Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 24th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I am pleased to lead the response on behalf of the Opposition, and I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which includes more than 30 years of business experience and interest in the property sector.

We support some of the principles, aims and ambitions of the Bill, some of which build on the work we undertook while we were in office—a time that included a record period for house building in this country. We will also highlight our concerns in a number of areas, including whether the Bill goes far enough to achieve its goals; the removal of a councillor’s ability to vote on individual applications; and the potentially toxic mix of disproportionately large increases to housing targets in rural areas, the grey belt “Trojan horse”, including the removal of any protection for villages, the move to strategic plans and of course the ambition to build 1.5 million homes. The Secretary of State is apparently keen on spotting elephants, but she seems to have missed a huge one, in that that target of 1.5 million homes is completely undeliverable.

[Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)]

In chapter 2, proposed new clause 12H(3) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 mentions the draft spatial development strategy and brings in a raft of changes, including consultation with representative bodies on

“different racial, ethnic or national groups”

but also “different religious groups”. Is there a danger that we are pitting communities one against another? There is a legislative reason to do that, and I wanted to intervene to ask the Secretary of State about it, but can my hon. Friend, with his expertise, shine some light on why we are enshrining that provision into legislation?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

My hon. Friend is right to spot that requirement, and we will certainly be considering that when we table amendments to the Bill. We believe it is completely inappropriate that certain groups should get preference over other groups in consultations that might occur during the planning process.

The ambition to build 1.5 million homes is all well and good, but the Government have not yet set out exactly how they will do that. There are many questions about its deliverability, certainly in the context of the February S&P Global UK construction purchasing managers’ index, which described one of the biggest monthly falls in house building and construction on record. Indeed, the joint report from Savills, the Home Builders Federation and the National Housing Federation said that the Secretary of State would fall short of her target by 500,000 homes. The Government have not yet set out how many social or affordable homes they will deliver, or what measures they will put in place to help first-time buyers on to the housing ladder, particularly when they have scrapped Help to Buy and the stamp duty discounts, which helped 1 million young people to buy their first home.

[Mr Peter Bedford (Mid Leicestershire) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that housing targets mean little if the Government do not get a grip on immigration, which is causing massive demand for housing?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise that point. The increase in this country’s population is part of the reason why we have a rising need for housing, as well as for temporary accommodation. That all impacts on the system.

[Luke Murphy (Basingstoke) (Lab)]

The hon. Member talked about missed targets, and about affordability. In 2010, the first of 16 housing Ministers under the previous Conservative Government boldly claimed, as did many of his successors, that the Government would improve affordability of housing overall. While they were in power, affordability, as measured by the ratio between median house prices and wages, reduced from 6.85 to 7.7. Can he explain that failure to the House?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The hon. Gentleman fails to acknowledge that there were quite a few different housing Ministers during Labour’s previous tenure as well, but he makes an interesting and important point that I am happy to answer. Of course we want to build more houses to tackle affordability problems. I say that in relation to social housing, because during those 14 years, as well as delivering 2.5 million new homes, we delivered 750,000 affordable homes.

[Luke Murphy]

The point I was making was about outcomes. The previous Government committed to improving affordability and abjectly failed to do so. Can the hon. Member explain why?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

As I said, there is no question but that there are underlying problems in the marketplace. We delivered 1 million homes, which was our target, in the last Parliament, but of course we agree that supply and demand is part of the equation. It is not the only part, so we support the ambition to deliver more homes. We had a similar commitment in our manifesto, and there is a context for that within the overall framework for a higher target.

The Government must reflect on the fact that although the construction sector is an important part of the economy, it represents only around 6% of GDP. Growth in the other 94% has been killed stone dead by the twin human wrecking balls who are the Chancellor and the Deputy Prime Minister. Having inherited the fastest growing economy in the G7, the Chancellor proceeded to trash talk the economy recklessly for six months, before hitting it with £70 billion per annum of tax and borrowing. If that was not bad enough, the Deputy Prime Minister introduced the Employment Rights Bill—[Hon. Members: “Hooray!”] Wonderful. All Labour Members’ union supporters will applaud them for it. It will kill tens if not thousands of businesses, and potentially hundreds of thousands of jobs throughout our country.

