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A housing minister has claimed controversial new planning reforms will allow local people to have a greater say "up front" about what their communities look like.
The remarks were made by Housing Minister Christopher Pincher during a visit to Ebbsfleet Garden City to check on construction progress.
Housing Minister Christopher Pincher discusses planning reforms during visit to Ebbsfleet
So far more than £150million has been pumped into the government flagship development with 2,300 homes built on the former quarry site nestled between Dartford and Gravesend.
Yesterday Mr Pincher met with Simon Dudley, the new chair of Ebbsfleet Development Corporation, the body tasked with delivering the project, and its chief executive Ian Piper to view the latest new homes erected.
Mr Pincher said: "Ebbsfleet Garden City is the government's flagship Garden Community programme, building really good quality homes with infrastructure to support it so the local people and people from the edge of London can have a really good place to live.
"Reclaimed from this former brownfield site we are building these great new homes with the schools and community centres to match."
First announced by former Chancellor George Osborne as part of his budget in 2014, the development aims to deliver up to 15,000 homes in the Thames Estuary by 2030.
Asked whether current housing targets are unrealistic, Mr Pincher replied: "We need to build new homes here because there are so many people who can't get on the property ladder to buy or to rent.
"In certain parts of Kent and the South East property prices are multiples of the average local earnings.
"So we have got to be sure we are building the right homes, in the right places, on brownfield sites first like this one to ensure we have got the homes that people need."
He added: "That's one of the reasons why we have made changes to our permitted development site rules that means we can more gently densify urban spaces where there is redundant commercial property and turn them into residential accommodation."
This strategy would allow them to avoid "trespassing" on the precious green spaces people want to protect, he claimed.
His comments come amid controversial new planning reforms announced in the Queen's Speech earlier this month.
The government's eagerly-awaited Planning Bill aims to introduce so-called "zone planning" to make the current system more simpler and speed up the rate of housing developments.
But residents in parts of Kent, where mass housebuilding is earmarked, have raised concerns over plans and threat to the green belt.
It led Tory MP for North Thanet and fellow Conservative Sir Roger Gale to plead with the Prime Minister to review his strategy, amid claims of "ghettos" of new housing being built across the county.
On the changes afoot Mr Pincher said: "The problem with the planning system right now is it is really very slow.
"It can take seven years for a plan to be developed it can take five years for individual planning applications to go through often at times with a great deal of local concern. And yet nine times in every ten those planning applications get approved .
The housing minister said the government wanted to build a system which allowed people to have their say "up front".
"What we want to do is build a system where many more people get involved in planning and place making," he said.
"If we can create a digitised system, map based where people see what's proposed for their entire community. What that property will look like, the sizes and shapes of it, the split between commercial and residential.
"Many more people can have a say right up front about what their community is going to look like and it means the planning system will become less adversarial and far more consensual, as well as speedy because everyone will have a say."
The housing minister went on to add it would remain the responsibility of local authorities, as the "bedrocks" of local planning, to work within constraints and firm up local plans to protect communities from "speculative development".
But local Ebbsfleet councillor Sacha Gosine feels let down by the planning process and labelled the Housing Minister's visit "tone deaf" amid existing problems for residents at Ebbsfleet.
"If you want to know what is going on in the areas why don't you talk to the local residents," he said.
The shadow leader of Dartford council believes developers already have too much say over local decisions.
Cllr Gosine said: "The council has a planning committee for a reason and that's because they are here to scrutinise and look at the issues going on, ask questions and have an input into the planning.
"With it being internal as it is here with Ebbsfleet Development Corporation (EDC) all these houses are being built by planning done internally from there.
"There has not been any say from members of the council which I think would have been helpful."
He went on to claim key infrastructure had not be built as promised and had left many residents over-reliant on cars amid surging rail fares and problems over parking and buses.
"We need to have local people, local members having an input into what is actually going on," he added.
"By planning it and having their own internal committee it is not being inclusive to the residents of Dartford and Ebbsfleet."
