On Monday, a group of residents in north London secured a major victory: The “Nocado” campaign ended its years-long battle with grocery delivery business Ocado, who wanted to open a distribution centre next to a primary school in Tufnell Park. The group argued the warehouse was inappropriate for the area and warned on the air quality impact on schoolchildren from diesel vans whizzing around near the playground.
The campaign attracted the support of local MP, Jeremy Corbyn, as well as the planning authority, who ruled in their favour — and Ocado conceded it must find somewhere else to go.
I don’t wish to rehearse Nocado’s (or Ocado’s) arguments — but I struggle to see what was so bad about the plans. The distribution centre would have been in a pre-existing industrial park full of warehouses, next to a railway line and a Royal Mail depot — it would not have looked wildly out of place.
And the air quality defence seems a red herring given the impending ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars — and Ocado’s pledge to use electric vehicles. But I am not a homeowner or indeed a parent, so who am I to judge?
This was a people-powered campaign the likes of which many will have seen in their part of the country over the past decade. Big Company wants major new development; local residents don’t want it near them; they form an action group, get the local MP involved and with a bit of luck, Big Company moves on.
It is a tried-and-tested formula that now looks set to come under pressure. The new Labour government has signalled it will be making big changes to how planning works in this country. Local authorities will no longer have the last word on approving important developments. National government will now have a much bigger say.
Of course, in many cases it has already been within Whitehall’s purview to overrule a local planning decision — but for the most part the previous administration has demurred. But Levelling Up Secretary Angela Rayner already seems keen to assert herself. Last week she unveiled a review into two proposals to build data centres in London’s commuter belt which had been blocked by local authorities, while energy secretary Ed Miliband has given the green light to a long-delayed £600 million solar farm development — one of three new solar projects now approved.
These all seem pretty encouraging. With the Government hamstrung by high national debt and pretty tight fiscal constraints, commandeering planning decisions to wave through more developments is the closest thing to a silver bullet it has to get the economy growing again. Prospective investors will be looking at these moves and thinking “Hmm, perhaps the UK is the right place to build my new factory” rather than looking askance at armies of locals with pitchforks.
Sorry to the Nimbys and the Nocados out there, but it’s time we focused on our future growth — we owe it to today’s schoolchildren.