[Chris Curtis (Milton Keynes North) (Lab)]

We have already heard comments from Conservative Members about cases where planning permission has been granted, but nothing has been built. Almost every developer I have spoken to during this Parliament has said that that has one cause. It took so long to get planning permission—the Bill is designed to fix that—and while developers sought it, Liz Truss crashed the economy. Consequently, we had an inflation crisis and costs skyrocketed. Before the hon. Gentleman comments on our economic record, will he apologise for his?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

That is absolute nonsense.

Talking of confidence, according to a monthly survey by the Institute of Directors, business confidence in this country has collapsed since Labour took over. A high of plus 5 in July last year has collapsed to a covid-level low of minus 65. The Deputy Prime Minister’s Government inflicted that on this country.

There is a complete absence of business experience in the Cabinet. Having killed economic growth in most of the productive economy, the Government now resemble a clueless gambler at the end of a disastrous night in the casino—they are staking everything on a last-gasp gamble on the property market.

From 2013 to 2023, we saw the highest sustained level of new home formations in the past 50 years, surpassing even the levels in the 1970s. Since 2010, we have delivered 2.5 million new homes and 750,000 affordable homes.

[Sir Gavin Williamson]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the increase in stamp duty that has been imposed on people creates a real challenge when it comes to encouraging more people to buy homes? If the Deputy Prime Minister could encourage the Chancellor to reconsider that, so that it is not so expensive to buy a new home, that would be an important reform.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. What have the Deputy Prime Minister and the Chancellor got against first-time buyers? We helped 1 million first-time buyers to get on the housing ladder through Help to Buy and discounts on stamp duty. The Government scrapped both those schemes.

[Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)]

Will the hon. Member reflect on the fact that although Help to Buy helped some people to purchase a new home, many others were priced out because of inflationary pressures and the exorbitant bonuses that were paid to the huge house building companies, which benefited the most from the scheme?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I do not disagree that there were some flaws in the scheme. Nevertheless, around 340,000 people made it on to the housing ladder through that process. They include people in my constituency and probably people in the hon. Member’s constituency.

We recognise the need to go further. That is why we commissioned work by Charles Banner KC on speeding up the planning and delivery of national infrastructure projects, and Nick Winser’s review on accelerating energy infrastructure. We are grateful to them for their work. When we compare their recommendations and others with the Bill, we believe that the Bill’s benefits have been significantly oversold. For example, on the infrastructure consenting process, measures to reduce decision times are welcome, but consideration should be given to removing specific critical projects, such as airports, reservoirs, nuclear power stations and national transport schemes from the judicial review process altogether. The nature restoration levy and environmental delivery plans to be delivered by Natural England could be welcome if they allow developers successfully to discharge the requirements of the habitats regulations, but there are key questions. What incentives are there for Natural England to set levies that are proportionate to the impact on the environment? Will they just become another tax and another deterrent to building?

[Barry Gardiner (Brent West) (Lab)]

The work done by the Conservative party on the NPPF was welcome, particularly in respect of its views on incorporating nature into the structure of the build, but it was unsuccessful. The hon. Gentleman will have heard my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister talk about a win-win for nature, so can he give the House an assurance that the Conservatives will back the implementation of measures such as swift bricks? Swifts are cavity-nesting birds that have no other place in this country and are declining at a great rate. Will he back the incorporation of those as a mandatory requirement in new builds?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I can guarantee that we will support measures that we think will be successful. The hon. Gentleman brings up some of the work we tried to do in the previous Parliament, some of which was successful. Other things were unsuccessful, including our solution on nutrient neutrality, which was blocked by his party by about 100 votes in the House of Lords. The impact of that particular measure is considered negligible. We want to ensure that where any levies are put in place by Natural England, if the impacts are considered negligible, they are also negligible for developers.

