Councils are ignoring explicit instructions to approve planning projects from ministers – as the scale and cost of their resistance to development is revealed for the first time.
It comes as tensions between councils of all political stripes are rising with ministers, who are desperate to hit their target of 1.5 million new homes in England by the end of the parliament.
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In one case shared with Sky News, a council northwest of London refused a planning application for a 256-home development despite housing minister Matthew Pennycook directing councillors to approve the case 24 hours earlier.
Councillors on a planning committee at Three Rivers District Council rejected the application last week, with 10 votes to refuse and one abstention, on the grounds the plan might harm the green belt, concern over flooding, and the loss of hedgerows.
However, the council’s own planning officer had recommended the site be approved for development, concluding it met the government definition of “grey belt” and that while “adverse impacts would arise to the local character/landscape”, the positives of the scheme outweighed those harms.
Read more from Sky News:
Is it time to give up the green belt?
‘A declaration of war’
Burlington Property Group has written to Mr Pennycook, saying the decision is “a direct affront to your ministerial authority; it is nothing short of a ‘declaration of war’ on the government’s core policy objective to increase the delivery of new homes and for local authority decisions and local plan making powers to be exercised in support of this core national policy objective”.
The developer is asking the minister to “call in” – or override – the council’s decision.
The council did not respond to Sky News’s requests for comment.
Sky News is aware of growing friction between ministers and councils over the failure to grant planning approvals, despite changing planning laws and prioritising growth above all else.
Ministers intend to make a major intervention after the local elections but do not want to be seen discussing planning before polling day in May in case it disadvantages Labour council candidates who appeal to those who oppose developments.
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This comes as Sky News publishes the results of a four-month investigation using Freedom of Information (FOI) laws to interrogate every local planning council in England about the number of unreasonable decisions that resulted in over £20m of costs paid out.
Using the available data, we can reveal the first-ever league table of councils that have a high number of overturned decisions where costs were paid and those with the highest costs paid out.
*Incomplete data.
More than 100 local councils did not respond to the FOI requests, while hundreds more only released partial data. The information on the number of council planning decisions deemed “unreasonable” by the Planning Inspectorate, which hears appeals, is not collected by central government, meaning this is the first known exercise of this kind.
Councils say they are trying to keep costs low and sometimes win costs in cases which are appealed by developers.
Watch the full report on our investigation in the video at the top of this article.
Will Labour hit their target?
The government has already made its first major attempt to redraw the planning system through the Planning and Infrastructure Act, which became law in February.
However, critics say it leaves too much of the current system in place, still giving councils too great an opportunity to stand in the way of swift and fair decisions.
Privately, some figures in government welcome the Sky News research for shining a spotlight on a major problem they want to tackle.
But the fact they have decided not to say so publicly shows the tension between the need to build and the strength of community opposition to projects.
There has been discussion in government about a second planning bill, but that appears to have been shelved after being deemed too difficult.
The closer we get to the next general election, the more squeamish MPs are likely to be about decisions that disempower communities. That makes achieving the 1.5m new homes target look like an even more distant prospect.
