Samantha Eckford

A consortium of developers has jointly submitted hybrid plans to build the equivalent of 1,850 new homes on greenfield land near a historic town that has been allocated for development in a recently adopted local plan.

The government has promised to legislate this year to relax planning rules around electric vehicle chargers and electricity network infrastructure upgrades and to consult on making it easier to install air source heat pumps in non-domestic buildings.

A council has refused plans for a 1,400-home scheme on green belt land, despite officials recommending that the application be approved citing the land’s grey belt status and the area’s “acute and worsening” housing land supply shortfall.

Britain’s oldest national conservation body has said it is “dismayed” over the government’s “foolish” support for a planning silk’s devolution bill amendment that seeks to address the effects of a Supreme Court ruling that has left some former open space land “permanently” shielded from development, as MPs approved the measure in the House of Commons.

A council has agreed to grant permission for the permanent mooring of a 233-room floating hotel in the River Thames after officers advised that the project would provide “direct economic benefits”.

A viscount has submitted outline plans for a 2,500-home garden village on agricultural land that is allocated for development in an early draft of an emerging local plan.

One of the government’s seven shortlisted new towns sites, earmarked for up to 21,000 new homes, may be at risk after a Labour-led council fell under no overall control after last week’s local elections, with both the Conservative and Green groups indicating in their manifestos that they would seek to block the project.

The government has updated its guidance on its new "simplified" written appeals process to clarify that appellants will need to respond to local authorities’ proposed draft planning conditions within seven days of receiving them.

A city council’s assistant director of planning has said that her authority is likely to seek “a lot” of delegated powers to allow officers to push through their new-style local plan quicker in a bid to meet the impending 30-month deadline for such strategies to be completed.

London’s deputy mayor for planning has granted permission for a 1,485-home out-of-town leisure park redevelopment and overturned a council refusal of the project against officers' advice, after expressing strong support for the "optimisation of an accessible brownfield site" that is "in line with the local site allocation".