[Danny Kruger (East Wiltshire) (Con)]

I very much agree with what my hon. Friend is saying. Does he agree that more could be done to protect irreplaceable chalk stream habitats, particularly in the south of England? Does he also agree that one thing we could do is designate those chalk stream habitats to be irreplaceable and ensure that the Government specify clearly what permissions might be available there?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

We could talk with the Minister for Housing and Planning, the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) about making such amendments to the legislation as it passes through Committee.

I have other questions. Is Natural England sufficiently resourced to carry out its work? How long will it be before these plans are in place? Have the Government taken into account the inevitable delays due to judicial reviews of the environmental delivery plans? Is it not the case that the habitats regulations remain in place beneath this new system, so if a development does not show the overall improvement test for each identified environmental feature, as referenced in clause 55, the system will not apply and the developer will still need to build those bat tunnels and fish discos? Indeed, Sam Richards of Britain Remade states that it might set the bar even higher by requiring a net gain for that species. If an EDP covers one element of environmental impact but not others, the developer might have to pay into the levy and build the bat tunnel.

Have the Government also considered changes to section 20 of the Environment Act 2021, which this legislation is subject to? I am interested to hear the Minister’s reflections. Overall, we believe that it will take at least two to three years from Royal Assent for these EDPs to have meaningful effect. I am very happy to seek assurances from the Minister if that is not the case.

There are also understandable concerns about whether the route chosen will even deliver on its objective to protect the environment. The Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management has stated that the Government’s approach means that our natural capital assets will be destroyed immediately, and it could take decades for any improvement.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

As my hon. Friend rightly pointed out, nature can be effectively compensated for only in certain circumstances, but landscape can never be replaced: once it is gone, it is gone. Does he think there should be scope in this Bill to recognise the special status of protected landscapes—what are now called national landscapes or national parks—to ensure that development in those areas is appropriate and does not permanently damage our precious landscape for future generations?

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[Kevin Hollinrake]

My right hon. Friend raises a very important point. Constituencies such as his and mine that include those protected landscapes do not seem to have that considered or catered for in the housing targets, particularly the new ones that we have before us. Again, I am very keen to discuss with the Minister how we might address that.

On planning, we are very concerned about the national scheme of delegation, which will remove councillors’ right to vote on individual planning applications. If the Secretary of State does not believe that that is the case, I suggest that she reads clause 46 of her own legislation. This is particularly extraordinary considering that when Labour was in opposition, the former shadow Housing Minister said in a debate in this House on 21 June 2021 that the previous Government should

“protect the right of communities to object to individual planning applications.”—[Official Report, 21 June 2021; Vol. 697, c. 620.]

Clearly, the current Housing Minister is not doing that— he is doing the exact opposite through these rules—and he should be clear with the public about that, because sooner or later, that fact will hit home.

[The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)]

indicated dissent.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I am very happy to have a debate with the Housing Minister—he is welcome to intervene on me. I suggest that he reads clause 46 as well. Of course, it is also a fact that 14 Cabinet Ministers, including the Deputy Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and the Health Secretary, all campaigned to block housing developments in their own constituencies. What hypocrisy!

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

I have often found that the right of a councillor to insist that a matter goes to the planning committee, rather than be determined by officers, actually leads to the application going through where pettifogging officers would have refused it.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

It is right to say that the vast majority of applications are consented to by planning committees. Removing councillors’ right to vote on them is absolutely the wrong thing to do, and Labour must be honest with the public that that is exactly what is happening.

