Radlett Aerodrome (Green Belt)
Debate between James Clappison and Nick Boles(11 years, 3 months ago)
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Nick Boles
I do understand, and I profoundly regret that the decision letter has been as unsatisfying to my hon. Friends as it clearly has been. I would never have expected them to be persuaded by its contents, but I might at least have hoped that it would explain why a decision with which they disagreed had nevertheless been reached, and I regret that the letter clearly failed to do that.
Mr Clappison
Does the Minister agree that any reasonable person who looks at the two letters would regard this decision letter as unsatisfactory?
Nick Boles
I am afraid that I will again have to disappoint my hon. Friend. I am not permitted to comment further on the decision letters, either those produced earlier or the current one, but I nevertheless say that I wish such letters had been more satisfying to my hon. Friends, and had at least explained to them why the position seems to have changed in the decision letter about the Secretary of State being minded to allow the proposal.
In the remaining time, I simply say that the planning job is one of the most difficult ones at any level of government. I am not pleading for sympathy; I am simply observing that the job is one in which we have to balance very difficult and important but entirely contradictory or competing demands. Of course, a good planner tries to do whatever they can to resolve those demands, by finding a way as much as possible to meet both of them. However, there are some occasions—when building a new prison, new nuclear power station or, as we are discovering, a new vital high-speed rail infrastructure that will connect our major cities—when decisions unfortunately have to be made that will never be acceptable to local people or win their support, and which will always cause them a level of pain, misery and disappointment that they feel can never be alleviated by any mitigating measures. That is profoundly to be regretted, and is not something that any decision maker, whether a local councillor, an inspector or a Minister, does lightly or with relish.