Coalition is committed to saving environment

From: Bob Neill MP, Minister for Local Government.

THE suggestion by the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England that the Government is undermining South Yorkshire’s countryside is wholly wrong (Yorkshire Post, August 18).

The coalition is committed to protecting our natural and historic environment, including the countryside around Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield. We are safeguarding valued, national protection such as green belt, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and Sites of Special Scientific Interest, as well as ensuring measures which protect wildlife, biodiversity, cultural heritage and which tackle light pollution.

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We are also introducing a new designation to protect local green spaces.

Far from leaving communities powerless, we are putting power into the hands of local people to shape their neighbourhoods and protect their green spaces, which I believe will be welcomed across Yorkshire. We are also abolishing the last Government’s Regional Spatial Strategies, which sought to impose top-down housing targets on local people, leading to unsustainable development. The Yorkshire and Humber Plan is being scrapped, lifting this threat to Yorkshire’s and Humber’s green spaces. This is not to say that the planning system cannot be improved. England’s national planning policy is now over 1,000 pages long; the sheer complexity of these rules makes them inaccessible for both local firms and local residents, and is why we are consulting on plans to reform and simplify the system. The planning regime should not be the sole preserve of lawyers, pressure groups and town hall officials.

But let me be clear, the Government attaches great importance to green belts, safeguarding the countryside from encroachment and checking urban sprawl.