Government’s Planning White Paper: What do you think?

Now that September is upon us, Civic Voice will be stepping up its engagement with communities to ensure that we can respond to the Government's Planning White Paper.

The White Paper, published on 6 August 2020, proposes to radically reform the current English planning system to make it a ‘significantly simpler, faster and more predictable system’. The paper argues that the current system has become too complex, which disincentives wider public participation in planning. It states that there is little incentive for high quality design. The ambition for the proposals is for 300,000 homes to be built annually.

The general focus of the paper is on big ideas, with the detail of the proposals coming later, but the clear thrust is for wholescale reform of the system rather piecemeal changes, which it acknowledges have led to the overly complex current system. The paper proposes ‘a new vision for England’s planning system’ and a new Planning Act and amended National Planning Policy Framework is proposed to deliver it.

Civic Voice has prepared a short members' briefing on the White Paper available here.

We also have a number of events for Civic Voice members to attend. More information here.

With huge changes proposed, now is the time to engage in a Civic Voice Conversation. Civic Voice will be preparing a response to the White Paper, in consultation with communities across England. We will be organising a number of roundtables with Civic Voice members to break-through the headlines and tell you what the document really means. We will then feed your thoughts directly back to the Government and Ministers. The first phase of our engagement with members is through this short online survey.

If not now, then when will you respond to a Civic Voice survey? Respond here before September 14th.