Member News
18th January 2011
The Woodland Trust urges the government to use the Localism Bill as "a mechanism to empower local authorities" in protecting the natural world.
The Localism Bill must play a vital role in helping to protect and enhance the natural environment. Planning is critical in allocating natural resources, improving well-being and minimising the effects of development upon the environment. Crucially, the Localism Bill can deliver on environmental objectives by recognising that the purpose of planning is the furtherance of sustainable development.
It is widely recognised that the natural environment does not respect artificial administrative boundaries. Whilst decentralisation is a priority for the government, the Localism Bill must create a mechanism to empower local authorities to co-operate with one another across administrative boundaries where they have a shared responsibility such as protecting and enhancing the natural world.
At the Trust we welcome the prospect of local people having a greater voice within the planning system. Our experience is that there is a great deal of public enthusiasm to tap into as evidenced by our work on protecting woods under threat from development. Consequently the Bill should provide an opportunity to engage people in increasing tree cover in England from its present low levels and securing better protection of those green spaces valued by communities.
The government has proposed a National Planning Policy Framework for England (NPPF) which is an essential part of the package of planning reforms. In our opinion the Localism Bill should be amended to provide a statutory basis for the NPPF. In turn the NPPF should ensure strong protection for ancient woods and trees - our own equivalent of the rainforest - and also identify ambitions like the need to increase woodland cover from the current pitifully low level of 8 per cent: a challenge all three major parties committed to tackle at the last election. Enacted correctly there is much that the Localism Bill can do to help shape a society richer in woods and trees.
Article Comments
This article outlines a lot of what is wrong with our politics and the lobbying vested interests.
The localism bill should empower local people - it is then for local people to decide what (if anything) they want to do with their environment.
If the purpose of the bill is not to allow different communities to work in different ways then it is not a 'localism' bill at all it is yet another centralist imposition.
Paul Perrin
18th Jan 2011 at 9:12 am
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