Town planners reject Cable claims, warn planning is not a "magic bullet"

Town planners have hit back at Business Secretary Vince Cable’s claim last week that “bizarre planning rules” were contributing to the slowdown in construction, house prices and the lack of business expansion.

Cable had also suggested that planning was a barrier to development and social mobility.

But in a letter to The Times today, Richard Summers, President of the Royal Town Planning Institute described the Business Secretary’s comments as “a curious analysis” for a minister “who normally speaks a great deal of sense”.

“As Mr Cable said in a speech on the same day, the main drivers for growth are fiscal and monetary conditions,” Summers suggested. “The slow down in the property market is the main cause of currently limited development activity, not the planning system.”

Summers said: “Planners in the public sector have broad shoulders and accept that they are often a convenient sitting target for ministers."

The RTPI President insisted that Britain’s planners would continue to help the government to shape a planning system that best helps promote economic growth at a very difficult and challenging time.

“Planning is certainly part of the solution,” he said. “But let’s not pretend that it is a magic bullet for the market and introduce yet more uncertainty with additional reform at a time when the government already has a Bill going through Parliament.”