The government has pledged to “unleash seismic reforms” to the planning system under major new legislation being published today.
The Planning and Infrastructure Bill is expected to include wide-ranging changes to help deliver on Labour’s plans to build 1.5 million homes and make decisions on 150 major infrastructure projects by the next election in 2029.
Reforms include making the planning process easier, offering communities living near new electricity pylons money off their energy bills and changing the way developers meet environmental obligations.
The deputy prime minister and housing secretary, Angela Rayner, said: “We’re creating the biggest building boom in a generation – as a major step forward in getting Britain building again and unleashing economic growth in every corner of the country, by lifting the bureaucratic burden which has been holding back developments for too long,” said Angela Rayner, secretary of state in the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government.
“The Planning and Infrastructure Bill will unleash seismic reforms to help builders get shovels in the ground quicker to build more homes, and the vital infrastructure we need to improve transport links and make Britain a clean energy superpower to protect billpayers.”
The Bill is expected to include changes to how planning decisions are made, with more applications decided by planning officers rather than elected councillors.
Councils will also be permitted to set their own planning fees to recover their costs, while “meritless” legal challenges to major applications will face a crackdown.
Housebuilders welcomed the proposals, with Home Builders Federation chief executive, Neil Jefferson, describing them as “swift moves to address the failings in the planning system”.
Also in response to the new Planning and Infrastructure, Bill Roger Mortlock, chief executive of CPRE, said: “This Bill needs to incentivise and supercharge a different model for delivering the affordable homes people need. The answer lies as much in transforming the market as it does in planning reform. Without it we will see yet more unaffordable, car-dependent developments built across our countryside.
“Big housebuilders have a stranglehold on UK housing supply, delivering poor-quality, identikit housing painfully slowly, while the tired ‘builders and blockers’ rhetoric falsely pitches communities against economic growth.
“The government should take this opportunity to create a new generation of sustainable homes, starting with the 1 million homes that have planning permission but have not been built and then then by building on the shovel ready sites that could deliver 1.2 million more.
“The brownfield passports introduced in this Bill will help development on previously used land. Though without meaningful targets for delivery, many of these potential new homes will remain unbuilt.”
