"It risks confirming the worst fears of residents and councillors alike: that planning is no longer something done with communities, but to them."
The local elections in May sent a strong message to Westminster: ignore local sentiment at your peril. In what is being described as a ‘turquoise tsunami’, a wave of council seats flipped to Reform UK, signalling a groundswell of discontent with potential parallels to Trump’s success in the last year’s US election.
So as the government pursues its ambitious growth and housing targets, many within the Labour Party are now asking whether the Government risks alienating the very voters it needs to retain power, while those in the property and planning sectors are asking whether the government will dare see out its proposed reforms – especially those which limit public opinion influencing planning decisions.
The heart of the matter is the tension between strategic ambition and democratic accountability. The Government has set out a bold new vision for planning in England, shifting towards more centralised decision-making and strategic planning across local boundaries. But in doing so, it risks confirming the worst fears of residents and councillors alike: that planning is no longer something done with communities, but to them.
At the centre of this shift is the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which, building on December’s Planning Reform Working Paper on Planning Committees, introduces a national scheme of delegation, reduces the level of involvement by planning committees and accelerates the central government’s role in planning decisions. The aim is to increase efficiency by transferring more decisions to officers - laudable in theory, but politically fraught in practice.
The English Devolution White Paper, also published in December, goes further still. It proposes a system of universal strategic planning, requiring every part of England to be covered not only by local plans but also by a Spatial Development Strategy (SDS) across a wider geography. These SDSs would set housing need based on aggregated standard method calculations, potentially overriding local nuances and pitting neighbouring authorities against each other.
Strategic planning isn’t new - London has operated under a similar model for years - but its nationwide expansion raises thorny issues of legitimacy and local control. In combined authority areas, SDSs will only require a majority vote to proceed. If consensus fails, metro mayors will be given casting votes, and in the absence of resolution, the Secretary of State will have the final say. Where no strategic authority exists, the Government will compel authorities to collaborate through powers proposed in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill.
This layered approach is designed to streamline delivery and unlock stalled sites, but it inevitably reduces the visibility and perceived influence of residents in the process. For a government under pressure from Reform - a party positioning itself as a defender of localism and national identity - this could prove a costly miscalculation.
The challenge, of course, is timing. With the next general election looming in four years, ministers are under pressure to keep to their manifesto pledge of 1.5 million homes. But speedy planning and meaningful public consultation are not a natural combination and furthermore the process of developing SDSs, securing local buy-in, and reconciling cross-boundary priorities will takes time.
There is no question that the planning system needs reform; or that strategic planning is necessary to drive infrastructure investment and better align housing delivery with jobs and transport.
But reform must not ignore local voices, particularly in areas facing the most profound change. That means ensuring SDSs are not just technocratic exercises, but frameworks shaped by inclusive consultation. It means protecting the ability of elected councillors to influence key decisions, even as some powers shift to higher levels.
Unless ministers find a way to balance delivery with democratic legitimacy, they may find their planning reforms have not only reshaped the built environment - but the electoral map as well.
