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Search forRelax red tape to help rural areas – MP
Wednesday, July 23, 2008, 09:00
The Taylor Review has been published by the Truro and St Austell MP after he was asked by Prime Minister Gordon Brown to carry out an independent review to look at how the planning system could better support the sustainability of rural communities.
Mr Taylor had been asked to complete the review because of his long-standing interest in the problems of affordable housing, particularly in Cornwall with the added problems of second homes and the ever-growing wage gap.
Since he was commissioned to write the report he has visited areas all over the UK to investigate the problems that exist in rural communities.
As a result he has come up with 48 recommendations to the Government about how the situation could be improved.
The recommendations include relaxing planning restrictions in rural villages so that affordable homes can be built for local people. Mr Taylor says that this will help local communities by enabling people who will use and provide local services being able to remain in their home towns and villages.
He is also critical of how the existing planning system has allowed towns to expand with out of town developments.
He states: “Without change we will simply repeat the mistakes of recent decades, creating unattractive developments of housing estates encircling our rural towns and larger villages, and we will fail to stem the trend of smaller villages becoming dormitory settlements of commuters and the retired, ever less affordable for those who work within them. This is not a sustainable future for rural England. We need to better balance social and economic sustainability with environmental sustainability. For these reasons, those who want to protect the countryside need the planning system to better recognise the people and living communities within it.”
Looking at the need for more housing developments in and around established towns Mr Taylor says that a more complete approach should be taken with planners looking at how services such as shops, pubs, cafes, workplaces, open spaces and attractive environments are delivered alongside new homes. He suggests that a master planning approach should be taken with genuine community participation so that developments deliver what communities want from them.
The Taylor Review is set to be delivered to the Prime Minister today. Closing the introduction to the report Mr Taylor states: “This report sets out the steps necessary for the planning system to play its role in realising the vision of mixed, thriving and sustainable rural communities –a living, working countryside.”
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