New blow for government plans

ONE of the architects of the Government’s controversial new planning rules has turned his back on the policy, claiming it has been wrecked by ministers.

Simon Marsh, the acting head of sustainable development at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, today disowns the policy he helped devise, saying it is now balanced too much in favour of development. He complains that his original proposals were warped and changed by those in the Government “who don’t place a high value on the environment”.

The result, he says in an article in The Daily Telegraph, is that the draft National Planning Policy Framework “puts the economy first” and “marks a profound shift in emphasis for planning policy”.

Read the full article here.