GREEN BELT? FOR WALES??

There is a clear need for a Welsh Green belt across all of our country, to fringe our urban areas, to help focus out of town and fringe of town developments, not to mention helping to protect green spaces between and within some of our urban areas. It's worth noting that 'Green belt', if respected is a useful planning tool, originally introduced for London in 1938, it was then rolled out to England as a whole by a government circular in 1955 but interestingly enough not to Wales.

The original concept was to allow local councils to designate green belts when they wanted to restrict or control urban growth.  The idea worked and worked well, as by 2007, Green belt covered something like 13% of England (about one-and-a-half million hectares) despite the best efforts of previous Conservative, New Labour and Conservative–Liberal Democrat Governments it is still remains relatively well protected by normal planning controls against "inappropriate development".

Here in Wales we have one patch of notional green belt (or Green wedge) and that lies between Cardiff and Newport. Scotland has seven and Northern Ireland has 30 - each has its own policy guidance.  The preservation of green spaces aside, it comes down to planning permission, which can be a touchy subject, especially when a development (whether for commercial, housing or energy development) is controversial or the final decision is made against the wishes of local people.

It should be pretty clear to most dispassionate observers that in Wales, we lack a coherent national strategic development plan for Wales judging by the half-baked way local unitary development plans have been put together over the years. A number of which are focussed on housing developments, which have done (and will do) some pretty serious damage to our environment in the process without any necessary improvements in infrastructure e.g new railway stations with reasonably priced (or even free), adequate and secure park and ride facilities at Caerleon (closed as a result of the Beeching cuts in 1962, in the UDP since 1984) Llanwern and Magor.

In the south east, along the coastal belt and in and around Newport and Torfaen (not to mention Cardiff and Caerphilly) the last thirty years has seen a significant if not spectacular growth in the amount of housing, a significant percentage of which has never aimed to fulfil local housing needs. As a result the infrastructure along the coastal belt between Chepstow, Caldicot, Rogiet and Magor is struggling to cope with existing developments and this is well before the projected expansion of housing on and around the former Llanwern site really kicks in.

Northern Newport has now been linked to the south Cwmbran - something that has brought little material benefit to the residents of either urban area but has contributed much to traffic congestion. Similarly linking Cwmbran with Sebastopol will bring scant benefit to local residents. Even if eventually housing is built on the land just exactly how much of it will be affordable to local residents?

When the Severn Bridge tolls are reduced (rather than removed) after 2018, there will be a significant bump in house prices as people living in and around Bristol move cash in on cheaper housing over here.  This will impact on both affordable and available housing, developers will no doubt pitch their developments accordingly to cash in on perceived higher wages in the Bristol area and perceived cheaper housing over here (and no doubt our local authorities will fall over themselves to accommodate the developers wishes regardless how local people feel).

The National Assembly should know better and act accordingly, the institution when established was supposed to have sustainability enshrined in its actions, but, at times you really have to wonder, especially when it comes to the impact of some of the proposed developments on our communities. We need to protect the green wedges around and within our urban communities – because once developed they are gone for good.

The problem caused by a lack of protection to our Green wedges, etc is aggravated by the fact that what one generation of elected officials (and council officers) envisages as a green wedge, green lane, etc is often seen by later generations of elected officials (and council officers) as either prime land for development or a nice little earner to help balance out the books - this means that there is a real lack of stability and a long term vision for many of our urban areas and impacts on our quality of life. 

The National Assembly needs to act like the Welsh Parliament it should be and take the long view and create Welsh Green belt land with full legal and planning protections. This might go some way to calming things down when it comes to development planning and might introduce a more long-term sustainable democratic element into the process. This is something that could be accomplished by creating Welsh Green belt land, as part of the process we also need an urgent and open debate into the planning process in Wales - something that has been long overdue.

Successive Westminster government’s (in England) over the next few years will continue to talk about getting planning officers "off people's backs" with a relaxation of current rules. When they talk about ‘people’ they mean developers. In true Spiv fashion ‘for a limited period, people are able able to build larger extensions on houses (up to eight metres for detached homes and six for others). Shops and offices will also be able grow to the edges of their premises as Plan A (harsh Public Sector Cuts) continues to unravel and on the back of BREXIT a note of desperation may begin to creep into Westminster’s attempts to boost stabilise the economy.

These sounds good; it seems very reasonable save for the fact that somewhere amongst the smoke and mirrors the plan will reduce developer’s obligations to build proportional amounts of affordable housing and avoiding flood risk will go out the window. Not that long ago the previous Westminster government rewrote the entire planning framework (for England) despite some fierce resistance from countryside campaigners. No doubt Westminster ministers will want further changes to planning rules (in England) in an attempt to boost house building and revive the economy.

