Emma Lewell MP:
Constituents contact me weekly about planning issues. Some MPs refuse to deal with planning casework, as they see it as purely a councillor and local council matter. I do not share that view and never have.
It is important to me, as your representative, that I can use my right to ‘call in’ your planning concerns – meaning my asking for an application to be put before the council’s planning committee, in public, and put to a formal vote.
Not only does this ensure public transparency and open scrutiny on the application, including the views of local police, fire services and other relevant agencies, it also means that residents have a right to request to speak and that local councillors are accountable for their vote on an application.
I have never been comfortable with unelected council officers, no matter how professional and experienced they may be in their roles, making decisions about communities that they may not live in, or on applications that have no impact on their own lives. Neither is it fair for individual council officers – who are apolitical in their roles – to become targets for community anger and frustration when developments that the community objects to are being passed through on delegation.
This week, the Government asked us to approve a small legislative change that would give more power to council planning officers over such decisions than the public, councillors or MPs.
I, along with a handful of other MPs, refused to vote for this change.
Silencing communities never ends well. The change applies to small and large developments. It could mean that landfills, incinerators and data centres are signed off and progressed without any say from the public. Constituents will be bystanders as they watch greedy developers lay waste to what little green and community spaces we have left.
It is undemocratic. It makes way for allegations of corruption. It will damage community cohesion and the already fragile trust the public has in our institutions.
I want to assure you that I will not be silenced, nor will I allow you to be, this is our home and environment.