Lots of questions on the Localism Bill - which is a huge focus of our efforts at the moment.
We are working very hard on the Bill and I spoke to the Minister Greg Clark about it only this morning. We are the only community voice on the Government’s Planning Sounding Board and our lobbying has seen changes to the Bill in the last few days which ensure conservation areas & listed buildings can’t be ignored by neighbourhood planning and also allow neighbourhood plans to cross local authority boundaries so they fit what communities want for their neighbourhood rather than administrative convenience.
We have some serious concerns about the growing business focus of the Localism Bill - it is really important that businesses are involved and we need to do much more to fight off clone town High Streets but the Bill is going to far we believe in putting business in the lead in some areas
Do have a look at our detailed briefing for MPs on the Bill and also the report of the meeting we convened for 10 civic societies with Greg Clark, the recording of my intereview with Greg Clark on the Bill and civic societies and also Greg’s responses to 25 questions raised by civic societies during our recent Spring Network events - the Planning Minister - on our website here http://www.civicvoice.org.uk/campaigns/planning-for-people/
On consultation arranegments for neighbourhood planning - there is unlikely to be any detail on this although many will doubtless produce guidance and good practice. The key test is that any plan has to win a majority vote in a public referendum.
Watch out for more on this in a forthocming civic sense