Growth Bill must go further, says CLA

The Country Land and Business Association (CLA) logo

The Country Land and Business Association (CLA) has welcomed the Growth and Infrastructure Bill’s clampdown on spurious village green designations and its aim to close the urban/rural “digital divide”.

However, the Association expressed serious concern that the proposed planning reforms would not do enough to incentivise small-scale rural businesses.

CLA North Regional Director Dorothy Fairburn said: “We have long campaigned for the closure of the loophole that allows development land to be designated as a ‘village green’ to stymie sustainable and sensible building projects. So the Bill’s commitment to ‘stop misuse of legislation to slow down agreed developments’ is a major lobbying victory for the CLA.

“We are delighted the Government has at last recognised the frustration caused by the ridiculous amount of paperwork that applicants for planning permission are required to provide by some planning authorities. The requirement that authorities can only request reasonable information is very welcome. However, there must be effective sanctions in place to deal with authorities which refuse to change their ways.”

Miss Fairburn said the CLA has campaigned for a decade for better broadband in the countryside to close the digital divide between connection speeds in urban and rural areas.

She said: “The pledge to remove red tape hindering superfast broadband from being rolled out in rural areas facing a ‘digital divide’ is welcome, provided it is done in a way that protects the interests of land managers.”

Miss Fairburn added that the Bill also contained good news on affordable housing. She said: “I welcome the proposal that Section106 affordable housing negotiated on unviable sites will be guaranteed by the Government through means other than cross-subsidy. CLA members want to help the delivery of housing across all tenures but clearly cannot do this where it is not viable.”

Miss Fairburn also said the Bill’s commitment to preventing unexpected hikes in local firms’ business rates over the next five years was welcome, but she expressed serious concern that many of the planning proposals missed the mark for the rural economy.