News

The coalition government has at last published its “Programme for Government”.

The document, published on 20th May, follows on the heels of the earlier announcement entitled “Building the Big Society” which indicated that the government would “…radically reform the planning system to give neighbourhoods far more ability to determine the shape of the places in which their inhabitants live” and “…abolish Regional Spatial Strategies and return decision-making powers on housing and planning to local councils”. It is also in part based on the principles set out in the Conservative Party publication “Open Source Planning”.

The “Programme for Government” confirms plans to:

• Abolish Regional Spatial Strategies
• Abolish the Infrastructure Planning Commission and replace it with an “efficient and democratically accountable system that provides a fast-track process for major infrastructure projects”
• Abolish the Government Office for London
• Create a "simple and consolidated" national planning framework
• Radically reform the planning system to give neighbourhoods more say
• Give local authorities incentives to deliver sustainable development
• Create new trusts to make it simpler for communities to provide homes for local people
• Create a presumption in favour of sustainable development in the planning system
• Maintain the Green Belt
• Create a new designation to protect green areas of particular local importance
• Promote schemes to encourage farmers to convert existing buildings into affordable housing
• Create new trusts that will make it simpler for communities to provide homes for local people
• Grant councils new powers to stop "garden grabbing"
  
  

For further information on this or any other Planning, Environmental or Energy enquiries please contact David Merson, Head of Planning and Environmental Law at dmerson@steeleslaw.co.uk or telephone 020 7421 1742.