‘West Norfolk residents must see benefits of infrastructure projects and development and have a say’

In his weekly column, MP James Wild discusses the Government’s ambitious building targets…

While the government throws local government structures up in the air, it is also proceeding with major planning reforms. The Prime Minister has adopted a mantra of “build, baby, build” and new legislation introduced this week is designed to make that a reality so it deserves proper scrutiny.

It is undoubtedly the case the government has made promises it will be judged against, including building 1.5 million new homes in this Parliament. This is ambitious and the risk is that local areas will have housing targets imposed on them. Under Labour’s plans, the borough council’s target has almost doubled although as it is to be abolished it is not clear what that means now in practice.

One thing is certain – new homes (and development) need new infrastructure. That’s why it was particularly concerning to see the roads minister come to Norfolk to promote a scheme in Norwich and at the same time cast doubt on funding for the A10 West Winch Housing Access Road. I’ve written to the minister to point out this scheme has long been in the local plan but to deliver the volume of homes requires the road. Local people will not stand for anything else.

Then there is energy infrastructure and Labour’s target to decarbonise the power grid by 2030. That is a target that will drive up costs and see productive farmland covered in solar farms, pylons springing across our rural areas and new substations out of scale with their location.

Under these plans, the energy secretary is proposing that if you live within 500 metres of new pylons you could get up to £250 off electricity bills a year. The last Conservative government proposed that amount should be £1,000. There are also plans for new community funds for areas that host infrastructure to get £200,0000 worth of funding per km of overhead electricity cable or £530,000 per substation for projects including sports clubs, education programmes or leisure facilities.

It was because of the scale of development the last government changed planning guidance to take account of the cumulative impact of solar projects rather than seeing them in isolation. And we committed to reviewing the position on underground cabling rather than pylons. Regrettably, the government has dropped these as they see them as “blocking” their energy plans, rather than giving local people’s views due weight.

People will have different views about financial benefits but if infrastructure is going to be imposed by this government, then I’m clear local communities must have commensurate benefit.

We all want a simpler, faster planning system and there are plenty of improvements that can be made so it supports development and investment, operates more rapidly, has tougher enforcement for breaches of planning permission and laws and sets out clear plans.

We’ve seen Natural England’s objections block the Norwich Western link and a ten-year study into rare snails hold up A47 improvements which cannot be right. Despite the rhetoric, Labour’s planning reforms fail to repeal EU rules that would speed up infrastructure projects to be developed in the right place.

Local people must see the benefits of having infrastructure projects and development in their area and have a say if these changes are to succeed.