Gideon Amos

I accept that further assessment is needed before the policy is finalised, but the experience in Canada shows that the distance is appropriate for reducing noise. At the moment, no buffer zone at all is set as standard, as I have pointed out. I am sure the hon. Gentleman would not be the quarrier I described quarrying up to someone’s front door, but a buffer zone of some sort is needed. Clear and understood safeguards, such as a buffer zone, or something similar to the 21-metre back-to-back standard for houses, give people more confidence in the planning system and enable them successfully to live side by side with development, but under the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, the Secretary of State will remove decisions from local councillors and the people who elect them. A new direction will force councillors to report to the Secretary of State and get his permission before they can refuse anything more than 150 homes, and we are told that there is more centralisation, and more community and nature bashing, to come this week in forthcoming announcements on the planning system. We need quarries and we need development, but unless the Government change direction, we will have forgotten the most important lesson: that we develop for our environment and for people, not in opposition to them. In a world where a staggering 73% of global wildlife has been lost in the last 50 years, we need to save the remnants of nature for everyone’s sake, and we need people’s voices, and the safeguards they desire, to be heard in the process.