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Local MP votes to block Developers’ Charter and protect Portsmouth residents’ right to be heard in planning decisions

By 21 June 2021No Comments

Stephen Morgan MP has voted in the House of Commons to block the hated Developers’ Charter, a Government plan to hand control over planning decisions to developers and gag communities from speaking out against inappropriate developments in their area.

In an Opposition Day Debate on Monday, the Official Opposition called a vote to protect local people’s right to object to individual planning applications, after the Government announced plans to rip up the planning system in the Queen’s Speech.

The Government’s proposed reforms of the planning system will remove powers from elected local representatives and hand them to Whitehall-appointed boards of developers while doing nothing to solve the growing affordable housing crisis.

Boards will oversee a new zonal system that allows developers to build at will in areas designated for growth.

Communities will be consulted only in the development of five-yearly local plans and will be stopped from intervening in individual planning applications.

Conservative Ministers have claimed that the reforms are needed to speed up housebuilding, even though over one million planning permissions have not been built out in the last decade.

Conservative MPs have repeatedly signalled their opposition to the reforms, expressing fears about the party’s cosy relationship with developers.

The Conservative Party received £11 million in donations from developers in Boris Johnson’s first year as Prime Minister and £891,000 from developers in the first three months of 2021 alone.

The latest action in the House of Commons by the Portsmouth MP follows his efforts to lobby Government over the city’s unsustainable housing targets set by Whitehall, and Mr Morgan’s success in securing a meeting with the Housing Minister to discuss planning and housing concerns.

The Member of Parliament for Portsmouth South, Stephen Morgan, said:

“By refusing to vote with Labour, the Conservatives have shown Portsmouth and other communities whose side they’re on: wealthy developers that increasingly bankroll their party.

“Under the Developers’ Charter, Mr Johnson’s wealthy developer chums will be set loose to bulldoze and concrete over local neighbourhoods at will. Local residents will be gagged from objecting even if an oversized development threatens to blight their own street.

“Labour believes that good development can only happen when developers and communities work together, but the Developers Charter hands control to developers in what looks like payback for their massive increase in donations to the Conservative Party.”