Call to halt London ‘interference’ in rural planning

Officials from the Yorkshire-based Country Land and Business Association made the plea yesterday at the Great Yorkshire Show.

The organisation’s president, William Worsley, said the planning system remained the biggest object of criticism among the CLA’s 36,000 members amid concerns over the Localism Bill, currently being debated in the House of Lords.

Mr Worsley, a landowner himself from Hovingham, North Yorkshire, said the loss of Yorkshire Forward – which he praised as being the best of the country’s Regional Development Agencies – had meant the brand of Yorkshire was not being recognised as much.

One unintended consequence of the Bill, said Mr Worsley, was that landowners who allow part of their land to be used for community use may be discouraged from doing so in the future by a provision that requires the seller to wait until the local community has raised enough money to buy that facility from them.

“It is something that really worries me. For example, someone who allows their land to be used for kids to play football on, or who allows a building to be used for a local youth club to meet, if they come to sell it on they will not be able to do so until there has been the chance to raise enough money to bid for it.

“This could take months and could discourage people from doing things which will benefit the community – a hugely misguided proposal.”

Mr Worsley added that proposals which tax landowners on empty properties were also detrimental to rural business, saying that it was already difficult enough to let business properties in the countryside owing to the state of the economy.

He estimated the situation was affecting more than 1,000 people in areas such as Hambleton, Craven and Ryedale and called the situation “hugely penal” to rural enterprise.

“It ties in with broadband too,” he said. “If you do not have broadband in a property then frankly it is unlettable. Increasingly the Government is trying to move everything online and it is now a key part of being able to run a business.”

Mr Worsley said the “huge issue” of affordable housing required more attention from Ministers if new generations are going to live and work in the countryside.