Not wanting to be left out (and bereft of any fresh ideas), a few years ago the previous Labour in Wales Government in Cardiff also pursued major changes to planning rules in Wales aiming to ‘tilt the balance in favour of economic growth over the environment and social factors’. This decision was in my opinion aimed quite specifically at overturning those few occasions when our Local Authorities have rejected developments (often at the behest of local residents) rather than putting economic needs ahead of economic and environmental benefits and will do little for sustainable, flood free development to deal with local housing needs let alone preserve our green spaces.

A GREEN BELT FOR WALES?

There is a need for a Welsh equivalent to Green belt, to fringe our urban areas, to help focus out of town and fringe of town developments, not to mention helping to protect green spaces in and around some of our urban areas. It's worth noting that 'Green belt' is a useful planning tool, which was introduced for London in 1938 but then ended up being rolled out to England as a whole by a government circular in 1955 but not to Wales.

The original idea was that the opportunity to develop green belt which would allow local councils to designate green belts when they wanted to restrict urban growth.  The idea worked and worked well, as by 2007, Green belt covered something like 13% of England (around one-and-a-half million hectares) which despite the best efforts of previous Conservative and New Labour Governments it is still relatively well protected both by normal planning controls and against "inappropriate development" within its boundaries.

Wales only has one patch notional green belt, and that lies between Cardiff and Newport, Scotland has seven and Northern Ireland has 30 - each has its own policy guidance.  The preservation of green spaces aside, it comes down to planning permission, which can be a touchy subject, especially when a development (whether for commercial, housing or energy development) is controversial or the final decision is made against the wishes of local people by a fairly distant and indifferent authority.

It's pretty obvious that we lack a coherent national strategic development plan for Wales judging by the half-baked way local unitary development plans have been put together over the years. A number of which are focussed on housing developments, which have done (and will do) some pretty serious damage to our environment in the process.

In the south east, along the coastal belt and in and around Torfaen (not to mention in and around Cardiff) the last twenty five years has seen a significant if not spectacular growth in the amount of housing, a significant percentage of which has never aimed to fulfil local housing needs. As a result the infrastructure along the coastal belt between Chepstow, Caldicot, Rogiet and Magor is struggling to cope with existing developments and this is well before the projected expansion of housing on and around the former Llanwern site kicks in.

The north of Newport has now effectively been linked to the south Cwmbran - something that has brought little material benefit to the residents of either urban area but has contributed much to traffic congestion. Similarly linkng Cwmbran with Sebastopol will bring little benefit to local residents. Even if eventually housing is built on the land just exactly how much of it will be affordable to local residents?

Now the National Assembly should know better and act accordingly, the institution is supposed to have sustainability enshrined in its actions, but, at times you really have to wonder, especially when it comes to the impact of some of the proposed developments on our communities. We need to protect the green wedges around and within our urban communities – because once developed they are gone for good.

The problem caused by a lack of protection to our Green wedges, etc is aggravated by the fact that what one generation of elected officials (and council officers) envisages as a green wedge, green lane, etc is often seen by later generations of elected officials (and council officers) as either prime land for development or a nice little earner to help balance out the books - this means that there is a lack of stability and a long term vision for many of our urban areas.

If the National Assembly took the long view and created Welsh Green belt land with legal and planning protections then, we might go some way to calming things down when it comes to development planning and also manage to introduce a more long term sustainable democratic element into the process. This is something that could be accomplished by creating Welsh Green belt land, as part of the process we also need an urgent and open debate into the planning process in Wales - something that has been long overdue.

The Westminster government (in England) refrain over the next few years will be about getting planning officers "off people's backs" with a relaxation of current rules. When they talk about ‘people’ they actually mean developers. In true Spiv fashion ‘for a limited period, people are able able to build larger extensions on houses (up to eight metres for detached homes and six for others). Shops and offices will also be able grow to the edges of their premises as Plan A (harsh Public Sector Cuts) unravels and a note of desperation creeps in Westminster ministers seek to boost the economy.

These sounds good; it seems very reasonable save for the fact that somewhere amongst the smoke and mirrors the plan will reduce developer’s obligations to build proportional amounts of affordable housing and avoiding flood risk will go out the window. Not that long ago, a matter of a few months, the previous Westminster government rewrote the entire planning framework (for England) despite some fierce resistance from countryside campaigners. Now Westminster ministers want further changes to planning rules (in England) in an attempt to boost house building and revive the economy.

