Mal Phillips Politics Show South

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Do planning inquiries change anything? Big new schemes raise big old questions.

Stonehenge - Public Inquiry in progress

If the need is established for some important new project, perhaps a power station, a new port or airport, or a big road improvement, how do we meet that need quickly and cheaply while making the process as open and fair as possible?

The government is trying to set new ground rules for planning.

For instance, they want to see the much of the decision about big infrastructure schemes being based on guidance they can pass down from above.

That way, it is suggested, Public Inquiries won't become long rambling affairs.

They would like to see a bigger role for the regional planning authorities.

Democracy threatened

But critics say this could lead to a less democratic system. Future Public Inquiries might not be able to tease out some of the flaws in a scheme.

They may no longer be a forum in which basic questions about the need for a development are raised.

And there are a lot of Public Inquiries around. One is happening at the moment to consider the A303 road scheme past Stonehenge.

Another opens this summer into the A3 development at Hindhead.

This week, Politics Show South debates the implications of the bill currently going through Parliament.

We are based in the New Forest, close to Dibden Bay, the focus of a recent Public Inquiry for a big new container port.

The outcome of that Inquiry is expected within months.

Bypass protest revisited

Newbury bypass protestors at the Binsted Wood camp

And we also look back at a celebrated Public Inquiry from the past; one which eventually led to the construction of the Newbury bypass, amid bitter protests.

Politics Show South returns to the scene with one supporter of the project, and one of those who fought against the road.

Gordon Rollinson, who wanted the bypass, complains that Newbury suffered 16 years of gridlock from the time of the original public consultation, to the opening of the new road.

Paul Kingsnorth, now an author on the environment and the effects of globalisation, argues the only chance to take part in local democracy was to lie down in front of the bulldozers.

Both raise questions about the existing system.

Politics Show South has a few questions of its own;

• How good would the future planning guidance be. Would it be up to date and well briefed, and how could we influence it?
• Is the current system as fair and democratic as some would claim? If it is that inclusive, why where there major protests at Newbury when the development went ahead, and more recently, protests at Twyford Down near Winchester?
• Where would we be able to protest about planning proposals in future? Do we have to take our placards to Westminster or some future regional assembly?
• And after all, is it only those on the winning side who believe the Public Inquiry they were involved in really achieved anything?

Let us know what you think. That is the Politics Show Sunday 21 March at Midday.

You can have your say by contacting us using the form below.

And don't forget to watch the Politics Show, with presenter Peter Henley, on BBC One on Sundays at Noon.

click here to view the Politics Show South

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