Land Use Planning Working Group
Chair: Simon Marsh, RSPB
Vice Chair: Paul Miner, CPRE
Secretary: Fiona Llewellyn
The Land Use Planning Working Group acts to conserve the natural and historic environment, by working to improve the national planning system for the benefit of biodiversity and landscape. The group seeks to ensure the implementation of environmentally-benign national planning policy and the improvement of existing policies, and monitors progress of the eco-towns agenda.
QUARTERLY UPDATE: October to December 2009
This quarter the Land Use Planning Working Group (LUPWG) published a briefing paper on National Policy Statements (NPSs) and the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC). The briefing outlines our views that NPSs must deliver sustainable development and climate change mitigation and adaptation, examination procedures of major infrastructure applications must be accessible and that the IPC as an unelected and unaccountable body, should only make recommendations to Ministers, not final decisions.
In October Link responded to the Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) consultation on the Policy Statement on Regional Strategies and Guidance on the establishment of Leaders' Boards. Prior to the consultation, Link met with Defra and CLG to discuss the National Core Sustainability Framework and work on environmental limits, the contents of regional strategies and the process by which regional strategies will be developed. Link also submitted a response to CLG’s consultation on a new Planning Policy on Development and Coastal Change.
In November Link wrote to the Secretary of State, the Rt Hon John Denham MP, outlining Link’s views on the examination procedures for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs) and reiterating our concerns with the level of public scrutiny allowed for within the planning reforms. A copy of the letter was also sent to Sir Michael Pitt, Chair of the IPC.
We are pleased to announce that at Link’s AGM on 8 December Simon Marsh (RSPB) and Paul Miner (CPRE) were elected as Chair and Vice Chair respectively of the Land Use Planning Working Group for 2010.