[Mr Richard Holden (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

That raises a broader point. At the moment, councils in parts of the country such as my constituency are being abolished by this Government, so there will be no democratic accountability down the line, and there will be no democratic accountability at council level through planning committees, either. They are removing layer after layer of protection for local communities such as mine, with huge amounts of green-belt land suddenly redesignated as grey-belt land, despite recently being high-grade agricultural land. Can my hon. Friend understand the concerns in communities such as mine about what these proposals are doing? They want to see more housing, but not at the expense of London seeing a housing target—

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[Kevin Hollinrake]

I am concerned about the points that my right hon. Friend has raised. The Government talk about abolishing a layer of government, but they are actually introducing a new layer of government: the strategic authorities, which will have the ability to push housing from urban areas into rural areas such as my right hon. Friend’s and those represented by other Members in this House.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I will give way a final time, and then I will make some progress, if I can.

[Gregory Stafford (Farnham and Bordon) (Con)]

On the environment, national parks are rightly protected, so when the Government impose housing targets on east Hampshire, all of that housing will have to go in the bits that are not part of the South Downs national park, increasing the housing pressures on what is essentially green-belt land but is not in the park. Would it not be better for this to be taken in its totality, and for the national park to be excluded from the figures?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I agree that, in order to be fair to areas that include protected landscapes and national parks, that should be a consideration.

The removal of powers from councillors will only become apparent to many residents when they see a green notice on a nearby telegraph pole and contact their local councillor to express their concern, only to be told, “I’m sorry, but I no longer have the power to ask for the application to be considered and voted on by the planning committee.” The Local Government Association itself strongly opposes these changes, saying that

“The democratic role of councillors in decision-making is the backbone of the English planning system, and this should not be diminished.”

We also have concerns that the imposition of strategic planning will be used as a vehicle to force rural authorities to absorb urban housing need. This is of particular concern in many rural areas, given the disproportionately high increases in targets for rural locations. The Secretary of State has increased the national target for house building by 50%, so the average rural resident might expect that their local housing target has increased by a similar amount, but that is not the case. According to the House of Commons Library, the targets for major urban conurbations are up by 17% on average, while the targets in mainly rural areas have increased by 115%. For example, London’s target is down by 12%, Newcastle’s is down by 15%, Birmingham’s is down by 38% and Coventry’s is down by 55%, while Wyre Forest and New Forest’s targets are up by 100% and Westmorland’s is up by almost 500%.

[Dr Luke Evans]

Leicestershire is a prime example of where these things are happening. The target for Leicester city—where the infrastructure and plenty of brownfield sites are—is reducing by 31%, yet places such as Hinckley and Bosworth and North West Leicestershire are going up by 59% and 75% respectively. That sticks in the throats of people who want to see houses, when such areas are suffering. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is simply not right?

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[Kevin Hollinrake]

It is totally unfair. In my view, it is cynical gerrymandering.

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

On the exact same point, in Walsall our housing target is going up by a staggering 27%, while Birmingham is going down. With all the trash in Birmingham—thanks to the Labour council—perhaps people do not want to live there, but does my hon. Friend accept that it is not just the rural communities that have been affected, but those that are peripheral to the cities?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

My right hon. Friend is right to express her concerns. What everyone wants to see is fairness. We would expect everybody to carry a fair share of the extra housing, but that is not what is happening. [Interruption.] Labour Members should go and have a word with the House of Commons Library if they do not agree. They can check the numbers out.

The fact that housing delivery provided by new towns will not contribute to the targets will shock many councillors and local residents alike. Neighbourhood plans do not have to be consistent with the NPPF; they merely have to “have regard to” it. Can the Deputy Prime Minister confirm whether that will be changed? There is nothing in Labour’s plans about adequately resourcing or having process reforms of the Planning Inspectorate, which is clearly a key part of the system. Why has she scrapped all the work we did on design codes to move away from identikit housing towards building more beautifully?

We welcome the greater emphasis on local plans, but we would like to see more ambitious requirements for sites to be made available for small builders and for self-build. Currently, it is a 10% requirement on local authorities, but we would like to see a 20% allocation, as requested by the Federation of Master Builders. We would also like to see Homes England’s remit extended to include micro-builders.

