Short sighted planning changes putting public health at risk, says CIEH

18 October 2011

The Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH) has sounded the same note as other observers in expressing concerns about the Government's proposed changes to national planning policy in its response to the draft National Planning Policy Framework consultation (which formally closed on Monday 17 October).

The Coalition Government argues that National Planning Policy has become too cumbersome, a barrier to growth and a burden on business and enterprise. It plans to reduce planning guidance from more than 1,000 pages to just over 50, claiming it will create a more tightly focussed and streamlined document.

Many of the CIEH’s members - environmental health practitioners (EHPs) - play an important role on behalf of planning authorities in scrutinising planning applications for their impact on noise levels, air pollution and a number of other public health issues. Others act in consultancy roles for developers.

Howard Price, CIEH Principal Policy Officer, said:

"We would not claim that the present planning system is perfect. The volume of guidance is large and some of it may not be up to date, but it is going too far to say it is principally responsible for hindering business creation, that it stops affordable homes being built and puts a break on economic growth."

"The facts speak for themselves - 80 percent of first planning applications are approved and many more are approved following appeal indicating that planning is not a brake on development. Why homes are not being built is primarily for financial reasons and the blame should not be laid at the door of planning, let alone the current body of planning guidance."

The CIEH is concerned that the document gives much less attention to a number of environmental health issues such as noise, air pollution and contaminated land than the current guidance. Without detailed guidance on these issues, EHPs will find themselves in a much weaker position to protect public health and the interests of local communities.

"It will be a matter for local negotiation or, more likely, dispute - and that brings its own delays and costs," Howard Price added.

Like many other organisations, the CIEH has also questioned the Government’s definition of sustainable development in the consultation.

The CIEH believes that the Government's interpretation of sustainable development places too much emphasis on economic factors. While it understands why the Government would want to stimulate economic growth, it argues that it would be short-sighted to skew the whole planning system to that to achieve that goal.

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