Governments on the slide always start flailing about. Instead of regrouping in order to advance in better formation, they feel they must DO things – almost irrespective of what those things are. This is the only explanation of John Healy’s refusal to re-think the Planning Bill.
There’s an all-party consensus that major infrastructure projects should be decided by Governments in Parliament. The safety and need for nuclear power stations ought not to be subject to argument every time a particular proposal is put forward. However, every project has a particular site and impinges upon a particular community. It is absolutely necessary that those local issues should be aired in a way that local people think is fair, reasonable, and liable to influence decisions.
A judge, listening to people from the community and advising elected Ministers openly and independently, won’t satisfy everyone but it is seen as fair. A quango ‘consulting’ and deciding behind closed doors will satisfy no-one. Why the Government sticks to its unnecessary, expensive, and time consuming proposal when no-one supports it, is a mystery. We need to strangle the quango before it is born and have a local inquiry that will deal only with local issues. That will cut the time involved by 90% which is what the Government wants. Let’s hope Mr Healy sees sense this week and the Planning Bill could then gain all-party support. In the meantime he has taken it off the parliamentary timetable because he knows that, in its present form, he won’t get it through.
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