Monitoring Puffins on the Farne Islands from National Trust on Vimeo.
By Louise Nousratpour in Britain:
Neill: National Trust a ‘leftie smear group’
Sunday 07 August 2011
Con-dem Minister Bob Neill launched an astonishing attack on some of Britain’s most distinguished green charities today, dismissing their concerns over changes to planning laws as a “smear campaign by left wingers.”
The National Trust and the Council for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) have mobilised a campaign against proposals to water down planning rules which they say will put the Green Belt at risk.
Ministers say the proposals are designed to streamline the rules surrounding new developments, cutting the current 1,300 pages of national planning policy to just 52 and telling councils there will be a “presumption for development” in the new guidelines
But the National Trust warned on Saturday that the changes could lead to “unchecked and damaging development on a scale not seen since the 1930s.”
And the CPRE said that it will “place the countryside under increasing threat and leave local communities and planning authorities largely powerless in the face of developer pressure.”
Mr Neill brushed off the warnings as a “carefully choreographed smear campaign by left wingers based within the national headquarters of pressure groups.”
“This is more about a small number of interest groups trying to justify their own existence, going out of their way by picking a fight with government.”
He was flatly contradicted by shadow local government minister Barbara Keeley, who said she shared concerns that the plans might lead to “inappropriate development” and loss of greenbelt.
She stressed: “MPs have not been given adequate chances to scrutinise these proposals and we are now calling for adequate time for debate on these reforms.”
Update 23 August 2011: here.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 