The District Councils’ Network has responded to Government plans to strip councils of their power to block large housing developments.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government today announced reforms which would enable ministers to force through applications to build 150 houses or more, regardless of local views.

Cllr Richard Wright, DCN Chair and Planning spokesperson, said:

“The whole essence of local democracy is that local people are empowered to take the big decisions about their place – but these proposals would ostracise local communities from the planning process.

“District councils are passionate about delivering the homes that are desperately needed by our residents and we already approve nine out of every 10 applications we receive.

“While we need to build at scale, it’s just as important that we ensure homes are high quality, affordable, offer the right mix of tenure, are served by vital infrastructure and are built in the locations that work for our residents. Local people, not distant Whitehall bureaucrats, are best placed to judge whether applications do this.

“The lesson from the 60s and 70s is that building poor-quality housing at scale leads to crime, isolation and social problems, ultimately bringing greater costs to the public purse.

“The planning system is not the barrier to building 1.5 million homes: inadequate water and electricity infrastructure stalls work, while developers have failed to build 1.4 million homes which have already received permission.

“My own council has given approval for 11,586 homes but less than half [5,323] have been built out.  For many councils the planning permissions not built out exceeds their housing targets.

“Rather than cut out the voice of local people in the planning system, we need to address the problem of slow build out rates, giving councils powers to prevent developers sitting on land which should be used for housebuilding now.”