Roger Williams
Main Page: Roger Williams (Liberal Democrat - Brecon and Radnorshire)National Parks (Planning Policy)
Roger Williams Excerpts(11 years, 3 months ago)
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Simon Hart
I am grateful for that intervention. We can look at it in two ways. First, the inward investment linked to national parks is hugely valuable in of our adjoining constituencies, but—this is my penultimate point—at the moment there is no provision in the planning application system for officers to consider social and economic factors. Ultimately, landscape and ecological factors always take precedence, which is a problem.
Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way again. He raises the important issue of accountability. All planning authorities have a difficult job to do. National parks do not benefit from having a democratic process. Does he agree that direct elections to national park authorities would help a great deal and have proved to be exceptionally successful in Scotland?
Simon Hart
My hon. Friend second-guesses one of my recommendations. Although elected councillors sit on national park planning authorities, I think members of the public feel that those authorities are still somewhat out of the reach of the normal democratic grasp. That might be an ill-founded belief, but I think that national parks are a law unto themselves and there is no way for people to penetrate the system.