The deputy prime minister said the government will require all councils to formalise developments’ plans, the absence of which has caused developments to “get stuck in the system”.
Rayner continued: “Because we haven’t had these compulsory plans locally, we’ve seen speculative development where greenbelt land has been developed on… we’ve told councils they’ve got to have those plans.
“If developers follow the national framework, which protects the environment and looks at other elements, then they shouldn’t be stuck in the system for years.”
She pushed back on the suggestion the government is riding roughshod over councils, saying the changes were necessary to bring about what would be the biggest increase in house building since the 1950s.
“It’s going to take a lot of change to deliver that,” Rayner added.
Tory shadow Treasury minister Richard Fuller said the government’s building target is “reasonable”, but added: “If you want to achieve that, you’ve got to bring the people with you, and, unfortunately, Labour seem to be saying that Angela [Rayner] is best and local people can be ignored.”
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer restated his pledge to build 1.5 million new homes by 2029 despite accepting it could be “a little too ambitious”.
The fast-track planning process would apply to housing proposals and associated infrastructure such as schools, if they had already been broadly agreed as part of local development plans where councils set out a strategy for land use in their areas.
If the proposals “comply” with these plans, the government has said, they could “bypass planning committees entirely to tackle chronic uncertainty, unacceptable delays and unnecessary waste of time and resources”.
According to government planning statistics, external, between January and March 2024 only 19% of major applications were determined within the statutory 13-week period and only 38% of minor applications were determined in the statutory eight-week period.
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