image: Matthew Pennycook – Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) licence
A new letter sets out the government’s position on how planning-linked examinations should be conducted in regard to ‘pragmatism’.
GOV.UK writes:
In 2015, the government published a letter setting out an expectation that Inspectors should operate ‘pragmatically’ during Local Plan examinations.
The Minister of State, Matthew Pennycook MP, has written to the Planning Inspectorate to replace this instruction with an expectation that ‘pragmatism’ should be used only where it is likely that a plan is capable of being found sound. This will ensure that Inspectors can focus their time and resource on plans that can be adopted. Deficient plans that cannot be easily fixed at examination can be sent back to allow the local authority in partnership with their local communities to bring forward a new plan.
