GOVERNMENT 11TH HOUR EC0-TOWN ABOUTTURN

On 17th April 2009, a week before the West Midland Authority's draft Regional Spatial Strategy began its Examination in Public, DCLG official Henry Cleary wrote to all local authorities affected by a proposed Middle Quinton ("MQ") eco-town. His letter* announced that the Government will not now take a decision on whether to include MQ within the eco-towns PPS until the Secretary of State has considered the EiP Panel's report (due in the Autumn).

This is a sharp and extremely late reversal of the tack the Government was previously taking - ie one of consultation on a national basis as to which of the shortlisted eco-towns locations should appear on the final list in the PPS. The timing of this move is surprising to say the least, given the West Midlands RSS review's timetable has been known for many months. Regrettably now (at a late stage of the RSS process) the RSS EIP Panel finds that it is having to consider the appropriateness in strategic planning terms of an eco-town at MQ without:

1. a PPS to provide policy context;

2. the time to do the subject justice;

3. the information and documentation available to it that the Government has on not just MQ but the other shortlisted eco-towns (after all , the eco-town potential of MQ should be looked at relative to other locations in contention);

4. the public being able to make any representations (the deadline for representations to the EiP having passed some three weeks before publication of the DCLG's letter).

Prior to Cleary's letter the Panel were going to need to consider the strategic potential of MQ but only in the context of that having been raised in the Government Office's representations via the report from NLP that the Government Office had commissioned. As the Government Office made clear in its letter of 13 March 2009*, details of a specific proposal such as MQ should not be the basis of the discussions at the EiP. In other words, given that it was intended that the PPS be the route for determining the final list of eco-town locations, the RSS EIP Panel were not going to be in the front line being, as they now effectively will be, the body tasked with recommending to the Secretary of State whether the PPS should include MQ.

David Bliss, Chairman of BARD said of this aboutturn:

"On the face of it, BARD is pleased by the Government's recognition that the site at Long Marston cannot be included in an eco-towns policy statement until it has been fully considered by regional planning officers. But it is wholly unacceptable that some 18 months in, this role has suddenly, and without notice, been foisted on the Planning Inspectors currently undertaking the West Midlands' RSS Examination in Public. This gives the Inspector Panel neither sufficient time nor information to do its job properly and is typical of the DCLG's ham-fisted approach to the eco-towns policy."

ENDS

* Letters referenced are available for download from the related media panel on the right of this page