Billboards favoured to advertise planning applications – not ‘anti-democratic’ Government proposals

The Government is seeking views from local councils on its ‘Planning for the Future’ white paper, which was published in August. The proposals have been met with widespread criticism from councillors across the county, and last week South Northamptonshire councillors joined the pile on.

Its planning policy committee met on October 20, with much of the debate focusing on how to engage with residents.

Current regulations stipulate there must be a public notice in a newspaper, neighbour notices and site notice advertisements. The Government’s white paper proposes a shift towards residents submitting views on smartphones.

Councillor Mary-Anne Sergison-Brooke said: “This is effectively disenfranchising the over 75s who don’t own computers and don’t understand modern technology, although they are very bright and contribute a great deal to society.”

As part of its response to the Government, the council suggests that as well as current methods, large billboards should be displayed in a prominent location on site – at the landowner’s expense – to say it is being promoted for development, and advertising how and who to send their comments into.

Jim Newton, the council’s assistant director for planning, explained: “The idea would be to say you have to put this big billboard up at your own expense to tell everyone it’s happening, because not everyone finds out about this stuff through the current regulations telling us how to advertise these things.”

One of the more controversial proposals in the white paper would see areas identified as ‘growth’ areas for substantial development being automatically granted outline planning permission – effectively negating the need for a debate on whether the principle of a specific type of development should be allowed.

Committee chairman Councillor Ann Addison said the Government proposals would ‘speed up’ the planning process, which could lead to mistakes being made and prevent residents having a proper say.

Councillor Martin Johns added: “Information is power, and the thrust of this document is that it doesn’t really want people to know about planning applications because it wants to speed everything up and run them through. The whole thrust is really anti-democratic. One thing about the current system is that, for all its faults, it’s democratic.”