Labour’s shadow housing and planning minister has called for a “bold evolution” of England’s planning system, but rejected the suggestion from some government ministers that there should be “a complete dismantling of it”.
Matthew Pennycook spoke at a parliamentary debate on planning reform brought forward by Conservative MP Simon Clarke. The session saw MPs discuss changes to planning policy introduced in the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act 2023 and the National Planning Policy Framework, as well as permitted development rights and efforts to speed up planning decisions.
Introducing the debate, Clarke said: “How we actually get to building more homes is clearly far from simple, but what we do know is that the planning system is not fit for purpose, so how do we reform it to get where we need to go? There is growing consensus across the house that the planning system is holding us back from delivering the homes that are needed. Fixing our outdated, top-down and restrictive processes must now be a priority for both main parties and, I hope, all parties in the house.”
Pennycook said he and Clarke had found “common cause” on several issues, including the importance of enforceable housing targets for local authorities.
“[Clarke] recognises, as we do, that to get anywhere near the government’s target of 300,000 homes a year, let alone the annual level of housing supply that England actually requires, we must have mandatory targets that bite on individual local planning authorities,” Pennycook said. “As a result of the revised NPPF, published on 19 December last year, it is an unassailable fact that we no longer have such targets in England.”
But he added that he disagreed with Clarke that the existing planning system is “beyond redemption”, noting that Clarke favours a new, zonal planning system.
“We believe that introducing an entirely new system is not the answer,” Pennycook said. “Instead, we believe a discrete number of targeted changes to the existing system, coupled with decisive action to ensure that every element of it functions optimally, will ensure we significantly boost housing supply and deliver 1.5m homes over the course of the next parliament.”
Pennycook said changes such as introducing support for cross-boundary strategic planning – which he said Labour would introduce – would help “overcome housing delivery challenges around towns and cities with tightly drawn administrative boundaries”.
“The important point is that we should be focused on bold evolution of the planning system in England, not a complete dismantling of it,” he added. “Not least because the painstaking creation of an entirely new system, after four years of planning policy turbulence and uncertainty in the wake of the 2020 White Paper, would almost certainly paralyse housing delivery and further exacerbate the sharp decline in house building that is now under way.
“Reform of the planning system, rather than a revolutionary reconstruction of it, is what is needed, so Labour remains committed to an ambitious yet pragmatic and achievable overhaul of the current system, and much-needed policy certainty and stability once that overhaul is complete.”
Photo from UK Parliament licensed under CC by 3.0
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