Housing Minister Grant Schapps has this morning announced a new approach to planning which he says will allow “local people and communities across England to decide where to create new homes, shops business and facilities where they want them and where they are needed.”

The intention is that if a community agrees that it wants to expand or create new facilities, and can secure proof of agreement via a referendum, then it can simply get on with it, without the need for planning consent.

This is certainly a living embodiment of the Big Society idea and is a very big shift from the system we have been used to for the last several decades.

In recent years the ability to expand many villages has been severely restricted, if not removed, by local planning policies. Local policy has applied tight village “envelopes” to prevent growth into neighbouring countryside and has identified the vast majority of small villages (below 3000 population) as unsuitable places for the development of new homes due to a lack of services (post offices, schools, shops etc) and public transport.

The only way to secure consent to build new houses has been to prove the need for an “exception” to policy in order to meet local housing need. To secure such an exception it has been necessary to prove local need beyond doubt (through surveys) and then to secure support from within both the local planning authority and sufficient of the “host” community to get a planning application approved.

Many applications for “exception” sites have failed due to local opposition. Those that have succeeded have often done so in the face of some local opposition and have often required the support of the local planning committee to get them through.

In some ways therefore the approach is little different from what we have now. Theoretically at least, if you can demonstrate housing need from people with a valid connection with the host settlement you can get a planning consent – pretty much everywhere but the Green Belt.

In some places this approach has been successful; South Shropshire has had a very positive approach to development of affordable housing on exception sites for many years and has enabled several self-builders to provide for their own housing needs. This feels like the “Big Society” operating at a very small and local level.

Of course we don’t know quite how the Right to Build is going to work – and critically we don’t know what level of support is going to be required from a community. We also don’t know yet what question the referendum will pose. The current approach is focused on meeting local housing need – can you prove that it exists and if so, can you show that the development proposed will meet it whilst taking account of all other material planning considerations?

This may well not be question set by Right to Build referenda – rather it would seem that these may focus on the question of whether the community wants / supports the proposed development or not. Depending on the height the bar is set this may actually make it easier for opponents of development to block it than the current system.

The question posed in the referendum will be critical. There is a very significant difference between asking people “do you agree to the building of 15 new houses and extending the village hall car park?” or asking them “do you agree that the scheme proposed will make our village a better place to live in the future, support our local services and offer more people a chance to be part of the community?”

So far of course we don’t know what the Coalition’s plans are on this score – the devil will be in the detail.

Back to the over-arching approach; what do we think? The principle of empowering local people to build a better community must be a GOOD THING. We have seen many excellent Parish and Community Led Plans which have robustly evidenced the need for growth, demonstrated the communities support for growth, only to come to nothing as a result of the application of local planning policy.

I would caution however that we need to be slightly wary of the application of a sound principle in a way that doesn’t fully take account of the wider context. It is true that the provision of a small number of new houses is likely to extend the range of stock in a small settlement and provide opportunities for different people to become part of the community. It may well meet the housing needs of people that can make a significant contribution to the community. If these people use the local school, drink in a local pub and shop in a local shop then they will help to sustain local services and improve the vitality of the village.

This positive contribution is however dependent on the behaviour of the occupiers of the new houses. Just as to date it has been dependent on the behaviour and choices of the current occupiers. The truth is that many residents of small villages (especially those with good connections to towns and cities) do not behave in this way. They work elsewhere, shop elsewhere and access services in a way that best suits their daily lives.

It does not necessarily follow therefore that the provision of new housing will improve the sustainability of the host community – at least not just by itself. Certainly if revenue generated by development can be re-invested into new and improved facilities within the community this will add to sustainability. If people who currently work in the community are enabled to live there at a cost they can afford, then this will add to sustainability. If the numbers of children living in the village who go to the local school increases as a result of development of new housing then this will add to sustainability. If the residents of the new housing set up businesses and buy goods and services from the local economy then this will add to sustainability.

But, if the occupants of new housing commute out to work, take their children to other schools, fail to patronise the pub or local shop and play no part in local community activity their addition to the community will not be likely to improve its sustainability.

This might be acceptable to local people if the shared objectives of their wider community (e.g. Council territory) are to host an increased population or to drive growth in a nearby centre (which these people do use). It may be less acceptable if the objective of the development was to improve quality of life in the host settlement and this has not been achieved.

The way that the Right to Build is applied will therefore have a significant influence on the value of the outcomes that it produces.

In an ideal world communities would work collaboratively with their local planning authority in order to ensure that every opportunity to secure new development, and to use this growth to improve quality of life and future sustainability, is taken. The best and most lasting outcomes are likely to be achieved through a positive approach, carried out in partnership with neighbours and planners, rather than in isolation.

It will be fascinating to see what shape the Right to Build takes as the detail of the bill emerges. Only then will we know if this bold scheme has the potential to deliver the Big Society, or if it is more likely to appeal to “Little Englanders”.