Sustainability is about people as well as land - bishop

The Bishop of Hereford has welcomed the changes to planning announced by the Government this week.

Bishop Anthony Priddis said the current laws were "just not delivering the goods at the local level".

The revised national planning policy reduced a 1,300-page document down to just 50 pages.

The Government insisted that the countryside would be protected, although the new document encourages sustainable development.

Planning Minister Greg Clark said that the previous policy had left "communities seeing planning as something done to them, rather than by them".

Bishop Priddis, who oversees the most rural diocese in England, said that although a need for houses was one reason for easing up the planning laws, he felt that self-employed people working in rural areas should be able to expand and develop buildings around them "more easily".

He said that such a change could lead to the creation of jobs.

“I think that local people are the best to decide. They know where the houses should be built in their village and what effect that might have on other services," he said.

The bishop said there was a need to strike a balance between local, regional and national interests in order to protect the rural landscape from "ruin".

“In rural areas, we who live here want and need homes for our children and their children,” he said. “We want and need homes they can afford. Sustainability is about people as well as the land.”

Bishop Priddis said that the Government did not always acknowledge that local people want the best for where they live.

He said: “I think local people in our villages are more adept than others think about what is needed and their judgement will protect the countryside.”