New planning rules empower mayors

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner has revealed that the Government plans to "revolutionise" planning rules by allowing mayors to drive forward Labour's promise to build 1.5m homes. Under the ministers' preferred model, mayors would be able to call in "significant" planning applications and assume responsibility for approving or rejecting them. They would take charge of devising larger-scale development plans covering wider regions, with councils ordered to take part. Councils in areas without mayors would be required to make big decisions across local government boundaries. Rayner will set out plans to modernise the approval process by allowing applications that comply with local development plans to bypass committee approval. She denied that the Government was removing democratic power from councils and said the new streamlined approach was essential to end delays in building new homes, cut costs for individual schemes, and provide more certainty to housebuilders

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