[Nesil Caliskan (Barking) (Lab)]

Does the shadow Minister recognise that, under the previous Government, communities were hindered in being able to shape proposed development by only a third of local authorities having up-to-date local plans?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I agree with that, and I made the same point from the Back Benches on many occasions, including about Labour-run York, which has just put a local plan in place for the first time since 1956.

There are understandable concerns that compulsory purchase orders are an extension of the Government’s attacks on farmers. Tim Bonner of the Countryside Alliance said that

“giving councils more power to reduce the value of land is a step too far, especially in the context of…the inheritance tax fiasco.”

The Deputy Prime Minister and her colleagues should heed the words of National Farmers Union vice-president Rachel Hallos, who said:

“This Bill comes at a time when the UK farming industry is under immense financial pressure due to the loss of direct payments, extreme weather and the impacts of the family farm tax. So, farmers and landowners must be fully consulted every step of the way.”

Can the Deputy Prime Minister confirm whether that will be the case?

The grey belt, which was sold to the public as a few abandoned garage forecourts, has now been exposed as the Trojan horse we predicted it would be. Although not directly part of this Bill, it clearly interacts directly with it. It has been described as a death knell for the green belt due to the removal of parts of the definitions and protections of villages. Villages can now merge together or into nearby towns.

To conclude, we will not oppose the passage of the Bill this evening, but we will seek to amend it in ways that do not undermine the ambition to accelerate the delivery of new homes while ensuring that there are checks and balances that protect communities, rural areas, farmers and the environment and that deliver well-designed, affordable homes for everyone, not least those on lower incomes and first-time buyers.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

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[Matthew Pennycook]

That is not the case, and there has been a huge amount of scaremongering when it comes to the provisions in the Bill that relate to planning committees. I will deal with that particular point in due course.

Among hon. Members who do support the main principles of the Bill, there were of course understandable differences of opinion. Some expressed their unequivocal support for each and every one of its provisions, others conveyed their broad support while arguing for specific changes to be made or further measures to be added, but all were in agreement that this legislation must progress if we are to streamline the delivery of new homes and critical infrastructure, as the House as a whole ostensibly asserts that we must. Therein lies the crux of the issue and the reason, I must say candidly, for the cant at the heart of some of the speeches that we have heard.

We can all profess in principle our support for the ends—doing so is, after all, risk free—but what matters is whether we are prepared in practice to also will the means. When it came to housing and infrastructure, the previous Government were not willing to do so, hence the dissonance in their final years between their stated commitment to building more homes and their decision in practice to recklessly abolish mandatory housing targets and thereby torpedo housing supply in a forlorn attempt to appease a disgruntled group of their anti-housing Back Benchers. Thankfully, this Labour Government are prepared to do what it takes to deliver the homes and the infrastructure our country needs. The Bill is transformative. It will fundamentally change how we build things in this country. In so doing, it will help us to tackle the housing crisis, raise living standards in every part of the country and deliver on our plan for change.

During the five hours we have debated the Bill, an extremely wide range of issues has been raised. I have heard all of them and I will seek to respond to as many in the time available to me, but I will not be able to cover all of them. I will therefore deal with the main themes and issues that have been raised in the course of the debate. I will begin, if I may, with the various points made in relation to nationally significant infrastructure.

Members made a variety of points covering issues such as national policy statements and judicial review, but most of the contributions focused in on the changes the Bill will make to consultation requirements for nationally significant infrastructure projects. As the House will be aware, the NSIP planning regime was established through the Planning Act 2008 to provide more certainty on the need for nationally significant projects. In its early years, the system worked well. However, its performance has sharply deteriorated in recent years, at a time when the need for it has increased dramatically.

In 2021, it took, on average, 4.2 years for a project to secure development consent, compared with 2.6 years in 2012. The documentation, as has been referred to by a number of hon. Members, underpinning consents has been getting longer and in too many instances now runs to tens of thousands of pages. Alongside an increase in legal challenges, uncertainty about meeting statutory requirements has led to greater risk aversion and gold plating throughout the whole process. The costs of delays obviously increase the costs of projects, and those costs are ultimately passed on to taxpayers for public infrastructure and bill payers or customers for private infrastructure.

