The Levelling Up White Paper published last month acknowledged that reform of the planning system is required; but bearing in mind the strong commitments made to overhauling the planning system there was a startling absence of detail. A policy vacuum exists that continues to create uncertainty, impacting on the progress of Local Plans and the delivery of news homes in particular.

The development industry has long been pushing for the ‘principle’ of development to be established through the Local Plan process. This would involve each local planning authority creating growth areas in their Local Plans, within which any sites would automatically be granted outline planning permission for the principle of development following adoption of the Plan. The 2020 Planning White Paper, Planning for the Future, which until this week was set to be the basis for a radical new Planning Bill, proposed that after adoption of the Local Plan there would be “no need to submit a further planning application to test whether the site can be approved”.

Many backbench MPs had raised concerns that the proposals would mean reduced scrutiny by local elected councillors over individual planning applications and less public involvement in the planning process. Defeat at the Chesham and Amersham by-election last year also focused Ministers’ minds over planning reform and development on greenfield land in particular. The Levelling Up White Paper’s focus on brownfield prioritisation is not new and has been the policy of successive Governments over the last thirty years. Whilst brownfield sites are important, unfortunately the strategy of ‘brownfield first’ has failed to tackle the housing crisis, in fact it exacerbated the crisis. And the air of uncertainty around planning reforms will make matters yet worse to come.

Now Michael Gove has apparently told MPs that the Government will not bring forward a Planning Bill, and that the growth zone proposals have been scrapped. According to the Daily Telegraph, Gove told 45 Conservative MPs at a private meeting, "That he had decided not to proceed with a major separate piece of planning legislation to put the reforms into law. Instead, more limited changes to planning rules will be incorporated as part of a Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill, which will be set out in the Queen's Speech in the spring."