Open Source Planning

Whats wrong with planning at the moment? Well, too often it is influenced by arbritary Whitehall targets and unelected quangos. So what' s the answer? The Conservatives have called it 'open source planning'.

In practice this would mean:

• Abolishing the undemocratic and ineffective tier of regional planning overseen by unelected quangos. This would include scrapping the East of England Regional Plan and the prospect of thousands of new buildings on our countryside;
  
  
• Maintaining national Green Belt protection and other special protections for wildlife and the countryside, whilst allowing sustainable development elsewhere in accordance with the local plan;

• Abandoning Labour’s new unelected and unaccountable central planning quango – the Infrastructure Planning Commission, whilst retaining a fast-track process to avoid planning inquiries taking years; and give Members of Parliament a new role to vote on and ratify national planning policy;
  
  
• Increasing council and police powers to tackle unauthorised traveller sites and illegal trespass;

• Changing Whitehall’s restrictive parking rules to ensure more parking spaces are provided in family homes and near local shops, taking the pressure off crowded residential streets;
  
  

Open source planning devolves power down to communities, whilst ending the outmoded concept that the 'man in Whitehall knows best'. If these measures are implemented, it really would mean planning for the people by the people. A real planning revolution.