Laura Sandys (South Thanet, Conservative Party Candidate): I am very concerned about a raft of new laws before Parliament which will take away power from local people. Here in East Kent a host of unelected planning quangos will be imposed on us. The upshot could be unsustainable development, overriding local opinion and harming the local environment.
Local control is being eroded year on year by this Government. Now another set of unelected organisations that will further undermine local resident's ability to make decisions for their local area. This comes on top of the planning appeal process that has been suborned to push through more dictates from Whitehall about what we are compelled to build.
Gordon Brown's new quangos include:
- The new unelected Homes & Communities Agency, with powers to seize land, enter private property and act as its own planning authority.
- The new Infrastructure Planning Commission, which will take complete control of planning permissions for large developments like power stations, motorways, sewage plants and hazardous landfill sites: the types of development which rightly concern local people so much.
- Unelected Regional Development Agencies which will adopt all the powers of the unelected Regional Assemblies, but with no local councillor involvement.
Ministers have confirmed in recent answers to Parliamentary Questions that local councils and elected MPs will have absolutely no say on the appointments of any of these quangocrats. This is despite Gordon Brown's pledge last May to stop politics becoming a ‘spectator sport' and build trust in democracy.
