The National Association of Local Councils (NALC) has today written to the planning minister Rt Hon Christopher Pincher MP and to all MPs urging them to let the voice of local (parish and town) councils be listened to in the planning process and for local councils to be trusted with more powers.
The letter to MPs reiterated NALC’s main arguments from its responses to the three main Planning White paper consultations last summer, Changes to the Current Planning System and Transparency and Competition. The main points made were to involve local councils and communities more in decision making around planning applications, to factor the climate emergency into plan-making, to protect the country’s green belt and that developers should be required to complete homes for which they have already received planning permission.
The letter to the planning minister highlighted what a Nearly Perfect Planning Future (NPPF) would look like for local councils after the passage of any planning bill through parliament. NALC clearly and positively painted for the minister a future which puts local councils at the heart of a planning system based on greater democracy and less centralisation.