Alex King

A council has lodged a challenge in the High Court against an inspector’s decision that Metropolitan Open Land (MOL) in London can meet the grey belt designation in national policy.

The government has launched a consultation on four “standard” planning gain legal agreement templates for medium-sized sites, one of which “explicitly recognises local authorities as potential purchasers” of affordable homes if a housing association cannot buy them from the developer.

Three councils have been allocated a total of £390 million from a government programme to build social and other affordable housing, with the authorities concerned claiming that they will be able to deliver a total of almost 3,000 such units as a result.

The housing secretary and the planning minister have told council leaders that their authorities must “scale up” housing delivery immediately, while urging them to “make full use of section 106 opportunities” and inform the government of any home-building “barriers” they face.

A county council has lost its five-year housing land supply after its housing requirement figure rose by 56 per cent.

The government has introduced a suite of policies aimed at encouraging housebuilding near “well-connected” transport hubs. Experts believe developers will show keen interest in building in such locations, while planning officers can expect a “surge” of applications.

An inspector has cited the revised National Planning Policy Framework’s (NPPF’s) new presumption in favour of sustainable development outside settlements in allowing a land promoter’s outline proposals to build 110 homes in the open countryside, after noting that the local council could not demonstrate a five-year housing land supply (5YHLS).

Reform UK has proposed ditching affordable housing requirements for developers for every brownfield site outside five of England’s largest cities, scrapping Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) payments and biodiversity net gain (BNG) rules on brownfield projects across the whole country and dropping housing targets for councils.

The chief executive of the trade association for the UK's main mobile network operators has said the planning system is “absolutely” slowing down investment in new digital infrastructure.

The deputy leader of Reform UK has said he would “ban” all new renewable energy and other net zero projects by preventing them from getting grid connections and would “fire anybody that defies that order”.