Stuart Andrew says decision-making process taking āridiculous amount of timeā
The housing minister has admitted council planning departments are facing resourcing difficulties but pledged to tackle the issue and āfree up planners to be plannersā.
Stuart Andrew, speaking at a ŠŌ°ÉµēĢØ Garden Communities event earlier this week, said he has heard the question of whether planners have the resources to deliver initiatives such as garden communities āa lotā since becoming housing minister in February.
Andrew said: āI recognise there are constraints and there are difficulties. Itās taking a ridiculous amount of time to develop a local plan, we want to make it simpler, so those can be done in 30 months rather than in years.
āThe second thing is weāve got a skills strategy that we are starting within the [levelling up, housing and communities] department to look at and identify the issues that exist within local planning authorities.ā
See also>>
See also>>
The government is also looking to for major applications and a quarter for minor applications to try and put more money into the system.
He added: āThere will be things in the [levelling up] bill to increase planning fees, so there will be more money, but I recognize that this is an issue at the end of the day. We want to free up planners to be planners.ā
Official showed the speed of decision-making by councils hitting its lowest point for five years in the third quarter of last year, while a number of housebuilders have cited planning delays as .
No comments yet