Now that David Cameron has jumped on board the Treasury bandwagon in wanting to revise the National Planning Policy Framework, it’s looking like the Communities and Local Government department is going to be pitched into battle with the National Trust and other anti-development campaigners yet again. It’s not just that CLG ministers might be wary of opening up old wounds with organisations whose members tend to be Conservative voters, but that they already feel planning reform is truly done and dusted.
CLG sources point to the fact that out of the 480,000 units with outstanding planning permission, work has not yet started on 226,000, more than 81,500 are on hold and 136,700 are moving to the point where work will begin on site. They believe this is evidence that planning reform is already starting to take effect, but as is always the case with housebuilding, the effect is just taking longer to show.
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