Indeed, it's a peculiarity of modern day politics when something proposed by one party is broadly welcomed by another but that's what has happened. My Lord, the Labour spin machine must have blown a fuse.
Politics aside, what the slimmed down framework proposes is that there should be 'a presumption in favour of sustainable development', whereby planners and local authorities must balance the needs of the environment, local inhabitants and the local economy.
In short, it's all about substituting common sense for bureaucratic red tape, which got out of control during the previous Government.
Essentially, and these are the key concessions to environmental groups, the Government has said that brownfield sites should almost always be developed before greenfield sites and that urban sites should be developed before out-of-town sites (not great news for the supermarkets).
Nobody wants to see the countryside tarmacked over, and the Government is right to put in place a framework that will avoid this. But at the same time the new guidelines recognise that something has to be done urgently to solve the housing crisis.
At present, planning is the perennial thorn in the side of homebuilders and property developers. They want to build more houses but the amount of red tape they need to cut through can be mind-boggling. All too often perfectly viable projects that should go through fall through.
We lend to no end of developers who always have to jump through hoops to get their projects the green light. They want to build people homes but they are always fighting an uphill battle.
As ever, time will tell whether these new guidelines will achieve that or are yet more idle talk. What is certain, however, is that they seem to be a step in the right direction.
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