Govt invites views on planning committee proposals

The government has published a working paper on its proposals to allow planning officers to bypass council committees to approve schemes, as part of its aim to modernise planning committees.

Following deputy prime minister and housing secretary Angela Rayner’s announcements in the media over the weekend, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) is inviting views on a “national scheme of delegation” to which it said it had committed to introducing to “support better decision making in the planning system”.

Neil Jefferson, ceo of the Home Builders Federation (HBF), said improving the efficiency of the planning process was “essential” to accelerate housing supply. “Whilst democratic involvement and oversight of planning is a fundamental element of the process, it can be very frustrating for applicants to have the principle of development debated over and over again.”

In its paper, MHCLG states that a national scheme of delegation will provide a standardised, consistent approach to delegation of decisions in all local planning authorities, “recognising where sites have already had democratic approval through the local plan process”.

The paper also puts forward the notion of dedicated committees for strategic development, involving a small group of councillors …