To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps the Government plans to take to ensure that local authorities have a local plan in place.
Answered on
22 February 2019
In 2015 the Government commissioned the Local Plans Expert Group to consider how local plan making could be made more efficient and effective. Their recommendations were reflected in the revised National Planning Policy Framework that was published in July 2018.
The Government wants to see all authorities produce up to date local plan policies that set a positive vision for the future of their area and has provided flexibility in the revised National Planning Policy Framework for how this is put in place.
In November 2017, the formal process of intervention commenced in fifteen areas that had failed to get a local plan in place for a more than a decade. We monitor plan progress to identify delays against authorities’ published timetables, and identify where additional support may be beneficial, as well as where intervention may be necessary as a last resort.