The white paper, “Planning for the Future”, which was published on 6th August 2020 contained far-reaching proposals that, if implemented, would drastically change our present planning system. You can view them here.
We are concerned that local democratic involvement would be drastically reduced to only the first stage of the proposed new system, which would create three designated zones, “Growth”, “Renewal” and “Protection”, and every area would be allocated to one of these. After allocation, developers in the “Growth” and “Renewal” zones would have much more freedom to build what they want, without any right for local residents to have a say on planning applications.
The Newent Neighbourhood Development Plan’s Steering Group made a detailed response to the public consultation on this white paper in October 2020.
At present, after substantial opposition from a wide variety of groups, the proposals are on hold, but it is expected that they will re-emerge in some form in due course.