The government's new planning rules will leave nature and the environment at the mercy of developers

The climate column: The government is trying to abolish environmental protections, bulldoze democratic accountability and give developers carte blanche to build across vast swathes of the country, says Donnachadh McCarthy

The government promises to cut red tape over planning permission for building new homes (Getty)

Build Back Brutally seems to be Boris Johnson’s new slogan. The government, in classic shock-doctrine mode, is using the Covid-19 crisis to smash our planning protections which will benefit the billionaire property oligarchs.

The scandal prone secretary of state for housing, communities and local government, Robert Jenrick, is trying to abolish environmental protections, bulldoze democratic accountability and give corporate developers carte blanche to build across vast swathes of England, without the need to apply for any outline planning permission whatsoever.

You want to demolish and rebuild “empty” properties without planning permission? Sure sir. You want to demolish suburban semi-detached housing and rebuild with higher densities without planning permission? Sure madam. You want to add additional two stories to your existing buildings without planning permission? Of course you can. You want to postpone the need to build zero-carbon homes until 2050? Absolutely fine. In some ways I think the Johnson government is worse than Trump on the environment. At least Trump makes clear he wants to destroy climate regulations.

Jenrick’s ministry of housing’s new consultation paper on trashing our planning protections has to be one of the most deceitful, mendacious government documents ever produced. To understand it, I had to reverse the meaning of almost everything it says.

It audaciously heralds a new “planning” system that will tackle climate change, improve local democratic input and protect nature. But the details reveal the opposite. The Trumpian reality is that it is replacing our planning protections with an authoritarian developers’ charter.

Its hollow claim to protect the environment is exposed as the details reveal the abolition of strategic environmental impact assessments for large developments, but sets out no replacement, merely that they want them to be “simpler and faster”.

I can't help thinking that the real developers’ agenda to remove ecological protections was revealed, when Boris Johnson slipped up and exposed the actual truth by attacking “newt counting delays in our system”.

Jenrick boasts, “We will build environmentally friendly buildings”, but then delays the requirement for zero carbon new homes to 2050. The government originally announced in 2007, that all new homes had to be zero-carbon by 2018. Developers immediately started lobbying to have this delayed.

Months before implementation, in December 2017, they succeeded and the government announced its postponement.

And in a truly Orwellian manner the government now says homes need only be “zero carbon ready” by 2025. The recent report by the government’s Climate Change Committee said delays have already meant 1.8 million new homes have been built that will now require expensive retro-fitting to bring them up to a zero-carbon standard.

Some councils made up for government failure, by requiring zero carbon homes or net-zero offsets in their local plans. Developers have lobbied the government hard to block such proposals and the consultation proposes abolishing local councils’ democratic right to do this.

The document proclaims that “residents will be able to engage in a much more democratic system”. But the details show that they plan to abolish all rights for residents to have any engagement in most outline planning decisions, as they are proposing to abolish the need for developers to apply for any outline planning permission across huge swathes of the country.

Democratically elected planning committees would no longer have any outline planning authority over the majority of building proposals in their communities.

Jenrick’s consultation states its intention for the entire corpus of planning law developed over the last 100 years is to “tear it down and start again.”

One proposal in the document is to simply divide land in England into two zones: “protected areas” where planning permission will still be needed in some circumstances and the rest will be a developers Wild West of “growth areas” where developers will have automatic outline planning permission, without their neighbours or local councillors having any right to object.

I would guess that the protected areas will be where the rich 1 per cent live - so they can stop tower blocks being built next door - and the “growth” areas will be where the rest of us live, in communities blighted by developers’ carbuncles.

The consultation further proposes destroying local democracy by removing the right of local people and councillors to include any policies in their Local Plans, that currently govern development in local council areas. Local Plans in future will be “data driven”, standardised across the country and will be barred from including locally developed policies.

And the secretary of state appointed inspector can unilaterally, without consulting the local community, make whatever changes they wish to those new Local Plans. They are also proposing removing the right of residents to attend inspectorate hearings into Local Plans.

So, what can we do to stop Jenrick’s charter of environmental and democratic destruction? Respond to the online consultation before 29 October, opposing its destruction of planning protections, and call for new homes to be zero carbon by 2022.

The next local elections are on 6 May, 2021. It is crucial that this is a hot election issue in every village, town and city across England. Email your MP and councillors (especially if they are Tories), objecting to the destruction of your planning protections. Attend student climate strikes or the Extinction Rebellion climate protests taking place from 1 September.

The neo-conservative shock doctrine described by Naomi Klein enabled the looting of the Russian people’s assets by oligarchs after the collapse of communism. We must not allow the UK’s rich and powerful oligarchs voraciously exploit the Covid-19 crisis to destroy England’s planning protections for nature, climate and community and likewise make-off with billions in unearned profits.

Donnachadh McCarthy is an environmental auditor, campaigner and is the author of The Prostitute State – How Britain’s Democracy was Hijacked.