Government planning reforms might endanger the heritage sites

The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE)  fears, that government planning reforms might endanger World Heritage Sites, Greenfield land and irreplaceable archaeology. This includes Georgian Bath, Stonehenge and the Jurassic Coast from East Dorset into East Devon. The Government’s National Planning Policy Framework is supposed to stimulate economic growth by trying to simplify and organise the planning system.

Twenty-seven representative samples of local authority responses to the public consultation on the draft of NPPF were analysed by CPRE. The outcome was that most of the local authorities, regardless of political affiliation, were very critical and concerned about the proposed changes, especially the definition of sustainable development (twenty-six authorities mentioned that problem). Insufficient focus on reusing brown-field land and the need for appropriate transitional arrangements to make the shift to the new system effective and smooth were also issues expressed by the surveyed authorities.  According to them some parts of the draft should be clarified and specified in order to protect the World Heritage sites. Read more of this post