If you happen to be driving through the open countryside and happen to see a couple of characters with a remarkable likeness to Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith, do not be alarmed.
They are not the Men in Black ‘protecting the earth from the scum of the universe’ as the movie blurb said.
No. They are The Enablers sent by their cigar-chomping leader, Thérèse Coffey the Environment Secretary, ‘to boost the supply of affordable housing in rural areas.’
And they are well armed with £2.5 million from Defra (aka me and you). Their mission (cue Mission Impossible music) ‘to act as honest brokers between developers and communities.’
So this means that the people already doing this – land agents and promoters, house builders, etc – are somehow dishonest. (OK, no need to answer that). The Enablers (cue music from The Avengers) will help to identify sites with local support for development and in keeping with the local area.
According to Thérèse, ‘this will boost the supply of new, affordable housing by identifying development opportunities, supporting site owners and community representatives to navigate the planning system and securing the support of local communities for developments.’
In my naivety, and I’m just off the boat as you know, I thought an enabler was a person who ‘enables another to persist in self-destructive behaviour (such as substance abuse) by providing excuses or by making it possible to avoid the consequences of such behaviour.’ (Dictionary definition).
No wonder Tommy Lee and Will are out in the countryside trying to rid it of this ‘scum of the universe’.
In the Defra document Unleashing Rural Opportunity, there is absolutely no inkling of who these Enablers might be, what qualifications they might have, where they would come from, or how they would interact with the current planning system.
Beam me up Scotty.
Have a good weekend.
Tom
by the Planning PR guru 