Planning: Local Government
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment she has made of the potential effect of removing the role of elected councillors from certain planning processes under the new National Planning Policy Framework on trust in local democratic services.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook
The National Planning Policy Framework sets out the government’s planning policies for England and how these should be applied. It makes no reference whatsoever to the role of elected councillors.
In the King’s Speech, we set out our intention to use the forthcoming Planning and Infrastructure Bill to improve local planning decision making by modernising planning committees.
The government believes that planning committees have an integral role in providing local democratic oversight of planning decisions. However, in exercising that democratic oversight, it is vital that planning committees operate as
effectively as possible, focusing on those applications which require member input and not revisiting the same decisions.
Our recently published planning reform working paper on planning committees, which can be found on gov.uk here, invites views on models for a national scheme of delegation, the creation of smaller targeted planning committees specifically for strategic development, and the introduction of a mandatory requirement for training for planning committee members.
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