Blog: Quit playing politics with planning, Pickles
Has anyone looked at the Department of Communities and Local Government’s website lately? I suspect not many – and to be fair, it wasn’t always the most invigorating read anyway.
But it did contain a significant amount of invaluable information for professionals in government, local government and the private sector dealing with planning and policy issues.
Now all that stuff’s been shuffled off into a secondary website that you can find if you try hard enough but only if you really, really must. And it’s been replaced by what at times has an uncanny resemblance to the front page of the Daily Mail. It’s a mass of banner headlines:
“Freedom pass will give tenants more control” (“giving… social housing tenants the opportunity to take control of where they want to live”. Everyone off to Torquay, then?)
“Pickles: swapping bureaucracy for democracy”
“Minister sees Big Society in action in Southampton” (I once saw Big Country in concert in Manchester: is that similar?)
“Cutting red tape for summer fetes” (For heaven’s sake!)
Look, this is all good, political stuff. But surely the purpose of a government department and its website is to inform us of the responsible decisions taken and to advise on policy.
The general election was fought and won in May. It’s now August and, really guys, it’s time to put away the political toys (at least until the conference season) and get on with the job of Government.
Like helping all those councils and all of us in the development industry get some certainty over where we’re going.
Exactly how should councils set their new housing requirements? And what exactly should they do in the interim so we can keep the economy and the country moving? And how exactly are councils supposed to consider the “powerful incentives” that are meant to replace the policy requirements of strategic plans? (In the context of the Bribery Act that came into effect earlier this year, is it a defence to say it wasn’t a bribe, it was a powerful incentive?)
Some clarity on all these issues was a vital requirement before the summer recess but, here we are in August, frankly none the wiser.
Those who are partners to school teachers, or who work or have children in schools, are no doubt away for a good part of August.
But the rest of us are here trying hard to get the job done and to deliver. And we don’t need another press release on the Big Society, referenda or lessons in democracy. We need the ability to get on with planning for homes and jobs – and delivering them.
So when our ministers return from their summer hols and then from the party conferences, can we stop the guff and just get down to some serious policy-making?
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Ian Tant is senior planner at Barton Willmore
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Pickles is carrying out what was pledged – making Government smaller and devolving power locally. All the questions about specifics that you have raised should be capable of being answered by the well-paid local executive, officers and staff. Or they should be replaced by others competent to deal with these issues. The whole point is that we don’t need national uniform guidelines – do what’s right for YOUR local area, which won’t be the same as for others by definition. It is so sad that councils have become so used to following central government dictats for 13 years that some seem no longer capable of functioning creatively on their own.
Rog
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