Local councils will keep the right to rule on individual housing applications under the Government’s planning reforms – but ministers may overrule them if they are not building enough.
A new Planning and Infrastructure Bill was put at the heart of the King’s Speech in a bid to boost economic growth.
The King said in his address to Parliament: “My ministers will get Britain building, including through planning reform, as they seek to accelerate the delivery of high-quality infrastructure and housing.”
The bill, which is likely to become law next year, will be preceded by an overhaul of the national planning policy framework, taking effect in the autumn.
A No 10 spokesman said: “The bill will speed up both housing and infrastructure delivery. It should also be seen in conjunction with the commit to consult on a new, growth-focused national planning policy framework by the end of the month, which will include a number of measures to speed up housebuilding.”
The new rules will still force developers to put in applications for every new construction project, i understands – rather than simply allowing the granting of blanket planning permission in advance for developments that follow the guidelines.
However, councils are set to be told that if they do not commit to allowing a certain minimum number of homes locally, they will be more likely to be overruled by ministers when they reject individual developments.
Local authorities will also be encouraged to club together to pool resources and develop a strategic plan for housebuilding across a region, according to Government insiders.
Housing campaigners welcomed the pledge to boost building, but some expressed disappointment at the decision to continue allowing councils a veto over individual projects.
Maxwell Marlow, of the free-market Adam Smith Institute, said: “We recognise that housing and planning is a sensitive electoral topic which is why it may have felt that wholesale planning reform was out of reach. The best way to overcome this would be to ensure that existing local residents directly feel the benefits of new homes and infrastructure in their area.
“In the long run, they [ministers] should also look to undertake wholesale liberalisation of our planning laws by scrapping the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act, from which most of the problems with the system stem.”
The Planning and Infrastructure Bill promises to “modernise planning committees” and boost the capacity of local authorities to process applications, although there is not currently any additional money committed to councils.
The County Councils Network said: “The Government’s planning reforms must set out a way to more effectively capture funding for infrastructure, and above all, reform must be done in partnership with councils, rather than to them.”
Gideon Salutin of the Social Market Foundation warned that liberalisation alone may not be enough to increase the number of new homes by the 1.5 million that Labour has pledged to create before the next general election.
He said: “Planning reform is necessary if we want to build more houses in places with high demand. But there’s no guarantee that construction will actually take off in those areas, nor that the pace of that construction will be enough to bring down home prices.
“Social housing and affordability mandates have delivered those aims elsewhere, but Labour has not committed to either.”