Councils are ignoring explicit instructions to approve planning projects from ministers – as the scale and cost of their resistance to development is revealed for the first time.
It comes as tensions between councils of all political stripes are rising with ministers, who are desperate to hit their target of 1.5 million new homes in England by the end of the parliament.
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In one case shared with Sky News, a council northwest of London refused a planning application for a 256-home development despite housing minister Matthew Pennycook directing councillors to approve the case 24 hours earlier.
Councillors on a planning committee at Three Rivers District Council rejected the application last week, with 10 votes to refuse and one abstention, on the grounds the plan might harm the green belt, concern over flooding, and the loss of hedgerows.
However, the council’s own planning officer had recommended the site be approved for development, concluding it met the government definition of “grey belt” and that while “adverse impacts would arise to the local character/landscape”, the positives of the scheme outweighed those harms.
Read more from Sky News:
Is it time to give up the green belt?
‘A declaration of war’
Burlington Property Group has written to Mr Pennycook, saying the decision is “a direct affront to your ministerial authority; it is nothing short of a ‘declaration of war’ on the government’s core policy objective to increase the delivery of new homes and for local authority decisions and local plan making powers to be exercised in support of this core national policy objective”.
The developer is…
