Fears Localism Bill will affect landowners’ rights

The proposed Localism Bill will have profound effects on the way planning decisions are arrived at in future, according to landowners.

The Bill, scheduled to become law later this year, could affect when owners are able to sell properties – and also who buys them.

In his annual report, John Willis, chairman of the Cornwall branch of the Country Land and Business Association (CLA), warns the whole localism agenda will make it critically important for people to become involved in the process of government at every level.

There were some aspects of the Bill that were to be warmly welcomed, he said – but in other respects he had real reservations.

“We shall be monitoring developments very closely – but the message to our members is that if they want to safeguard future growth and development in rural Cornwall, they should be prepared to get involved,” he said.

Today, Mr Willis, from Croan, near Wadebridge, will tell the 1,000-strong CLA Cornwall branch AGM at Boconnoc that one of the clear concerns for landowners within the Localism Bill was the proposal on “community assets”.

He said: “This is a real threat to the interests of landowners, because it means that if an area of land, or a building, is deemed to be of value to the community it will be put on a list and may not be disposed of until the community has had sufficient time to raise the funds to bid for it.

“This means that the owner may lose the opportunity to sell his property at a time of his choosing and, potentially, to the person of his choosing.

“This would create a wholly unreasonable interference with an individual’s property rights and we are fundamentally opposed to it.”

The past year had, he said, seen a period of “frenetic legislative activity” by both the outgoing Labour administration and the new Coalition Government.

There were positive aspects to the new Government’s agenda – such as the welcome commitment to tackle the problem of bovine TB – but there was also disappointment at the response to plans for field-scale photo-voltaic projects

“Closer to home, proposed changes to the taxation of holiday letting businesses resulted in a successful lobbying campaign and a full and well-argued submission to the Office of Tax Simplification,” he added.

Mr Willis said that forestry topics had attracted attention over the past year, some of it unwelcome, with the dramatic spread of the disease phytophthera ramorum through larch. But he praised the response both of the Forestry Commission and of woodland owners.

A much more welcome development had, he said, been the initiative of the Red Squirrel Trust in promoting moves to reintroduce the native red squirrel to Cornwall.

“Let us hope that the selected pilot areas will prove successful,” he said.