UK Planning Permission Objections Tracked to Canada and California – Guido Fawkes

Guido Investigation: UK Planning Permission Objections Tracked to Canada and California

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‘Pro-growth’ boomer Keir Starmer has been bigging up Labour’s desire to unleash planning reform – suggesting over the Easter break that AI could be used to free up Britain’s antediluvian planning system. Sounds good, so Guido gave it a try…

One recently defeated application well known to co-conspirators was for a farm expansion in Norfolk, run by agriculture giant Cranswick – an instructive example. Despite Labour’s pro-growth rhetoric, the local Starmerite MP turned up to oppose the development at the crunch council meeting, delivering a snoozefest anti-growth speech…

Critics of the project claimed there were more than 15,000 objections expressed during the planning process. Guido obtained independent analysis from a commercial data analytics firm which reveals where the complaints originated from by analysing the submissions – it shows more than 90% came from outside the local area (more than 10km), with some originating from as far afield outside the UK as Rome, Lisbon, Calgary and California. A network of websites and social media accounts associated with campaigning NGOs (in reality, political live players) flag up planning applications across the UK for individuals to place their objections to in a round-robin way (in this case, a low-profile outfit called the ‘Animal Justice Project’ shared a TikTok video encouraging users to object to the planning application via a link to the council website). Many of those objecting do not appear to have any connection to the local area at all. The system is being gamed…

These tactics seek to make applications go viral and create an online wave of protest against them – with the aim of making opposition seem overwhelming and build political and media pressure against their approval. Starmer will no doubt want to look into the ease with which such democratic processes can be usurped. The gaming of Britain’s planning system is a brewing scandal, and Guido is on the case…