The government is right to be more interventionist on planning

Spend enough time working in England’s planning system, and it will make anyone cross. planning minister Matthew Pennycook appears to have reached that point too. On 22 July, the day after he retained his post in the new Burnham government, Pennycook wrote to Basildon imposing a timetable for their new local plan. This is just the latest sign of a minister seemingly prepared to take a far more interventionist approach than his predecessors.

In June, Pennycook wrote to nine local planning authorities telling them that, as a result of the poor quality of their decision-making, they were being put into special measures.

The designation regime has been in place for some time but has been rarely used. Prior to last month, just six authorities had been affected in the last five years. Designation allows the government to take over decision-making in situations where councils are determining applications too slowly – defined as fewer than 60% of major applications being decided within agreed timescales – or the quality of their decisions is too poor, meaning more than 10% of decisions on major applications being overturned on appeal.

Developers in the impacted authorities will now be able to submit planning applications directly to the Planning Inspectorate, with the local authority relegated to the role of a consultee and providing administrative support.

Inevitably, there have already been protests from the councils concerned.

In a Facebook post, Councillor Emma Kearsey, the member for planning at Wychavon District Council, said: “How dare they! This is an outrageous decision by a government that thinks it can simply dictate to local communities in complete defiance of the evidence.” Over the last two years, 12.1% of major decisions in Wychavon have been reversed at appeal, more than three and a half times the national average.

Hertsmere Council was quick to identify the possible financial implications. Under the designation regime, application fees are paid to the Planning Inspectorate rather than the local authority, despite local planners still being responsible for much of the leg-work of processing the application.

This muscular approach from the government isn’t limited to decision-making.

Last September, Pennycook wrote to Stockport Council – which hasn’t adopted a development plan allocating sites for development since 2006, even withdrawing from Andy Burnham’s Greater Manchester-wide plan to avoid doing so – imposing a timetable for putting a new local plan in place. 

Intervention on local plans has happened before, but never with this force

In March, he sent Three Rivers District Council a list of additional sites to be allocated for development in their new local plan before they submitted it for examination, in an attempt to make sure as much of their housing target as possible was delivered.

And earlier this month, Pennycook demanded Torbay Council provide the evidence to prove their new local plan could only meet 42% of their housing need before he would allow them to make further progress.

Intervention on local plans has happened before, but never with this force.

For example, Castle Point – which last adopted a plan nearly 30 years ago – has been told to get a move on by numerous secretaries of state, but still haven’t put a plan in place. In 2022, Castle Point councillors even voted not to adopt a plan that had been found to be sound by a Planning Inspector.

Recent interventions go beyond the simple pleas to plan more quickly that Castle Point, and others, have been subjected to and instead tell local authorities how to make their Plans. Strong stuff.

Yet more challenges await; these letters are unlikely to be the last.

Newcastle-under-Lyme Council – which last adopted a plan identifying development sites 15 years ago and has been working on a replacement for a decade – recently had a local plan found sound by a Planning Inspector following 18 months of examination. It was a difficult process, in large part due to the need to release green belt sites for development, and the council deserve credit for getting this far after a number of false starts. Yet in May, Reform took control of the council. Their leader, ex-MP Jonathan Gullis, has already tried to reopen the plan-making process and has hinted the council may yet vote against adopting the plan.

Letters like these are part of a wider government effort to curb the most egregious local authority behaviour. Councils are now unable to refuse applications for 150 homes or more without first referring the application to the secretary of state. The new national scheme of delegation aims to take more applications out of local councillors’ hands and instead entrust them to professional planning officers – which should also speed the process up, given decisions delegated to officers are typically 278 days faster than committee ones.

The pattern is clear – government expects local authorities to behave responsibly and will get involved if they are not. 

“Councils are tasked with making local decisions with national consequences. The benefits of intervention outweigh the risks.” 

Government intervention in local planning isn’t without risk. It can create perverse incentives. It might be better politically for Reform in Newcastle-under-Lyme to vote not to adopt the local plan, forcing the government to compel them to do so. It will then always be “a plan imposed on us by government,” giving political cover for granting permission on allocated sites, while still allowing the council to secure the benefits of development. Three Rivers can say the same of the extra sites they have told to allocate for new homes.

But councils are tasked with making local decisions with national consequences. The benefits of intervention outweigh the risks. We’ve tried assuming that every council will plan maturely and conscientiously and it hasn’t worked. Pennycook’s letter to Basildon indicates that the change in Prime Minister won’t step him being more robust.

Paul Smith is managing director at The Strategic Land Group