Reforms needed to our planning system

Planning has now been reduced to mere sloganising: from Boris Johnson’s favoured ‘Build, build, build’ or his embattled Planning Minister Robert Jenrick’s ‘ Rip up planning red tape’.

These simplistic phrases fly in the face of evidence: over 80% of planning applications are approved at first instance and delays in building are the fault of housebuilders who hold back or eke out their building on sites for fear of prices falling, if they brought too many houses to the market. All that recent planning reforms have produced are tiny windowless flats in converted office blocks and no improvement in environmental standards for all new buildings.

What reforms to planning are needed are as follows:

Building what people need, especially social housing, not luxury flats or five bedroom mansions

Building greener, with lower carbon inputs

Improving biodiversity when we build rather than the reverse as we do currently

Making sure new housing results in better physical and mental health ensuring everyone in the community is more engaged in planning decisions which affect them.

We need a planning system which is less beholden to large housebuilders and one where the local community feels that its voice is being heard.

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