This time last year the news programmes were full of stories of terrible flooding problems across England. A Government-sponsored report out this week said that the scale of the flooding was such that they 2007 Summer floods were "the most expensive floods in the world" that year. Several people lost their lives, tens of thousands lost their homes and - a year on - nearly 5,000 householders are still not back home.
This week the Government published the 'Pitt Review' into the floods which contained 92 recommendations. One of them was a strong presumption against building in flood risk areas. Sir Michael Pitt said this should be "absolutely exceptional" and only in housing shortgage areas.
Yet the same Government has handed down a central target to build 3 million new houses by 2026 which for many local authorities can mean only one thing - you've guessed it - sites in flood risk areas. In our area the Council is consulting on putting thousands of houses in the North Yate and Chipping Sodbury area, which are both areas identified as being at significant flood risk according to the Environment Agency. When I challenged the Secretary of State about this in the House of Commons yesterday he simply said that it was up to the Councils and that they had the power to say no to applications. But what they don't have is the power to say no to another Government minister who is forcing them to find sites for thousands more houses.
You would almost think they didn't talk to each other.
Thursday, 26 June 2008
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2 comments:
You might also make the point that if a develpment is refused, the developer will appeal. The Council is faced with a great deal of pressure to defend its position from the planning lawyers skilled at finding loopholes in regulations, not to mention the propensity of the Plannning Inspectors to find for the developer. In such cases blaming the local authority is somewhat unfair since central government has loaded the dice against them.
Quite agree - the Minister kept saying it was up to the Councils and we kept saying 'what about appeals'; their reply was that appeals are done in the name of the Secretary of State, so he can block them at that stage - but how often does he?
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