HAVERING SCRAPS PLANNING COMMITTEE

Big changes are coming to the way planning applications are decided in Havering, following new planning laws introduced by the Labour Government.

From 31st October, new national regulations will dictate which applications must be decided by council officers and which can go before elected councillors.

Havering now has to rewrite its own rules to comply.

At the moment Havering has two committees dealing with planning applications, a Planning Committee and a Strategic Planning Committee. Both will be abolished and replaced by a single nine-member Planning Committee.

But that isn't the change residents should be most concerned about. Labour's reforms introduce a national scheme which will mean many planning applications will skip councillors entirely. Instead, they will be decided by officers.

Others will only reach the Planning Committee, made up of councillors, if they pass a new "gateway" process. That means less local discretion over whether a controversial development should be debated publicly by elected representatives.

I think that is the wrong direction.

We desperately need more homes.

With families living in temporary accommodation and younger people struggling to afford somewhere of their own, we cannot allow petty NIMBYism to stop sensible development.

But neither should we respond by cutting residents and their elected representatives out of the process.

I favour what I call SIMBYism: Suitable In My Back Yard.

Build homes, but build the right homes in the right places. Development should improve communities, come with the infrastructure needed to support it and take proper account of the people who already live there.

That means giving residents more control, not less. This is why I, and local Conservatives, put forward a proposal for Havering Council to hand powers to residents by supporting Neighbourhood Plans. Unfortunately, the so-called 'residents' associations' blocked the proposal.

Who will be accountable?

There is also an important question of accountability.

When councillors make a planning decision, residents know who made it.

If councillors approve a poor development, their names and votes are on the record. They have to defend that decision and ultimately residents can hold them accountable at the ballot box.

If more decisions are removed from councillors entirely, that democratic accountability disappears with them. We should now expect a greater number of controversial developments to pass, and with our councillors simply throwing up their hands and arguing "I cannot influence planning laws / officers" and "don't blame us".

Planning officers have an important professional role and planning decisions must comply with the law. But local knowledge and democratic judgement matter too.

These aren't changes Havering has chosen to make. They are national changes introduced by Labour which the council is legally required to implement. So, I also want to know where Havering's Reform administration stands.

Have Reform councillors objected to Labour removing these powers from locally elected representatives?

Have they challenged the Government? Or are they simply going to implement the changes without protest?

Conservatives should be clear about the alternative.

We need to build more homes, but development must work for the communities expected to accommodate it.

Build more. Build better. And give local people a genuine say.