Planning rules are wrecking the economy, Next’s chief executive has warned.
Lord Wolfson of Aspley Guise said the planning system is “holding back industry and society”.
He added that trying to build stores of the right size in the places where people want to shop has been a “constant battle” over the past 30 years and “that is replicated across the whole industry”.
Building Next’s warehouses could be quicker than the three or four years it takes to get planning permission, he said.
He recommended stripping away the power held by landowners and rebuilding planning as a rules-based system.
