Greg, can I just ask, purely as an aside, if you've had a bad personal
experience in the sphere of "planning" (in its broadest sense)?

In message , Greg Hennessy
writes
Not a wholly unaccountable state funded and centrally run quango.
I can't thin of any QuANGOs which are wholly unaccountable (ie most have
to work within powers or areas delegated to them by Parliament).

Ridiculous nanny state interference by the HSE aside, that's only a subset
of the issue. Any major infrastructure project in the UK takes the guts of
a decade to work through a ridiculously complex self inflicted planning
process.
I agree that some things do take far too long. But I don't think that
removing rules in their entirety (or almost in their entirety) would
somehow make our country a "better place". It would, for example, be
much more convenient for many people if the M1 were to continue
southwards from Staples Corner to - say - Marble Arch. The reason we
don't do that is because the advantages of such a thing would be
outweighed by the disadvantages. The same thinking (slowed down by our
planning process, for all its faults) saw the ultimate end of the Inner
Motorway Box, the M11 southwards extension and (I think) something
similar for the M23.

I appreciate that these are extreme examples and I'm not trying to
deliberately pick a fight or bait you, merely to try to illustrate why I
think our planning laws work as they do.

Projects such as the Great Central would be strangled at birth in today's
planning regime.
Well that applies to *many* things. I suspect that the London Eye
would never have been permitted if they'd asked for it to be placed
there permanently; instead it was allowed for five years and became
loved on the way.......

Perhaps you'd prefer a French-style system?

Not entirely.

I am in favour of mandatory levels of CPO compensation set at say 1.5-2
times the market value.

I am in favour of putting the compensation regime on a sliding scale with a
tight timescale, so that if someone wants to be bloody minded, feet
dragging comes with a price attached.

I am in favour of setting a tipping point, such that those who refuse to
take the generous compensation on offer will end up facing 'compensation'
at market clearing rates once say 2/3rds of properties have signed up.

I am in favour of simplifying the process such that it doesn't entertain
the notion of taking 'evidence' from druids or anyone else unconnected with
reality.

I am in favour of terminating with extreme prejudice the careers of
qunagocrats who sabotage planning decisions ex post facto. English Nature
comes to mind in this instance.
You know, Greg, these are all ideas or prospective rules being put
forward by an unelected and unaccountable source....... :-)

these happen to be the rules that would suit your way of looking at the
country but of course different people (bodies, authorities, etc.) all
have their own points of view. That's why planning involves so many
different people in consultation processes. What's good for one isn't
necessarily good for another.

and if you are in the way of the national interest and the
glory of the state, then tough luck? Kent is a rather different
environment to Pas de Calais.

Kent is mostly empty space.
Boggle
--
Ian Jelf, MITG
Birmingham, UK

Registered Blue Badge Tourist Guide for London and the Heart of England
http://www.bluebadge.demon.co.uk