The government plans to unveil sweeping changes this week to the national planning policy framework, the document which sets out national priorities for building, after a consultation.
I’m really looking forward to the yimby charter, I’ve got to say. We’re going to build so much stuff, it’s going to be amazing.
‘Labour seem to be saying that Angela is best and local people can be ignored.’
I endorse this message.
We end up building on floodplains because NIMBYs block building everywhere else. These reforms will help us get more homes built where they’re needed. And they don’t overrule local democracy, they’ll take away the outsized influence of the blockers. Democracy requires a level playing field.
They overrule the democratically elected local councillors on the planning committee on local decisions, it does exactly that.
We can all keep throwing around the word ‘democracy’ while the housing crisis gets worse, or the government can exercise its democratic (see?) mandate to change planning regulations in order to fix the housing crisis. For me, this change prevents councillors going rogue against the democratically (there it is again!) agreed local plans - there’s no ‘overruling’ by the government because it’s not a centrally made decision to overrule them, they simply won’t be able to poleaxe their own plans.
So, it’s democratic twice over: the government exercises its mandate to allow councils to exercise their mandate to build.