In more detail
The local planning system is based on the idea that alongside the rights of landowners, the wider community has an interest in and rights to do with how land and buildings are developed.
These rights and interests arise from:
- the effect that development has on immediate neighbours
- the wider effects of development, for example on the capacity of local infrastructure and on the local taxpayers who maintain it
- the idea of neighbourhood community: that all of us who live in an area have a legitimate interest in its value as a place in which to live and work.
Balance
The planning system aims to balance these rights and interests - personal and social - with a view to deciding what development should go ahead. The system is concerned with spatial planning: not simply how individual plots of land and buildings should be used and developed; but also how they relate to each other to create places. This includes transport links and other links between them and the shared systems for serving them; and the relationships between where people live and where they will work. By balancing the rights of people with an interest in a place, the planning system is our shared way of shaping places.
Democratic and Coherent
It is a democratic system - the authorities in charge of the planning system are the councils we elect.
The video above is of the Planning Committee meeting in Birmingham which took place on 23 June 2016.
The system is participative as well as representative: we are able to take part through consultation on planning decisions and as participants in making plans. But the system is based on law and on objective policy which aims to ensure that all parties are treated fairly. Local plans are subject to a National Planning Policy Framework which is based on law agreed by Parliament. When decisions about planning permission are made, they have to fit with national and local policy. When a new local plan is made, it must fit with existing national and local policy - in the form of the local development framework).
Limiting and Enabling
The planning system says what can or cannot be developed. It does not say what will be developed - that is up to the owners of the land. Local plans set limits and enable development within those limits. They are not prescriptive. The planning system allows for some development to go ahead that is outside the terms of what local plans enable. In these cases, however, the developer may have to pay some contribution to the community to compensate.
| Key Facts:
The local planning system balances the righst and interests of land-owners with the wider community. It is democractic because the authorities in charge of it are the councils we elect. But planning decisions must fit in with local and national planning policy. New local plans must fit in with national policy and the existing local framework. Plans set limits on development, but they enable development within those limits. Plans and planning decisions are enabling rather than prescriptive: they say what may happen; not what will happen. |
Page Links from here
The Plain English Guide to the Local Planning System is published as a PDF by government
The CPRE website has a useful section Planning Explained and the Planning Help site
In this toolkit, have a look at:
National Planning Policy Framework
OR you can use the navigation menu above right to look at other parts of the toolkit.
BIRMINGHAM COMMUNITY PLANNING TOOLKIT DEFINITION SHEET This sheet may be reproduced in paper or electromic or any other form but please mention it was made by Chamberlain Forum Limited for Birmingham City Council supported by Department for Communities and Local Government.
| created: 2016-07-26 19:49:34 | by: admin | status: f published |