Grant Shapps's Cunning Plan

Grant Shapps has come up with a scheme to kill two birds with one stone.  Ostensibly designed to provide rural housing for the young, it is a sop to the housebuilding lobby, whilst placating the NIMBYs by giving them, not the local authority, control over what is built where and, also, presumably, that all-important aesthetic control that, bizarrely, comes under "planning".  It also gives all those retired folk, who form the majority of the population of most of the country's villages , something to get their teeth into.

The problem with the current planning system is that those who reap the benefits, in form of the huge financial gains to be made by changing the use of a piece of land from agricultural to building, are the developers, who are not those who suffer the disbenefits, in the form of more traffic, reduced amenity value, increased pressure on local services etc etc.  So it is hardly surprising that the attitude of the inhabitants of the locality of an development tend to be against it from the start; there is nothing in it for them.  Under the cunning plan, the locals will be the developers and the planning authority rolled into one, giving them back both the control and the financial benefit that the current system denies them.  It will have to be seen how far this melts hard NIMBY hearts.  I forsee battle royal being joined in village halls up and down the land.

Meanwhile the Cornish are not happy, with worries about second-home owners putting the kibosh on any building. As far as I can see, the answer is simple - you only get to vote in the referendum if your primary residence is in the village concerned.