Why our green spaces need us to pass City Plan Part Two

The adoption of Brighton and Hove’s City Plan Part Two will be a massive step forward in protecting our city’s precious green spaces.

Adoption will allow our local policies to have full force when it comes to determining what does and does not get built in our city, rather than having national legislation driving development here.

Among these are policies which will help reduce the risk of flooding, safeguards water quality, require developments to conserve and enhance the city’s green infrastructure, ensure biodiversity net gain in all developments and ensure that the retention and/or planting of trees and opportunities for pollinators and other wildlife are considered early in the design process.

On a broader environmental level, the plan allows for carbon-reduction to be baked in to new developments, as well as providing extra levers to encourage moves towards active travel modes.

Again, this will reduce the city’s carbon emissions and improve air quality – something which is as vital to the wildlife species with which we share the city as it is to ourselves.

This is all in addition to addressing the city’s chronic housing need, supporting the local economy and protecting our heritage assets and our local shopping areas.

There is, though, a cost to all this. Over the years, one government-appointed inspector after another has insisted that, in addition to the massive amount of brownfield sites identified in the plan (amounting to 88 per cent of total identified sites), there need to be a handful of urban fringe sites identified as well.

This is a sad state of affairs but typical of the centralist, top-down policy environment beloved of governments over the past dozen years.

So, in return for protecting 93 per cent of our urban fringe, the Inspectors have insisted on us sacrificing the remaining 7 per cent.

There is no choice here. The latest inspector’s report allowed the removal of one site, in Patcham, but made it absolutely clear that the remaining cites were required in order to make the plan “sound”.

In other words, if we tried to remove any of the remaining urban fringe sites from the plan, the whole plan would collapse, leaving the entirety of our green spaces at risk of development.

It’s worth noting that although these sites have been identified for potential development in the plan, this does mean that it is inevitable that any or all of them will actually be developed.

Developments would still have to be seen as attractive to developers and then deemed suitable by the council’s Planning Department.

There are those who suggest we delay adoption of the plan in the hope that the government will suddenly divert away from its policy trajectory of growth at all costs, allowing a reprieve to the threatened urban fringe sites. Unfortunately, although superficially attractive, this view is delusional.

Delay risks a direct takeover of the plan-making process by the Secretary of State, potentially meaning the imposition of a City Plan over which local people have had no say. The likelihood of this being better for our green spaces is more or less nil.

Without a plan, local policies would not have full weight and, if any property developer chose to put forward an application to build anywhere, we would have to consider it.

Even if we turned it down, they would have the right of appeal and we would have to hope the appeal inspector agreed with our reasons for refusal. It’s what’s called “planning by appeal” and is not a sustainable way of protecting anything.

With the proposed plan in place, if anyone puts in an application to build on any of the 93 per cent of greenfield sites not identified in the plan, we could simply turn them down. No debate, no appeal.

That, above anything else, is why our green spaces need us to be brave. To accept the government inspectors’ demanded sacrifice and to put in place long-lasting powerful protection for them.

Councillor Leo Littman is a Green member of Brighton and Hove City Council and chairs the council’s Planning Committee.