Robert Halfon
Main Page: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)My hon. Friend makes a good point. One of the themes of the national planning policy framework is that evidence should support plans and decisions. Evidence that has been captured over time should be available to all the authorities that shared the old regional boundaries, and they will want to keep it updated so that they can benefit from it in making their plans and decisions.
Under the last Government, villages around Harlow—in particular, Nazeing and Roydon—were forced to carry an unshared burden of having Traveller sites. Will the Minister confirm that the new proposals will stop that, making things fair for everyone across the county of Essex? Will he also confirm that local people will have a genuine say over planning decisions and set out how that will work in practice?
The targets will be removed. My hon. Friend’s council would need to assess what provision it needed to make locally, and that will then be a matter for the council.