http://www.nickwrightplanning.co.uk/lessons-in-localism-from-county-tyrone.htm people, place & planning Tue, 24 Aug 2010 07:19:34 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 http://www.nickwrightplanning.co.uk/lessons-in-localism-from-county-tyrone.htm/comment-page-1#comment-3398 Richard Heggie Sun, 21 Feb 2010 20:50:37 +0000 http://www.nickwrightplanning.co.uk/?p=327#comment-3398 Nick It's interesting that the new Scottish Planning Policy supports the notion of greater flexibility in assessing proposals for new development in the countryside, including housing. However, I've already heard of one Council Planning Department which is making no allowance for this shift in emphasis at all. No-one wants a free for all, but we do need the enabling approach you propose here. I think part of the problem is the urban focus most planners and development plans have. Consolidating towns and villages has some merit, but I agree there's a wider argument that sustainability should also apply to rural communities, which can't always be neatly packaged in a settlement envelope for policy purposes. In seeking to prevent executive pads in the countryside, planning policies often seem to exclude developments which might meet a local need. That needs reversed. Let's have policies that encourage appropriate rural growth and if the odd executive pad slips through, then catch it with an SPG which demands good design, layout and setting. Nick
It’s interesting that the new Scottish Planning Policy supports the notion of greater flexibility in assessing proposals for new development in the countryside, including housing. However, I’ve already heard of one Council Planning Department which is making no allowance for this shift in emphasis at all. No-one wants a free for all, but we do need the enabling approach you propose here. I think part of the problem is the urban focus most planners and development plans have. Consolidating towns and villages has some merit, but I agree there’s a wider argument that sustainability should also apply to rural communities, which can’t always be neatly packaged in a settlement envelope for policy purposes. In seeking to prevent executive pads in the countryside, planning policies often seem to exclude developments which might meet a local need. That needs reversed. Let’s have policies that encourage appropriate rural growth and if the odd executive pad slips through, then catch it with an SPG which demands good design, layout and setting.

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