The Local Government Association (LGA) has launched an unprecedented attack on the Government’s plans for 15 eco towns  for ignoring the views of local people and elected Councils, local development frameworks and good planning practice.

The planning policy row has broken out just as challenging local elections loom for Labour in much of the country, with opposition hardening in many shortlisted sites, and the risk of a wider rift with central government over wider planning policy reforms, such as those on major infrastructural developments, airports and power stations. LGA says that “under the plans for the environmentally-friendly developments, locally agreed planning policies could be bypassed – allowing the government to ride roughshod over councils’ local planning frameworks and build on land previously deemed unsuitable for development”.

It also warns that this approach could result in unsustainable developments with increasing emissions of CO2 from car use. LGA notes that the Government has stressed that while local residents “will get the chance to challenge the plans through a consultation process, councils would be unable to insist that services such as schools, shops, parks and public transport are integrated into the new settlements”.

At the heart of the row are the Government’s plans for a new national planning policy statement on ecotowns which could allow ecotowns to be approved even without a local or regional plan context for them, with the criteria for bypassing local democratically accountable decision-making not clearly stated.

In an open letter to Councils following the ecotowns announcement, LGA chairman Sir Simon Milton points out: “This is in breach of the Central Local Concordat signed by myself and Hazel Blears in December 2007, and clear undertakings a CLG made to a meeting of the Rural Commission on 11 March”. This “recognised the electoral mandate of every councillor in the country”, says the LGA.