Consultation opens on geographies for Spatial Development Strategies
Today the government has announced a consultation on its proposed geographies for Spatial Development Strategies.
Once they are enabled through the relevant legislation, these strategies will effectively bring back strategic planning into the planning system. This has been a long-running County Councils Network ask.
Below, the network responds to today's update.
Cllr Andrew Husband, Housing and Planning Spokesperson for the County Councils Network, said:
“The County Councils Network (CCN) has long argued that to deliver the varied types of housing and infrastructure that local areas both need and want, we needed to ‘scale up’ the planning system. Today’s announcement puts the wheels in motion for the return of strategic planning and is an important milestone.
“Many CCN members have put in a significant effort with neighbouring local authorities to ‘lock in’ their strategic planning geographies and are ‘ready to go’ to implement these new Spatial Development Strategies once the relevant legislation enables them. For those places where discussions and geographies have proved to be more complex, it is important that the government is opening the process up for consultation, rather than imposing a top-down approach.
“Bearing in mind the government has chosen to delay mayoral elections until 2028 for those on the Devolution Priority Programme – and by implication has slowed down the process for other areas – it is important counties will be allowed to set up Strategic Planning Boards ahead of strategic authorities being created.
“For CCN’s members, the hard work will now continue. County and unitary councils are determined to make a success of these powers and to build development meets their local areas’ housing needs. It will therefore be vital that measures to better capture infrastructure funds are introduced by this government, alongside ensuring that many of the proposed planning reforms in the National Planning Policy Framework are a help rather than a hinderance.”