Not wanting to be left out, the Labour in Wales Government in Cardiff has also pursued major changes to planning rules in Wales aiming to ‘tilt the balance in favour of economic growth over the environment and social factors’. This decision may be aimed quite specifically at overturning those few occasions of late when our Local Authorities have rejected some developments (often at the behest of local residents) rather than putting economic needs ahead of economic and environmental benefits and will do little for sustainable, flood free development to deal with local housing needs let alone preserve our green spaces.

SIZE MATTERS

It is an inescapable fact that Wales is a small relatively rugged country, now this is not a problem it is a virtue, a positive and should work to our advantage in so many ways. Our local government structure should also reflect this ensuring that services are delivered as locally as possible – it clearly does not do this. As a small country what might work better, judging by the experience of other small countries e.g. Norway Slovenia, etc) would be to focus primarily on having efficient small district level councils rather than the creation (or recreation) of ever larger artificial local government structures.

If we accept that the highly politicised 1992 reorganisation has not worked, then making the local government units bigger (again) won’t help things much. A real opportunity to take out an entire tier of local government has been missed. On a very basic level we need to actually work out exactly what we want local government to actually do and what services we want or don’t want it to provide. Once that has been done then we can move on to address the fundamental problem of local democracy and local accountability for decisions made.

Simply tweaking a local government structure, that is nineteenth century at heart, just won't do. Our existing local government structure is badly funded and barely democratic combing a dreadfully low turnout with the local peculiarities of the first past the post electoral system and a real remoteness from local people. If when the dust settles we end up with 5, 8, 10 or 12 new local authorities the only certainty is that a real opportunity will have been missed to reshape local government in a meaningful way and to make it democratically accountable to local people.

Take Housing, or more specifically Housing development, this has always and probably will remain for the foreseeable future at least a contentious issue. At heart of the problem lies the fundamentally flawed local government LDP (Local Development Plan) many of whom focus on maximizing the amount of housing that can be constructed, regardless of actual local demand for housing.   In the South East and the North East, planning for housing is influenced by cross border pressures (and demands) from the Merseyside conurbation and greater Bristol.

House prices in the southeast and the north east of Wales are also affected by higher house prices across the border, which in close conjunction with perceived lower house prices this side of the border increase pressure for development. Over-development is now a key issue (in south east this is very true along the Gwent levels and in and around the Wrecsam in the north east). Local authorities seek to cash in by maximizing the amount of housing constructed, well beyond the ability of local infrastructure to cope with increased demands and devouring our green spaces.

The LDP and the UDP (Unitary Development Plan) have reached the point where, much like the structure of our local government, they are no longer fit for purpose. The National  Assembly has pretty much been reasonably comfortable with the current local government and planning set up and has failed to exercise any meaningful overview or to be honest (save for between 2007 and 2011) actually realistically plan the development of our country. The proposed reform of local government is on a fundamental level little more of a tweak rather than much needed root and branch reform.

On a local, regional and a national level we have serious issues with planning and the provision of services, something which fundamentally affects almost every aspect of public service provision. Whether we are talking about our NHS, our education system, our emergency services, our public transport or infrastructure projects we need to develop a detailed and comprehensive planning system that takes into account local needs, local demands, our national interests and on a basic level our geography. Simply trying to make the flawed Anglo-Saxon model, whether in education, the NHS or in other areas apply to a fundamentally small country is clearly not working.

At the heart of the proposed local government reform, is a fundamental failure to bring in Single transferable Vote (STV) as is used in Northern Ireland and Scotland, to make every vote count and our local authorities democratically accountable. People don’t vote for a variety of reason, a lack of political choice, a lack of any real alternatives and perceived enshrined one party dominance (a problem that affects significant portions of local government in our country).

Now while history tends not to repeat itself, simular circumstances often arise and the same mistakes can be made. This times around despite devolution things may not be that different,  the reform of local government in 1992 was highly politicised, pushed through by a Westminster based Conservative government, for its own reasons. This  time around the failure to reform our local government may have more to do with efforts to enshrine or preserve Labour dominance in the new structures than anything else – oh how things change... 

THIS LAND IS NOT FOR SALE

When it comes to Housing Policy (and Planning Policy) in Wales its bad news for local residents, whether they are in those residents of Newport or Torfaen (who have been fighting the plan) or the concerned residents of Carmarthen who are worried about the impact of over large housing developments or the concerned residents of Holyhead who are opposed to new marina development. In Wales we have over the years been ill-served by the planning system, by nominally Local Development Plans and by our local authorities and by our own Government in Cardiff. Well on Saturday....