Far from it because everything still would have to go before the local council. All the NIMBY's would get is a greater consultation period. Localism by definition means power residing with local authorities. If the NIMBY's ran the show (shudder) why would we go to great expense of electing individuals for council? We could just go down the skin clinic and ask our mate what we should do! He seems to be the fountain of all knowledge and right in the district!- There's wisdom in acne!

OH yes I would love to after a long night on the lash

TRB for mayor!!! The campaign starts here!!!

Absolutely. The article says very little about how the proposed system would work, but the statement refering to local groups being able to reject developments, or people being allowed to build without planning permission, seems a very dangerous precedent for me. In fact, it seems completely unworkable... but it'll remove a whole load of paperwork from Eric's desk and allow him to devote his full attention to the breakfast buffet.

If you want my opinion on this it is... a croc of sh11te! Now, we have not seen the white paper yet, but it looks to be a very cynical ploy by the Coalition to effectively doom less affluent communities to potential unsuitable development while allowing affluent areas to block any developments in their neighbourhood... full of Tory voters!

This perception that there is red tape and therefore cost for house extension and conservatory's planning applications etc is absolute crap. Nearly ALL planning applications are dealt with by delegated powers and never see a planning committee. It is unclear what the national average for planning applications decided under delegated powers is, but most local authorities quote between 85% and 95%, so around 90% of applications would seem to be a good guess! So 90% of ALL applications are dealt with purely by a planning officer and never see the committee room door and I understand that local authorities set the planning fees on the basis of the costs generally associated with the development sizes to recover costs. This could be just a way of making something look like reform but in reality they are doing nothing of the sort.

It will be interesting to see how the construction (and the major house builders) industry react to the actual white paper... if they don't like it, Eric will very quickly know all about it and it could be yet another Coalition Hot Potato!

If you want anything built, you'd prob have to bribe these groups.