Around 18 months ago, Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised “radical [planning] reform unlike anything we have seen since the Second World War”. But Housing secretary Michael Gove is now thought to be ready to scrap the most radical proposals from the 2020 planning white paper.
At a meeting of MPs he said that he has decided not to proceed with a major separate piece of planning legislation to put the reforms into law, saying there is no standalone planning bill.
The government’s change of mind would see the idea of “growth areas”, in which planning approval is granted automatically, scrapped. In the white paper, growth areas are described as “areas suitable for substantial development, and where outline approval for development would be automatically secured for forms and types of development specified in the [local plan].”
In the view of the head of planning and development at Carter Jonas, Colin Brown, “If it is now the case that there will not be a new Planning Bill, then I think this is a very retrograde step by government. The indication that the Planning Bill will now be subsumed into levelling up legislation seems to reflect a determination to appeal to the electorate in areas opposed to new development, while helping to shore up support in the process.”
It is hoped that any planning system changes under review will be announced as soon as possible.
LSL News.