Radical plans to stop local people in Northamptonshire having much of a say in local planning decisions are being proposed by the Conservatives. The plans would deny people the chance to raise objections to developments and local councils will also be stripped of their powers to protect local residents from bad developments. The plans will make it easier for developers to ‘build, build, build’ (in the words of Boris Johnson). Under the plans, decisions would be made centrally with only one opportunity for local people to be involved, at the very early stages of the development of the local plan. The Government rather than local people would decide which of three categories our areas would fit into, being growth, regeneration or protected zones. It is unclear how these zones would be designated, but if an area is classified as growth or regeneration then all planning would have permissions in principle making it almost impossible to object to developmentNorthamptonshire is identified within what is called the Oxford – Cambridge arc, an area identified for business and housing growth, so it is likely that many of our areas would fall into the growth category.The Government suggests that the current planning system is a block on its desire to accelerate the building of new homes, but there are already 1 million permissions granted across the UK for new homes that remain unbuilt. Many organisations have expressed grave concerns about this approach, including the Royal Institute of Architects, the Town and Country Planning Association and the Wildlife Trust.The Governments plan will do nothing to speed up the green home agenda or protect wildlife habitats. The last year the Conservative party received over £11 million of donations from property tycoons. It’s clear the real Conservative plan is to put their property friends first and the needs of local people second.Lib Dems in Northamptonshire are campaigning against these proposals and have a petition against the plan, which can be found at www.wnld.org.uk