A Bill seeking to establish independent local planning processes to determine housing development planning applications submitted by local authorities is being debated in Parliament
The private members Bill introduced by Conservative MP Paul Holmes is seeking to improve transparency and scrutiny in the planning process, in particular surrounding planning applications submitted by local authorities.
The Bill has been raised over concerns that planning applications submitted by local authorities may not be held to the same levels of independent scrutiny that a private developer would.
Currently if a local authority submits a planning application, then either numerous consultees and a local planning officer determines the planning application, or they make a recommendation to a planning committee which then makes a decision.
In these new proposals, an application submitted by a local authority would trigger an independent process that would firstly assign the application to a neighbouring authority - they would then allocate an officer to determine the application using the neighbouring local authority's own consultees and planning policy. The determination would then be referred to the neighbouring authorities councillors for determination.
Decisions made by the councillor's would then be referred to the independent Planning Inspectorate, who would need to agree with the decision in order for it to be ratified. If they disagreed with the decision it would then be referred to the Secretary of State.
This process for determining applications could be triggered by either:
MP Paul Holmes who tabled the Bill, commented: "The fundamental point in the current process is that both the assessment and the determination of a planning application are independent." He added that this works well in the majority of cases however criticised the lack of independent scrutiny in some local authorities application decisions.
He added: "The planning system – I say this as a former planning committee chairman – can be a game changer for housebuilding across the UK. However, many people still see it as opaque and favourable to big developers. This is a small step to correct that view and give our residents the reassurance that they need. I commend the bill to the house."
