Planning for the future
The Government's new planning proposals have had a rough ride over the past few months and rightly so. Early drafts were not promising and they threatened disjointed, short sighted and self-serving policies. All is not yet crystal clear. However, the final draft has been met with guarded and grudging approval - even from bodies such as The National Trust and Friends of the Earth.
Where rural development is considered let us hope that planners are mindful of their duty to our heritage. It is our children who will have to live with their decisions, as we have had to live with many poor decisions made by their predecessors. Bringing new life into rural communities is important and modern technologies like broadband can attract people who will live and work in the community and not just sleep in it.
But whatever the future brings at least we now have a planning policy that, broadly speaking, people can get behind and which will enable planners to get planning and builders to get building. All we need now are the mortgages to help buy what is built. But the Government didn't mention anything about that . . .