Andy Burnham is expected to give mayors new powers to take control of local planning decisions and greenlight large-scale developments in proposals to be presented next week.<\/p>\n
The move would allow mayors to \u201ccall in\u201d the decisions and direct councils to take them forward or refuse them.<\/p>\n
They will also be able to grant upfront permission so developers can start building without having to apply.<\/p>\n
It will apply to developments of more than 150 homes, commercial spaces of more than 15,000 sq m or any building 30 metres or taller \u2013 which is roughly 10 storeys.<\/p>\n
Burnham told the Sunday Times that he understood the argument that devolving powers to mayors to push through such projects could disempower councillors, MPs and constituents.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cSometimes \u2026 challenge does need to be made to local decision-making, and actually it cuts both ways.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not all about nimbyism. Sometimes it\u2019s the other way round.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a local authority putting forward something that\u2019s unacceptable in terms of the impact on the community \u2026 so it\u2019s a two-way street.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ten of the 14 devolved mayors from different parties have backed the move.<\/p>\n
It will bring them into line with the mayor of London, Sir Sadiq Khan, who was given the powers earlier this year in what was billed as an emergency measure aimed at unblocking dozens of stalled sites to get thousands more affordable homes built in the capital.<\/p>\n
Burnham added: \u201cIn my view, it will prompt a much more joined-up discussion about planning and local authorities.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think knowing the mayor has that role, councils will come to the mayor and say: \u2018How can we work this thing out so that it is acceptable?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The government is just over a quarter of the way to its target to build 1.5m homes in England in five years.<\/p>\n
The decisions must be in line with planning rules, local plans set out for areas and the national policy, and ministers will retain a backstop power to intervene.<\/p>\n
Mayors will also get more of a say on how national housing funding from Homes England will be spent in their areas, in addition to being able to charge a levy on development to fund large infrastructure.<\/p>\n
A consultation will be published next week.<\/p>\n
The Liberal Democrats said the move was a \u201cdirect attack\u201d that would silence residents. Gideon Amos, the party\u2019s housing and planning spokesperson, said: \u201cTaking powers away from communities and local councillors is taking powers away from local people. This plan is a direct attack on communities across the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cLabour\u2019s chaotic patchwork approach to devolution will simply not work to solve the housing crisis.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead of silencing residents and handing mayors a blank cheque, the government should be empowering local councils with the resources to deliver genuinely affordable homes alongside the infrastructure to support them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andy Burnham is expected to give mayors new powers to take control of local planning decisions and greenlight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":746991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-746990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=746990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/746991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=746990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=746990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=746990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}