Government planning reforms will sideline local communities says Sykes

According to the Labour Government, the Planning and Infrastructure Bill will speed up the development of new homes.  But Oldham Liberal Democrat Leader councillor Howard Sykes MBE says the Bill will “sideline communities and treat infrastructure like new roads, schools and health services like an afterthought.”

The government’s plans could end up taking powers away from local planning committees, allowing the government to push development through regardless of local views.

Councillor Sykes said, “Taking power away from local communities is not the way to achieve developments that will work for the long term.  We need to work from the ground up, alongside local communities so that we can make sure we’re building the new roads, schools and GP surgeries that we’ll need to support new developments.  That needs to happen alongside the protection of local parks and green spaces.

“A top-down approach led by the government and a few large developers is going to treat those infrastructure projects as an afterthought."

Sykes also took aim at the controversial Greater Manchester-wide housing strategy Places for Everyone.  The Labour Government supports the strategy and wants to roll out many more like it across the country, but locally, Places for Everyone has been rejected by Oldham Council twice following opposition spearheaded by Sykes’s Liberal Democrats.

Councillor Sykes said, “In Oldham and across Greater Manchester, Places for Everyone will lead to development of green belt and green land on the edges of our city region, in places with no infrastructure to support new large populations.  This strategy has always avoided brownfield and ex-industrial sites that are much better situated.  Our leaders seem to think these sites are too difficult to bring back into use as affordable housing.  So, what we’re left with is unaffordable, developer-led projects and the loss of our green spaces.

“The Labour Government’s plan is to do more of this on a national scale.  And where local planning committees object, the government will simply ignore them with a stroke of a pen.  This is a plan to sideline local communities.”