ALL THOSE IN FAVOUR?

摘要

Last week, the government published its long-awaited consultation on the presumption in favour of sustainable development. Designed to overhaul the planning system, the policy will be the first real step in the coalition's plan to reduce the length and complexity of the existing process. Developers have declared themselves shocked and delighted at the brevity and simplicity of the two-page statement. Succinct it may be, but those 528 words could be absolutely vital to a development industry reeling from the abolition of regional planning policies - a move that has seen councils scrap plans for more than 200,000 homes since it was announced a year ago. In effect, the words mean that in any situation where a local plan is out of date or unclear on a particular issue, an application should be treated on its merits, with the assumption that it should be approved unless there is a good reason not to.