The twitter from the birds is lost @ No 10

I came back from a trot around the rose garden to see a copy of The Daily Telegraph lying on the floor. It seemed to have been scrunched up and - I swear - there were teeth marks on one of the pages.

Curious, I pried open the page which had suffered the greatest mutilation. It was an article called:

Hands off our land: This isn't the planning policy that I drew up

I had noticed some junior staff from the office of the planning minister - 'Mr Disgusted' Greg Clark - looking grim, as they walked down the corridor. Now, I knew why!

The coterie of ministers who gathered around 'Bagpuss' Pickles had been feeling very pleased with themselves. Localism was the IN word! Localism seemed the word to assure everyone that Local Opinion rules Okay! It wouldn't frighten the horses.

So - little by little - and subtle to a high degree - the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) was drawn up. Of course, there had to be an assurance to the wider world that the group who had advised Greg Clark on the new policy had impeccable environmental credentials! Who better to invite then, than a representative from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). This has two major attractions :
(1) It has the word 'Royal' a great imprimatur, you will admit.
(2) It has the word 'Birds' and everyone loves the little tweety things, don't they?

So - 'Mr Disgusted' Clark felt he had achieved a great coup here. If the man from the RSPB said it was 'Okay' - then okay it surely was.

The trouble came later - the man selected to represent the RSPB was Simon Marsh, acting head of sustainable development at the RSPB. He had attended the meetings with three other experts who made up the panel to help draw up the new planning policy. They argued, they debated, they drafted documents. They came up with - what Mr Marsh described as :

a succinct, but flawed document

In yesterday's 'Daily Telegraph', Simon Marsh wrote the rather despairing article that I had seen scrunched up on the floor: Hands off our land: This isn't the planning policy that I drew up. In this, he says that the new policy is now balanced too much in favour of development. He is concerned that there are those in government “who don’t place a high value on the environment”.

He goes on to say:

But the big argument isn’t really over the environmental policies. It’s over the “presumption in favour of sustainable development” and the overall tone of the document, which puts the economy first. This marks a profound shift in emphasis for planning policy.

This was arrived at - after the 'flawed document' was amended and re-drafted by

other departments across government, including those who don’t place a high value on either the environment or the planning system.

To be fair - Mr Marsh writes that there are some welcome points in the new document - but overall - he considers the impact on the environment is a secondary consideration as against the 'the presumption in favour of sustainable development'.

(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/hands-off-our-land/8765316/Hands-off-our-land-This-isnt-the-planning-policy-that-I-drew-up.html

As I poured over the paper, I thought how unfortunate it was that Simon Marsh's time, energy and intelligence had been so misrepresented. But then, as with so many other areas of policy - once money enters into the argument - goodwill goes out the window!

As a truly disillusioned cat, I curled up on the paper and dozed!

'Bye'