission into the green belt. All land of genuine environmental value should be reclassified as Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and land which does not meet this standard and is within a certain radius of existing transport infrastructure should be made developable.

There is no build up to this. Note to the author – this a a student essay. C- (being generous im adopting an all must have prizes approach to encourage you) a proper think thank (not Dumb Tank as PE is) report makes you think: with evidence, analysis ,options, policy appraisal, estimate of impacts including do nothing, and reasonable well argued proposals. This is a duex ex machina ideas from nowhere.

To readers of this blog I am a supporter of reform and dededignation of some GB areas. I think the GB needs to get back to its lost original purpose of shaping where development should go, to strategic locations in regional plans such as Garden Cities (of which I have proposed many locations for) which prevent sprawl.

However badly argues proposal packages such as this are the CPREs best friend. The lack of research shows in the the Green Belt is not treated as a proper noun and capitalised (like The North etc.) which is universally is in the literature.

Lets start with the commission idea. GB should be reviewed by a commission, wont work as a policy. The GB was set up following State sponsered regional plans (including by Sir Patrick) as part of a policy package, develop here, dont develop there. These plans seperate out areas that needed protection for natural beauty, such as AONB like the North Downs, from areas that needed some restraint to divert development to urban areas and planned areas like New Towns. They only become offical (not the law) in Duncan Sandys famous 1955 circular – which we now know from correspondence was declared to stop the oiks moving into conservative seats and potentially making them marginals, as then was beginning to happen in Stevenage.

What would a commision do? Without a new regional plan there is no evidence that development would be in teh right place, and that sprawl is being prevented in the right place. As we have found since Cameron a purely byzantine localist approach to plan making has failed utterly, too slow, too little land, what development we do get can only be sprawl as we have lost the tools and powers to plan big transport, infrastructure and housing well.

What a commission could not do is review the GB. As caselaw stands you have to weigh need v other issues including GB purposes before dedesignating and present exceptional circumstances – this requires evidence based on potential proposals. A non plan making commission cannot recommend on site specific matters. It would be enmeshed in JR for years. What we need is a plan based review supported by a givernment policy requiring such a review and restating the purpose of Green Belts as part of not instead of regional planning.

As I said the silly idea of replacing GB with naturally protected was briefly pushed by Blairs aides in the Sundays, only in that case even more bizarrely redesignating the GB as National Parks (let go down to the Thorney former landfill next to the M25 National Park everyone). Landscape protection and GB are quite different beasts and when you try to hybridise them you get a lion with the head of a donkey.

Other proposals, usual PE stuff of the last 10 years, nothing new. The author seems not to have heard of the many Mayoral Development Corporations oddly showing again the zero base research policy of the PE.

It mentions zoning. As readers will know I have campiagned for zoning for 15 years, 10 years before teh PE had heard of it. They destroyed what chance for zoning we had through influencing teh excerably bad Boris planning white paper. The careful and nuanced approach towards a zoning and subdivision system (like teh whole of teh rest of the world now has) was lost for a generation by botch after botch.

As you will know from thsi blog, there are plenty of Nimbys in nations with zoning systems, like the states, and zoning and housebuilding only both get done with very strong regional and site led regulatory reform regarding subdivision, as of right, buiding, street etc. etc. regulatory YIMBY reforms as now dozens of states and governments around the world have shown us in repeatable case studies and house price delat research where it has been undertaken. Any mention of this in this in James (piss poor in a way that would offend poor piss) Vitalis paper – try and find any.