Updated 6 March 2008

Of all issues emerging from the Planning Bill, the proposals buried in clauses 150 to 154 (now reprinted as clauses 155 to 159) to remove the right of English applicants to an independent appeal, have caused the strongest response from RTPI members.  English Members contacting the RTPI are so far unanimous in their view that the Local Member Review Body proposals in the Bill are ill-founded and that the RTPI should campaign to secure their removal from the Bill. 

What Can I Do?
Take Action!

Having progressed very quickly through First and Second Readings and its Report Stage, the Bill remains in the House of Commons, with no dates yet set for a Report Stage or Third Reading.  It must pass these stages in the Commons before it passes to the House of Lords.  Whilst the Bill remains in the House of Commons and particularly in the lead up to the Third Reading debate, there are still opportunities to influence the debate by influencing the thinking of your constituency MP.

If you are an individual Chartered Town Planner with concerns about the Local Member Review Body proposals, the RTPI now needs you to take action, to communicate to parliamentarians how seriously the profession views the proposals to remove the right to an independent appeal.

A draft letter to your constituency MP can be downloaded from this page. Click here to access the draft.  Feel free to change it and add your own thoughts.  

You will then need to send it to your MP's office.  Speed is important, as the Bill is progressing rapidly, so ideally the letter should be sent first by email to the MP's parliamentary email address (typically in the form local.mp@parliament.uk), with a confirming hard copy by post.  Your local constituency office should include the appropriate email address on their website or be able to advise you of it.  

A copy should also be sent to policy.admin@rtpi.org.uk, so that the RTPI can monitor the issues that you have raised and factor these in to our own briefings of parliamentarians and civil servants.

Speak to non-planning colleagues and contacts about the issues.  Individuals and bodies who may naturally be assumed to support the proposals may not do so, once concerns are explained to them.  

Councillors and members of civic and amenity societies and residents' associations often have strong views and are prepared to lend their voice to the campaign.  

The RTPI has had contact with a range of institutions including the British Property Federation, the CBI, the Country Landowners Association, the Federation of Small Businesses, the HBF, RIBA and RICS, all of whom have expressed concerns about the proposals and taken actions of their own, or in partnership with us.  The chartered institutions jointly wrote to the Secretary of State Hazel Blears expressing our concerns.  

Encourage your contacts to take action directly or through their representative organisations.  Our draft letter can be adapted for use by others.

Spread the word!

What Effect Will My Action Have?

When RTPI commenced the STOP LMR campaign in January 2008, we asked people who were participating in the campaign to copy letters and responses back to policy team, so that we could monitor the effectiveness of the campaign and the issues raised.

• Click here for a copy of the monitoring report

Conversations with CLG have made clear that the campaign is communicating to Ministers and Civil Servants that professionals have deep and well-founded concerns about the way this proposal would work.  We expect a new round of communication and consultation to take place, to enable government to make the workings of the proposal clearer and to listen to peoples' views.

What Else Has the RTPI Done?

The RTPI is completely opposed to the formation of Local Member Review Bodies in England and will continue to strive to have them omitted from the Planning Bill.  

The steps we have taken so far are many, including strong opposition to the proposal when it was raised during the Barker review, throughout the government's preparation for and consultation on the Planning White Paper and in all parliamentary stages to date on the Planning Bill. 

Robert Upton, RTPI Secretary General, firmly stated in oral evidence to the Bill Committee that, 

“Our second major concern [relates to]…local member review bodies, which we see as a major breach of the 1947 settlement, which separated the decision-taking from the appeal process.”

The RTPI has written to the Secretary of State, Hazel Blears explaining our strong concerns about the Local Member Review Body proposals. The letter was jointly signed by the Presidents of both the RIBA and RICS, thus lending additional weight and support. It was copied to both John Healy, Minister for Local Government and Yvette Cooper, Minister for Planning and Housing. We continue to meet with a widening coalition of interest groups with concerns about the proposals.

We have had face-to-face meetings with representatives of all the major political parties including shadow Ministers and have been exploiting our hard won access to a range of MPs and members of the House of Lords.

We continue to raise concerns about local member review with all areas of the press and media. 

Future Action

Our plans for the future involve further conversations with civil servants around the LMR proposal - seeking a further consultation before any further action is taken.  If the proposal proceeds further, we will develop a detailed campaign strategy to follow this issue into the House of Lords. 

Attachments: 1

• 
  Campaign Letter (29 Kb)
  22-Jan-08

Author:

Rynd Smith

Publisher:

The Royal Town Planning Institute

Date:

22-Jan-08

Categories:

Policy, Practice 

Sections:

What Planning Does

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