Speaking at the IWM annual conference in Torbay today, Sir John Harman, Environment Agency chairman, said he was pressing for a complete re-write of planning law.
He said: “The real problem at present is that the decisions on the waste strategies and those on the development proposal are taken through completely different processes.”
Sir John accepted that revisions to the Town and Country Planning Regulations 1980 would help the situation but to really tackle the problems a complete review and reshaping is needed.
He said that planning decisions must look towards the community and warned that any attempt to reduce public influence over decision making as this would be counter productive. “Communities should reach their own decisions about waste management and see how they can deal with waste and resources in the local environment.”
Sir John added that facilities designed on a local scale are much more acceptable and said that this was where waste management planning should lie.
Sir John also confirmed that he had already written to Margaret Beckett, the new head of Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), outlining his concerns and said: “There will be a number of environmental issues which need to be addressed clearly now that the environment department is separated from planning as well as from industry and the problem of joined-up government will have to be addressed.”
He added: “Clearly DEFRA will not be able to do it all even though the division has moved over with Michael Meacher.”
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