27 July 2023In a speech, the Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, outlined further proposed amendments to the planning system in England.
These include a consultation aimed at making it easier for households to build upwards and outwards without the need for planning approval, and convert shops and offices into housing without the need for planning approval. The plan would also make it easier to convert barns and “the repurposing [of] agricultural buildings and disused warehouses.”
Other measures include more support for planning departments (including financial) and community land trusts. Also, ones aimed at making local plans easier to produce and ensuring design quality and local support for new development as well as a focus on “inner city” development including a new “urban quarter” in Cambridge and 12 new development corporations in urban area,
It was also confirmed that the revised National Planning Policy Framework which was expected in the spring will now be published “a little bit later this year”.
Click here to read the ‘Long-term plan for housing: Secretary of State’s speech’
