Planning Bill, RIP?

A long time ago (well, June 2021 seems a long time ago after everything that has happened since then), I published a blog post under the title “Planning radicalised – or a damp squib?” You may recall that on the day before the Queen’s Speech last May, the PM made a great noise (accompanied by much ballyhoo in the press) asserting with his usual hyperbole that the government was definitely going ahead with the revolutionary changes to the planning system that had been promised in the heavily criticised White Paper that had been published in 2020. A Planning Bill was duly announced in the Queen’s Speech the following day.

However, it quickly became clear that the government was in fact nowhere near ready to go ahead with the promised Bill. It emerged in the weeks that followed that as a result of strenuous opposition within Tory ranks, the government was far less determined to press ahead with their planning proposals than the PM made out. Considerable alarm was caused among party loyalists early in May by the loss of control of several councils in the south of the country, as a result of growing public opposition to the perceived threat of development in traditionally Tory-held areas. Following the shock result of the Chesham and Amersham by-election in June, backbench Tory MPs became even more jumpy about the government’s proposed planning ‘reforms’, and the pressure on the government to drop or considerably water down their proposals only intensified.

For a time, ministers tried to bluff and bluster their way through this ‘noise’, and Robert Jenrick (then the Secretary of State) was sent out to ‘reassure’ Tory backbenchers that it wasn’t going to be as bad as all that. This, however, clearly failed to quell the disquiet in Tory ranks, which continued to intensify in light of the worrying election results and polling . As a result, it became increasingly clear that there would be substantial further delay in the introduction of the promised Planning Bill, while the government tried to decide how much of their proposals could still be taken forward. I predicted that a complete U-turn on the part of the government could not be ruled out, and I suggested that it would not be altogether surprising if the promised Planning Bill did not in fact come forward in the current parliamentary session, despite its announcement in the Queen’s Speech.

It seems that this is what has transpired. There are now apparently well-informed reports that the government has indeed dropped any intention of introducing a Planning Bill. To save face, ministers seem to be hinting sotto voce that they may instead pursue ‘incremental’ reforms to the planning system. Well, as I said before, let’s wait and see.

© MARTIN H GOODALL