Planning officers to approve schemes without committee permission – Rayner

Planning officers will be able to bypass council committees to approve appropriate homes, according to deputy prime minister and housing secretary Angela Rayner.

Writing for The Sunday Telegraph, Rayner stated that “unblocking the clogged-up planning system means providing greater certainty to developers that good quality schemes aligned with democratically agreed local development plans will be approved in a timely manner”.

She wrote that her government would “overhaul” local planning committees, which would allow planning officers “to make more decisions to speed up the approvals process” and ensure homes are built.

Planning officers will be able to consent to applications that meet design quality criteria and local plans without committee permission.

But, Rayner added, residents should be assured that those developments that do not follow the criteria would be “subject to appropriate democratic scrutiny”.

Local authorities, Rayner wrote, “must play their full part in getting spades in the ground because we all must do our bit to build the homes we need”.

She reiterated local councils’ duty to adopt local plans. “The question is where the homes and the local services that people expect alongside them get built, not whether homes are built at all.”

Rayner’s piece and …