The government recently unveiled a further package of radical planning reforms as part of a wide-ranging Productivity Plan drawn up by the Treasury and Chancellor George Osborne.
The Planning Portal writes:
The planning measures include a threat of direct intervention by the Secretary of State over the production of local plans where local authorities are judged to be too slow and the creation of a zonal system for brownfield land involving automatic permission for housing.
In addition, ministers want a tighter planning performance regime which would mean local authorities would be judged to be underperforming if 50 per cent or fewer decisions meet statutory timetables or who fail to process minor applications in line with a significantly tighter “planning guarantee”.
Also planned is legislation to allow major infrastructure projects with an element of housing to be considered as part of the Planning Act 2008 regime and treated as nationally significant infrastructure projects (NSIPs).
The government has announced it is scrapping the requirement on new-home developers to offset new-build carbon emissions by making a contribution to carbon reduction elsewhere.
In addition the administration is proposing to extend permitted development rights to taller mobile masts in both protected and non-protected areas in England. A call for evidence on these proposals has been published.
