New Conservative policies to make planning system more responsive and accountable. Conservatives today unveiled a major new policy paper to reform England’s ‘broken’ planning system. It outlines proposals to use ‘open source’ democracy and neighbourhood involvement to encourage sustainable development. Whitehall targets and unelected quangos will be scrapped, to be replaced with a democratic system for national infrastructure and incentives to promote local homes and jobs. Under the initiatives in the planning green paper, entitled Open Source Planning, Conservatives will:

• Use collaborative democracy to allow local communities to create ‘bottom-up’ local plans, helping local residents shape and protect the character of their neighbourhood.
• Scrap the powers of the Bristol-based Planning Inspectorate to rewrite communities’ local plans.
• Abolish the undemocratic and ineffective tier of regional planning overseen by unelected regional quangos. These regional plans are ripping up the Green Belt across the country despite Gordon Brown’s pledge to protect it ‘robustly’.
• Reward councils and communities through incentives to encourage building new homes and businesses, in contrast to the current regime which effectively penalises development.
• Maintain national Green Belt protection and other special protections for wildlife and the countryside, whilst allowing sustainable development elsewhere in accordance with the local plan.
• Use new local infrastructure blueprints to coordinate strategic matters crossing boundaries, with a new duty on public authorities – including the Highways Agency – to cooperate with local councils.
• Abolish Labour’s new unelected and unaccountable central planning quango - the Infrastructure Planning Commission, whilst retaining a fast-track process to avoid planning inquiries taking years; and give Parliament a new role to vote on and ratify national planning policy.
• Change Whitehall’s restrictive parking rules to ensure more parking spaces in family homes and near local shops.
• Increase councils and police powers to tackle unauthorised sites and illegal trespass.
• Tackle the scourge of ‘garden grabbing’ and over-development in residential neighbourhoods.

Launching the paper at a speech in London, David Cameron, Leader of the Conservative Party, remarked: “Our local plans represent one of the biggest shifts in power for decades. It’s genuinely one of the most radical and transformative policies that a Conservative government – or any government – can introduce. Suddenly, you can see how a system that was controlled by a few can be run by the many. You can see how it’s possible to get neighbourhoods to come together to solve problems together. So this won’t just help to improve our broken planning system – it’ll help to build stronger communities and help to mend our broken society too.” Caroline Spelman, Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, said: “Labour’s planning system is bad for democracy, bad for the environment and bad for business. Too many decisions taken by unelected quangos, there is too much unnecessary red tape and there are no incentives for local residents to back sustainable development. We will put local communities in the driving seat, creating an ‘open source’ planning system that promotes new homes and jobs to the benefit of the economy, local democracy and the environment.” Harriett Baldwin, Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for West Worcestershire, said: "I am delighted to hear about these detailed proposals to bring back planning powers to local communities and councils. I am particularly pleased to hear another confirmation that a Conservative government will scrap the top down housing targets imposed by the Regional Spatial Strategy. I know how full my mailbag is with concerns about planning, so if we put these proposals into law, it will tap into the passion that people feel for their local area and allow sensible, sustainable and organic development in our towns and villages."