Referendums ‘will tear villages apart’
By politics.co.uk staff
Village communities will be torn apart by referendums on local planning decisions, campaigners have said.
The Rural Commission is objecting to plans for the coalition government to allow local votes on new housing schemes in rural areas where many young people struggle to be able to afford their own home.
The scheme would require 90% support among local people, but the Commission, which includes the Local Government Association and the Campaign To Protect Rural England, said it would bring conflict to village communities and become an obstacle to house-building.
Elected parish councils should initiate developments instead, the group said.
The 90% threshold was set high so that the government could defend itself the claim that it was treading roughshod over attempts to preserve local villages.
“On its current course, with no change in policy and no commitment to action, much of the countryside is becoming part dormitory, part theme park and part retirement home,” said Lib Dem peer Lord Taylor, who chairs the Rural Coalition.
“For 50 years or more, policy has undervalued the countryside and failed to meet the needs of rural communities.”
Young families are often forced out of the communities where they were born due to high house prices, leading to radically altered characters in local communities outside of Britain’s major cities.
Campaigners want innovative low-cost housing projects to be facilitated and increased funding from Whitehall.
