The Government recently published two White Papers on Planning that may affect all our lives in the future.  You can view the White Papers by clicking the links below :

• White Paper - Changes to the Current Planning System
• White Paper - Planning for the Future

The first White Paper Changes to the Current Planning System got much coverage (and ridicule) in the National Press & Media due to its promotion of an algorithm to calculate housing need in areas.  This one size-fits-all approach, if applied as proposed, would see the already challenging housing need assessment in the Chilterns further increase by 232%, yet 88% of this District is designated as Green Belt with 72% also designated as AONB.

You would have thought after the fiasco of the exam results algorithm this Summer, someone in Government might have dressed this up as anything but an Algorithm!   

Brown Not Green continue to campaign for a common-sense bottom-up approach to Planning and have pushed back against this Planning Algorithm in the Consultation responses to these White Papers.  With thanks to Phillip Plato who has worked tirelessly (and continues to do so with super-human effort) during our protracted campaign for putting in these responses.  You can read them here:
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• Changes to the Current Planning System – BNG Consultation response 
• Planning for the Future – BNG Consultation response

Thanks again to all members of the BNG Campaign Group and their supporters for their continued hard work.

The BNG Team

On Tuesday 13th October, BNG noted that Buckinghamshire Council published a Press Release announcing that at the next Council Meeting on 21 October 2020, the Council will approve a proposal to withdraw the draft Chiltern & South Bucks Local Plan.

BNG take no pleasure in seeing over five years of work abandoned at ratepayer expense but BNG have long opposed the draft Local Plan which was deeply flawed and given the independent Inspector’s criticism questioning the legal compliance of the Plan which BNG had itself alerted the Council to as far back as 2016, this is the only practical course of action for the Council.  Accordingly, BNG welcome this proposal to finally consign this deeply flawed Local Plan to the rubbish bin. 

As the Plan contained proposals to remove significant areas of Green Belt land and to allocate these areas for development, including land to the North-East of Chesham near Lye Green for between 500 and 900 homes plus a gypsy/traveller site, this news represents the removal of that immediate threat.  The Council have further announced that it is their intention to now commence work on a new county wide Local Plan which itself may take several years to prepare.   

BNG director, Phillip Plato MRICS said “This news is most welcome and represents a significant victory for the Local Community who have understandably been very concerned about these protracted proposals.  Whilst the land may still be under threat in any new iteration of the next Local Plan, this campaign is therefore not yet finished and BNG will continue to take all the action it can to protect Green Belt around Chesham. “ He also thanked the many hundreds of local people who have supported BNG and donated money to its legal fundraising efforts.​