Marina Pacheco - CPRE

ePolitix.com speaks to Marina Pacheco, head of policy at the Campaign to Protect Rural England, about the Planning Bill

To listen to a podcast of the interview please click here.

And click here to read ePolitix.com's briefing paper on the Planning Bill.

Question: The Planning Bill, due for its second reading in the House of Lords, suggests the planning system needs to be improved. Do you agree that the system needs to be reforming?

Marina Pacheco: Yes. The planning system is constantly evolving and it is right that you have to keep the legislation up to date. We do think that the proposal for a single consent regime is a good thing within the Planning Bill but we do not see a case for an independent planning commission.

We just think that the changes are a bit too sweeping. You have to go back and review any system from time to time but this seems to be a very big wholesale change.

Question: The CPRE has raised concerns about proposals for the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC), what is your position on the new commission?

Marina Pacheco: We just think that there is probably a role for the Planning Inspectorate in this and we do not see the need for an independent planning commission. We think that decisions should still be made by ministers and we do not think that an unelected quango is the best way of going about doing things. We also have some concerns about who is going to be selected onto this panel.

We think that the government is picking up on some of these ideas because, initially, the IPC was going to have very broad ranging powers and not very many options for a call-in but as the Bill has gone though Parliament there has been a widening in the number of cases, in which, the secretary of state could potentially call-in a decision from the IPC.

Question: Does the CPRE think that the Bill affects rights to be heard and to cross-examine at public inquiries? Is it the risk of a democratic deficit a concern?

Marina Pacheco: Yes, exactly. It will be entirely up to the IPC whether to hold something like an open floor session but people will not have a chance to cross-examine or bring witnesses into those sessions so it does make it a lot harder for them to bring additional information into a case.

Developers have a vested interest in getting their projects through and might not give out all the information. That is not to say that they will withhold information but other people might have information that is useful and pertinent to the case, which might not have been brought to the IPC’s attention prior to that.

Question: Were you pleased with the government's concession to review the role of the IPC after two years?

Marina Pacheco: Not really. We think it is significant that the government has, in effect, acknowledged that there are big uncertainties in what they are proposing and, therefore, there will need to be reviews. However, as our initial position is that we do not think that the IPC is a good idea in the first place, the promise to review it after two years does not really move in the direction we are after.

Question: What has been the significance of the strong opposition to this Bill in the Commons? Has the CPRE's own and the Better Planning Coalition's campaign been successful so far?

Marina Pacheco: Yes, I think it has been successful to a certain degree. It is a very wide coalition and I think that had an impact; it has not just been the usual "green suspects"! The Civic Trust and the 2M Group have also been involved - it is a very broad coalition of organisations.

I do think that because of all the work we have been doing with all our local volunteers, with the press, by talking to ministers and providing briefings the government delayed the Bill and gave it a bit more time and thought. So I do think that we have had some impact.

Question: Will government accountability for planning decisions be improved with the introduction of National Policy Statements?

Marina Pacheco: In principle, CPRE supports the idea of National Policy Statements. For example, it is useful to know how much power infrastructure the country is going to need in the future. However we really feel that ministers have to be accountable for the decisions, not just for the policies.

What they are saying at the moment is that if the entire policy is scrutinised and sent out for discussion within Parliament then, in effect, government has made a decision and it is needed. Therefore, they will not need to look at it again when the IPC comes back with a decision to okay this or that power station, and we just do not think that this is good enough.

Question: Hazel Blears announced that the two most significant NPSs, on aviation and nuclear power, would be location-specific. How does the CPRE feel about this?

Marina Pacheco: We have a concern with location-specific National Policy Statements. In some ways, it is hardly surprising that these two, on nuclear and aviation, will be location-specific. I think anyone who is sitting down in front of a map of the UK today could figure out where those sites are likely to be but we do think that being location-specific, in a way, pre-empts local consultation on the development because it already provides a presumption in favour of development.

On the other hand, when the public gets wind of an NPS like that being consulted on, they will want some sort of inquiry to discuss the implications of the development for their area. They would probably want to go to Parliament and talk about it and at the moment there is not really any mechanism for doing that.

So we have this situation where, potentially, we will have a consultation that will conclude in favour of new airports and say that we need to expand Heathrow. This will then go into a National Policy Statement and three years down the line a community will suddenly be told. I just think that, potentially, this is opening up the possibility of people deluging Parliament with requests to be heard on such proposals.

Question: How important is public and community involvement in planning decisions?

Marina Pacheco: I think it is essential! Planning issues affect absolutely everyone, especially, the big issues that the Bill is concerned with. Planning is just so technically tricky in this way because there are a number of things that we want as a society. And when it comes down to how these things affect our line of view, there is often conflict. For example, everyone wants cheap flights but everyone also wants to protect the countryside and not have planes flying over them.

So planning is a difficult thing to balance and we do think that people should be able to get involved in this process. Should this bill go through, we are very worried about how the public’s right to be heard will be reduced.

Question: Many argue the Bill is necessary to increase nuclear energy provision in the UK. Do you believe the Bill provides for sustainable development when planning in the UK?

Marina Pacheco: I know that John Healey has been talking a lot about how essential this bill is because we have many wind power applications stuck in the planning system but a lot of these generate under 5 MW so they will not be going through the IPC anyway.

In general, we think that the Bill is going to move us away from sustainable development because it is going to encourage and facilitate things like airport expansion and fossil fuel power stations that will be plugged into the inefficient centralised power grid. So I do not actually see the Bill improving the sustainability situation.

Question: What else can be done to ensure the planning system helps to mitigate the environmental impact of major new infrastructure and housing?

Marina Pacheco: We feel very firmly that we should be looking to avoid environmental damage before looking to mitigate or substitute for damage. That is why we are particularly concerned that the Bill does not have a firm commitment to have SEAs for National Policy Statements.

In PPS 1 the government said that the environment, sustainability and economy should all be considered at the same time and given equal weight. At the moment we just feel that the economy has been given an overarching position and the environment is being treated like a secondary concern.

Question: What would you like to see happen next? Do you think scrutiny of the Bill in the Lords will bring the proposed legislation any closer to matching the CPRE's calls?

Marina Pacheco: Obviously, it is a democracy so we cannot say but we will be talking to the Lords throughout the Bill's progress. In the past we have put a lot effort into assisting parliamentarians with scrutinising the Bill and we hope that the Lords will give it the significant amount of scrutiny that it really needs

We will be available to provide them with any briefings and advice that they require.

Question: Do you have any final comments for ePolitix.com readers?

Marina Pacheco: I think that the big concern for us within the Bill in general is with the public's right to be heard and we really think that this is going to be affected detrimentally.

At some point in the future the people - constituents - are going to find themselves without a say on major developments in their area and that is going to throw up all sorts of difficulties for everybody.