In the summer of 2017, former Labour planning minister, Nick Raynsford, began a review of the English planning system. Launched in the House of Lords on 20 November, Raynsford warned that there is a ‘chaotic patchwork’ of responsibilities and that permitted development is ‘toxic’.

The system is not compatible with promoting the health, wellbeing and civil rights of communities, says the review, which was commissioned by the Town & Country Planning Association (TCPA) and carried out by a task force led by Raynsford.

Planning has a huge potential to make people’s lives better, says the review, but this opportunity has been undermined by deregulation. The report, Planning 2020: Raynsford Review of Planning in England, calls on the government to immediately restrict permitted development, which allows the conversion of commercial buildings to housing units without any proper safeguards on quality, with a senior member of the review team branding it ‘toxic’ for enabling conversion to homes lacking light or space.

Findings collected over the last 18 months show that people no longer perceive councils as able to protect the public interest, with the economic gain of landowners and developers taking precedent over all else. In a bid to reduce inequality in deprived areas, the review says that the Treasury must partially redistribute capital gains tax and stamp duty to invest in the nation’s deprived areas. Councils should be given powers for compulsory purchase of land at a price that allows communities to benefit from the uplift of values created by development, it says.