Declare a devolution revolutionfor parish councils.

When decisions made in the name of the public cease to command the consent of the communities most affected by them, those communities have both a right and a duty to state plainly the principles by which they expect to be governed.

We, the Rural Parishes of England, call upon the Prime Minister to suspend immediately grey-belt assessment of applications affecting villages. The Guildford Borough Green Belt Assessment has shown that the current policy is not fit for rural purpose: it can label land around villages grey or provisionally grey without allowing the land’s role in safeguarding the countryside to determine the result. Unless corrected, that failure poses an existential threat to villages in the countryside—and to the countryside itself.

The future of our villages cannot justly be determined by housing arithmetic alone; local democracy must amount to more than the opportunity to comment; and land which sustains the setting, identity and separation of a village is not “grey” merely because a national formula disregards the land’s role in safeguarding the countryside.

We hold these principles to be self-evident:

• That homes are necessary, but location, design, affordability and infrastructure determine whether development builds a community or overwhelms one.
• That power should be exercised with consent, and the people who live with the permanent consequences of a planning decision must have a meaningful part in making it.
• That villages are not small towns in waiting, and open countryside is not unused land awaiting a developer.
• That a Neighbourhood Plan approved by referendum is a democratic promise given legal force, because it becomes part of the statutory development plan—not advice to be ignored when pressure rises.
• That the test must recognise villages, by including them in the tests for sprawl, merging and historic setting, and making Purpose C decisive because open land beyond a defined settlement boundary safeguards the countryside from encroachment.
• That local power must include the power to decide, allowing a qualifying parish council to call in, approve or refuse an application where it clearly conflicts with its made Neighbourhood Plan.
• That a democratic promise requires a democratic remedy: where a major application materially conflicts with that plan and more than 60% of local votes cast oppose it, the community must have a decisive veto.
• That growth must follow capacity, with transport, schools, healthcare, drainage and community facilities secured before new homes are occupied.

Our case

Successive reforms have promised localism while moving decisive power further from the parish. The language changes—targets, tilted balances, grey belt, strategic need—but the result is familiar: communities are told to absorb decisions they did not make, according to tests that do not describe the places in which they live.

We therefore declare

That the Rural Alliance for Planning Change—and every rural parish council that joins it—are, and ought to be, full democratic partners in planning their own future. We claim no exemption from the law and declare no territorial secession. We declare instead that consultation without decision-making power is not consent—and call for power to be devolved.

We therefore claim the Rural ROAR: the right of a qualifying parish council to call in and decide a local planning application affecting its area where there is a clear conflict with a made Neighbourhood Plan. That power includes the right to approve development supported by the plan and the right to refuse or require change where the plan is broken. The exception is a nationally significant project shown through a statutory process to provide overriding national scale and benefit.

For qualifying proposals outside a defined village settlement boundary that extend built form or materially encroach into open countryside, the parish council must have a statutory veto. Where a qualifying application also conflicts with a made Neighbourhood Plan and more than 60% of valid votes cast reject it, that democratic result must bind the planning authority, inspectors and ministers.

We will work peacefully, lawfully and across party lines. We will assemble evidence, pass public resolutions, record local opinion and act together. We will support the homes our communities need in sustainable places and welcome proposals that deliver our plans. We will oppose the sacrifice of rural communities simply because they are politically easier to overrule.

And for the protection of the living, the inheritance of those who follow, and the integrity of the democratic process, we pledge to one another our voices, our evidence and our resolve. We will be passengers no longer. We will become masters of our own ship.