Eric Pickles said, "Across England, the Government Offices for the Regions are conducting consultations on the Regional Spatial Strategies. These are binding, top-down regional plans on local authorities, issued by Hazel Blears as Secretary of State.
Many of these proposals in these Regional Plans are very unpopular and controversial, by virtue of imposing unsustainable levels of development on local communities and deleting Green Belt protection...
Conservatives have pledged to scrap regional planning and the unelected regional assemblies.
- A Conservative Government will abolish the undemocratic and unwieldy tier of regional planning across England. This will include changing the law to scrap the Regional Spatial Strategies and Regional Planning Bodies (currently the regional assemblies, soon to be RDAs). We will return their powers to elected local councils.
- As a logical consequence of scrapping the regional plans, if the RSSs have already been implemented, we will allow councils to revise their local plans ('Local Development Frameworks') to undo the changes that the Regional Spatial Strategy forced on them. This will allow local communities to protect their local environment, and decide themselves the most appropriate level of development for their area."
Harriett Baldwin said, "I am delighted to welcome this clear pledge which will mean such a lot to communities in West Worcestershire. Local people are unhappy with the large numbers of homes that could be imposed on councils in the area by the current government."