Top Tory Caroline Spelman promises end to 'arbitrary' homes targets in Watford visit (From Watford Observer)

Top Tory Caroline Spelman promises end to 'arbitrary' homes targets in Watford visit

7:17pm Monday 15th March 2010 in

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Proposed reforms to the planning system would see housing targets scrapped and local councillors granted the power to reject inappropriate and back garden developments, a senior Conservative politician said this afternoon.

Shadow communities and local government secretary Caroline Spelman, addressing an audience of Tory councillors and candidates in Watford town centre, said a future Conservative government would hand back vital powers to elected councillors and bring an end to the current culture of “threats and arbitrary targets”.

Mrs Spelman, who was speaking at the Conservative Party office, in The Parade, said the current planning system had failed the town – its rigid culture of targets leading only to local resentment and an ever increasing number of flats.

Watford Borough Council, she explained, should, like all other local authorities, be free to shape planning policy around its own housing needs – an idea described as “local homes for local needs”.

Mrs Spelman, who was in town to formally launch the Tories’ local election campaign, told the Watford Observer: “At the moment planning power is being taken away from local government and given to unelected regional bodies.

“You end up with regional housing targets and there’s very little that elected politicians can do about numbers being foisted on the community. That leaves people feeling seriously disempowered.”

Asked whether such a policy would lead to increased local housing shortages – and even higher prices – Mrs Spelman replied: “I believe in the power of democracy. If local councillors didn’t build anything then eventually the people who elect them would reject them for not providing what is needed.

“Apart from this power of the ballot box, we believe in carrots rather than sticks. The Government has threatened councils; that if they don’t build to the targets they will penalise them by withdrawing grants. That is not right.

“But we believe in more carrot and less stick.” That carrot, Mrs Spelman explained, would allow the local authority to keep Council Tax contributions from new homes [most of which is currently diverted to central government] for a period of six years – money it could spend on important local projects such as the town centre redevelopment plan.

She also took aim at the burgeoning number of apartment developments, which serve to meet targets but, arguably, do little to serve the needs of young families or maintain the character of communities. This trend, she said, was the inevitable result of the prevailing target culture: where numbers are met but voters’ needs are not.

Mrs Spelman also promised to stamp out so-called back garden developments, where large numbers of homes are built in small communities with insufficient infrastructures to support them. She claimed that removing the current brown field designation of such sites [legal first choices for developers] would prevent inappropriate building.

What do you think of Caroline Spelman’s suggestions? Would they lead to a better planning system? Let us know by posting your comments below.