Chancellor Gordon Brown has announced plans to introduce a planning gain supplement (PGS) - as was recommended by Kate Barker - as part of his pre-Budget report. The consultation paper on the PGS states that the tax, which will be levied by local authorities on the uplift in land value resulting from a planning consent, will capture a "modest portion of the uplift, thereby preserving incentives to development." But the document stops short of specifying any percentage figures. The PGS will be applicable to commercial as well as residential development. "We wanted this to be a level playing field across different types of development, to avoid a peverse bias against residential development," said housing and planning minister Yvette Cooper, who announced a raft of housing and planning policies alongside the pre-Budget report. The tax will provide funding for local authority infrastructure needs, additional to section 106 agreements, which will be retained in a "scaled back" form. Said Cooper: "A portion of the wealth created by the planning system should be used for the benefit of the wider community. In this sense, the PGS will be largely a local measure, its proceeds recycled at the local level for local priorities and …