“Laws to modernise the planning system, so that more homes can be
built, will be brought forward...”
The purpose of the Bill is to:
-
Create a simpler, faster and more modern planning system to
replace the current one that dates back to 1947, and ensuring
we no longer remain tied to procedures designed for the last
century.
-
Ensure homes and infrastructure - like schools and hospitals
- can be delivered more quickly across England.
-
Transform our planning system from a slow document-based one
to a more efficient and easier to use digital and map-based
service, allowing more active public engagement in the
development of their local area.
-
Help deliver vital infrastructure whilst helping to protect
and enhance the environment by introducing quicker, simpler
frameworks for funding infrastructure and assessing
environmental impacts and opportunities.
The main benefits of the Bill would be:
-
Providing more certainty for communities and developers,
particularly smaller developers, about what is permitted
where, through clear land allocations in local plans and
stronger rules on design.
-
Simpler, faster procedures for producing local
development plans, approving major schemes, assessing
environmental impacts and negotiating affordable housing
and infrastructure contributions from development.
-
Establishing a framework which focuses on positive
outcomes, such as environmental opportunities and better
designed places.
-
Digitising a system to make it more visual and easier for
local people to meaningfully engage with.
The main elements of the Bill are:
-
Changing local plans so that they provide more certainty
over the type, scale and design of development permitted
on different categories of land.
-
Significantly decrease the time it takes for developments
to go through the planning system.
Replacing the existing systems for funding affordable housing and
infrastructure from development with a new more predictable and
more transparent levy.
Using post-Brexit freedoms to simplify and enhance the framework
for environmental assessments for developments.
Reforming the framework for locally led development corporations
to ensure local areas have access to appropriate delivery
vehicles to support growth and regeneration.
Territorial extent and application
• The Bill will extend to the whole of the UK, however the
majority of provisions will apply to England.
Key facts
-
There is very little meaningful public engagement in the
current planning system. At present only around 3 per cent of
local people engage with planning applications, and for local
plan consultations engagement can fall to less than 1 per
cent.
-
As of February 2021, only around 41 per cent of Local
Authorities have an up-to- date local plan in place.
-
Updating a local plan currently takes an average of 7 years.
-
Thirty years ago smaller builders were responsible for around
40 per cent of new homes built, but currently this figure is
only 12 per cent.
-
The current system does not lead to enough homes being built,
especially in those places where the need for new homes is
the highest. Adopted Local Plans, where they are in place,
provide for 192,725 homes per year across England (as of
March 2021) - significantly below our ambition for 300,000
new homes annually. As a result of this long-term and
persistent undersupply, housing is becoming increasingly
expensive.
