Max Hastings Leads Counterattack Against Trendy Cameroonian Think Tank

29 June 2006

CPRE President Sir Max Hastings today (Thursday) launches a powerful counterattack on a leading centre-right think tank’s ‘brutish’ campaign against planning. [1]

He will condemn a recent series of pamphlets from the influential Policy Exchange as an unwarranted and unfair attack on the planning system, which continues to play a crucial role in protecting the environment and the countryside. [2]

CPRE is today (Thursday) publishing its pamphlet setting the record straight. Copies of Policy-based evidence making: The Policy Exchange’s war on planning are available from our press office as printed copies, or as a pdf by email. A summary and key facts are attached to this news release.

Sir Max will tell delegates to CPRE’s Annual General Meeting in London: ‘We’ve now produced a formidable rebuttal of the Policy Exchange’s arguments. It shows that many of this think tank’s claims are founded on unsubstantiated assertions, and sometimes on false and misleading statistics – especially those concerning comparisons between the UK and England and other nations.’

Sir Max said the Policy Exchange’s main argument – that there should be radical free-market reform of the town and country planning system to allow hundreds of thousands more large, detached homes to be built in the countryside in response to market demand – was ‘frankly brutish’.

Government attitudes towards the planning system – and especially that of Chancellor Gordon Brown – were already deeply worrying, he said. ‘It will be a tragedy if Conservative shadow ministers allow their views to be influenced by the Policy Exchange.

‘It would also be perverse, for almost everything else that David Cameron says about his commitment to green issues is infinitely closer to CPRE’s view of the world than that of the Policy Exchange.

‘What planning has done, with enormous success for much of the past century, is to save us from collective cannibalism – from allowing developers to destroy much of what we love most about this country.’

CPRE’s pamphlet comes at a critical time for the future of the planning system. Chancellor Gordon Brown has repeatedly called for further reform of the planning system, to make it faster, more flexible and more accommodating to the demands of developers. [3]

The Cabinet is reportedly discussing changes to public planning inquiries which would make it easier and quicker to build a new generation of nuclear power stations. And leading economist Kate Barker is soon to publish an interim report on her major review of the planning system and economic competitiveness, commissioned by the Treasury and the Department for Communities and Local Government. [4]

CPRE’s fear is that the planning system – one of the country’s most important and effective tools for environmental protection – could fall victim to a pincer attack if the Policy Exchange’s crude free market approach to the issue gains ground with the Conservative opposition.

Using solidly referenced facts and up-to date statistics, CPRE’s rebuttal demolishes the three main claims of the Policy Exchange – that we live in a spacious, uncrowded country; that we are being forced to live in crowded, ever denser cities, in flats; and that the UK has the oldest, pokiest, most expensive housing in Europe (see attachment).

CPRE’s pamphlet accepts that housing has become unaffordable for many people. It sets out positive solutions for making housing more affordable – including a major increase in the building of subsidised homes for rent and for low-cost home ownership.

But it concludes that since the Policy Exchange’s case for sweeping planning reform ‘is premised on a largely false picture of the state of UK housing and cities, it is not surprising that it collapses’.

NOTES FOR EDITORS

1. CPRE, the Campaign to Protect Rural England, is a charity which promotes the beauty, tranquillity and diversity of rural England. We advocate positive solutions for the long-term future of the countryside. Founded in 1926, we have 60,000 supporters and a branch in every county. President: Sir Max Hastings. Patron: Her Majesty The Queen.

2. The three Policy Exchange pamphlets are Unaffordable housing, fables and myths, Bigger better faster more – why some countries plan better than others and Better homes, green cities. All three were written by Evans A.W. and Hartwich O.M. and published last year or this year. CPRE’s new pamphlet also critiques a pamphlet published by the Adam Smith Institute in April 2005, Land economy: how a rethink of our planning system will benefit Britain, by Mischa Balin.

3. In his Mansion House speech of 21 June 2006 the Chancellor the Exchequer said: ‘We will shortly publish the Barker review to make our planning system quicker, more flexible and more responsive’.

4. Kate Barker, a member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, has been tasked by Government ‘to consider how, in the context of globalisation, and building on the reforms already put in place in England, planning policy and procedures can better deliver economic growth and prosperity alongside other sustainable development goals.’ CPRE is concerned that the terms of her review – her second major investigation into the planning system (the first concerned the supply of housing) – put economic considerations well in advance of environmental and social ones. On Thursday Kate Barker addresses the Royal Town Planning Institute’s Annual Convention and is expected to discuss her emerging findings.

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