Press release issued on behalf of:
CPRE, the Civic Trust, Environmental Law Foundation, FOE, ROOM,
RSPB, TCPA and WWF-UK
01/02 2.1.02
Call for Justice for all in Planning
‘The Government is missing a crucial chance to right a
fundamental wrong at the heart of the planning system by
rejecting calls to give the public similar rights to developers
to challenge planning decisions.’{1}
This will be the warning from CPRE’s Planning Officer,
Julie Stainton, at the launch{2} of a major report at the Law
Society in London today. Undertaken by an independent team of
respected academics, consultants and legal experts in the field
of planning, the report{3} explores the case for ‘third
party rights of appeal’{4}. The research was funded by a
broad alliance of environmental and amenity groups{5},
representing nearly two million people in the UK.
The report argues forcefully that, in certain circumstances,
people should be able to appeal to the Secretary of State against
their council’s grant of planning permission for a
development they oppose.{6}
At today’s launch, the RSPB’s Head of Planning and
Regional Policy, Mark Southgate, will say:
‘The announcement of the Planning Green Paper promised
“a faster, fairer planning system”.{7} We welcome the
Government’s proposals for greater openness but none of
these changes provides the vital safeguards which a form of
public right of appeal would deliver.’
Julie Stainton will add:
‘The Government is failing to grasp this once-in-
fifty-years opportunity to remove a basic injustice.{8} This
undermines the Government’s avowed commitment to give local
people real influence in the planning decisions which shape their
environment.’
Introducing a limited third party right of appeal in planning
represents the single most effective way that the Government
could:
- provide a genuinely fairer system which gives equal
weight to the consideration of community and business
concerns;{9}
- demonstrate a real commitment to public
participation in planning and give ‘people a real
voice in deciding the future of where they
live’;{10} and
- redress the serious imbalance in the current system
which ‘benefits those with large cash and time
resources and excludes those without.’{11}
- END -
1. Currently, a developer may appeal against refusal of
planning permission, but members of the public have no right to
appeal against the grant of permission – no matter how
strong their case.
2. The launch will be held at 11 am on Wednesday, 9 January
2002 at the Law Society, Chancery Lane, London WC2.
3. Third Party Rights of Appeal in Planning was
produced by Green Balance, Leigh Day & Co Solicitors, John
Popham and Professor Michael Purdue and is available, priced
£10.00, from CPRE Publications, Warwick House, 25 Buckingham
Palace Road, London SW1W 0PP; telephone: 020 7976 6433; fax: 020
7976 6373; email: publications@cpre.org.uk Copies of the
report’s executive summary are available free on request
from the same address.
4. A planning authority is the ‘first party’ in the
planning system from whom an applicant (the ‘second
party’) seeks planning permission. All other members of the
community are known as ‘third parties’ to consideration
of the application.
5. CPRE, the Civic Trust, the Environmental Law Foundation,
Friends of the Earth, ROOM (the National Council for Housing and
Planning), RSPB, TCPA (Town and Country Planning Association) and
WWF-UK.
6. The report proposes that there should be a public right of
appeal against approval of planning applications where:
- the proposal is contrary to the publicly-agreed
Development Plan;
- the land is owned by the planning authority - or
the authority has an ‘interest’;
- the proposal falls within the category defined by
the Planning Inspectorate as a ‘major
application’;
- the proposal requires an Environmental Impact
Statement; or
- the planning officer has recommended refusal of the
application.
7. DTLR News Release 537, 12 December 2001.
8. Last month’s Planning Green Paper, Planning:
delivering a fundamental change, explicitly rejected a third
party right of appeal (paragraph 6.22).
9. At the launch of the Planning Green Paper, the Secretary of
State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, the Rt.
Hon. Stephen Byers MP, said ‘We want a planning system in
which the values of the whole community are allowed to prosper
and develop… The current system does not allow
that…’ DTLR News Release 537, 12 December 2001.
10. Stephen Byers MP, DTLR News Release 537, 12 December 2001.
11. Stephen Byers MP, DTLR News Release 537, 12 December 2001.
Press Release INDEX
Published on this Web site: 9 January 2002
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