Frank Little

Councillor for East Central ward on Coedffranc Town Council Learn more

Planning consents are not the problem

by franklittle on 6 September, 2012

The Labour-run Welsh Government is to follow the lead of Conservative ministers in England in making it easier for developers to secure planning permission. I have some sympathy with my former fellows on Neath Port Talbot’s planning and development committee who are going to have to rubber-stamp yet more developments in spite of local opposition. One hopes that the new planning guidelines will also give more freedom to home-owners attempting to improve their property. At present, decisions by the committee can seem arbitrary giving rise to the suspicion that success or failure depends on the closeness of the applicant to the ruling group.

But the difficulty in kick-starting construction is not down to lack of planning permissions. As the Local Government Association spokesman pointed out on BBC News this morning, there is a large backlog of permissions throughout England and Wales upon which no action has been taken. The stagnation arises from the failure of investment and in particular the failure of the banks to lend. What might help the process is extra powers for the county borough to force successful applicants to exercise their permissions within no more than a couple of years – “use it or lose it”, in other words. At the same time, something should be done about abandoned developments, like the eyesore of the old Liberal club in Victoria Gardens.

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