Town Council response to the Government Consultation on proposed changes to the Planning System
Positive proposals that we support:
- The additional support and facilitation for small self-build and community housing developments.
- The additional measures to increase carbon neutral and other more environmentally sustainable measures within proposed developments.
Negative measures that we need to see changed or removed:
- The reduction of the ability of local authorities and local people to influence planning policy and applications within their area of responsibility.
- The proposed significant increase in central government’s role, amounting to their dictating housing targets remotely and the reduction of any meaningful local balance appropriate to regions and local council areas. This will make these decisions and the entire process even more remote from local people, which is undemocratic and retrograde.
Additional measures we would like to see within any reform:
- Streamline the process for developing and approving Local Plans by local councils as Planning Authorities. This would enable them to be more flexible in responding to local needs and factors. The current process is overly bureaucratic and forms a barrier to local councils who are keen to be more agile and responsive to planning needs and changing circumstances.
- Provide local councils with additional powers to make developers build on the land they already hold and to implement the approved developments within a stricter timeline to reduce land hoarding and increase actual houses built.
Details of this consultation can be found here: Please note that this consultation has now closed.