The measures in the Bill will provide for a faster and more certain consenting process, stripping away unnecessary consultation requirements that do nothing to improve applications or meaningfully engage communities. They will, to use the phrase used by the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty), ensure that the NSIP regime is firing on all cylinders. I want to make it clear that the measures in the Bill are not the limit of our ambitions on streamlining the NSIP regime. In particular, I noted the calls from several hon. Members to consider addressing the significant elongation of pre-application periods resulting from the way in which statutory procedures are now being applied. This is an issue to which the Deputy Prime Minister and I have already given a significant amount of thought, and I commit to giving further consideration to the case for using the Bill to address statutory requirements that would appear to be no longer driving good outcomes. I can assure those hon. Members that the Government will not hesitate to act boldly if there is a compelling case for reform in this area.

Many hon. Members touched on the nature restoration fund. We are fully committed to making sure development contributes to nature’s recovery, delivering a win-win for nature and the economy. We will be taking three steps to deliver on our new approach. First, responsibility for identifying actions to address environmental impacts will be moved away from multiple project-specific assessments in an area to a single strategic assessment and delivery plan. Secondly, more responsibility for planning and implementing strategic actions will be moved on to the state, delivered through organisations with the right expertise and the necessary flexibility to take actions that most effectively deliver positive outcomes for nature. Thirdly, we will allow impacts to be dealt with strategically in exchange for a financial payment, so development can proceed more quickly. Project-level assessments are then limited only to those harms not dealt with strategically.

To those hon. Members who raised concerns that the provisions will have the effect of reducing the level of environmental protection of existing environmental law, I assure them that that is not the case, something attested to by the section 20 statement on the face of the Bill in the name of the Deputy Prime Minister. Our reforms are built around delivering overall positive outcomes for protected sites and species, and are the result of significant engagement across the development sector, environmental groups and nature service providers. That is why, at the Bill’s introduction, we saw a range of voices welcoming the new approach it brings to unlocking a win-win for development and nature.

The shadow Secretary of State raised concerns about how quickly we will be able to implement environmental delivery plans. We are confident we can get EDPs in place fast. That is why we have been clear that we want to see the first EDPs prepared alongside the Bill and operational for developers to use shortly after Royal Assent. We are also looking for opportunities to provide up-front funding so that we can kick off action in advance of need, with costs recovered as development comes forward, which will allow us to get shovels in the ground and unlock homes and infrastructure more quickly.

Lastly, the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay) raised concerns about the CPO powers given to Natural England. If we are going to be successful in delivering a win-win for nature and the economy through the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, it is vital that Natural England has sufficient powers to deliver the conservation measures required. Compulsory purchase is just one tool, and we would expect Natural England to consider using such powers as a last resort, subject to appropriate scrutiny and oversight, including ultimate authorisation by the Secretary of State.

More broadly, the nature restoration fund will provide opportunities for landowners to work with Natural England to drive nature recovery, improving our green spaces for generations to come. I say to the right hon. Gentleman that this is not a radical change. Many public bodies with statutory powers have compulsory purchase powers, including local authorities and—as he of all people should be aware—health service bodies, as well as some executive agencies, such as Homes England.

I want to touch on planning committees before concluding. Several hon. Members raised concerns over our plan to modernise them; indeed, some suggested that our reforms are tantamount to removing democratic control from local people. That is simply not the case. The shadow Secretary of State asserted that residents would lose the opportunity to object to a planning application, which is incorrect. People will still be able to object to individual applications in the way they can now.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

How is what the Minister is saying consistent with what he said on the Floor of the House on 9 December, when he said:

“the changes are designed to… focus the time of elected councillors on the most significant or controversial applications”—[Official Report, 9 December 2024; Vol. 758, c. 673.]—

which he is going to dictate? Will he, at the very least, publish his draft regulations on what he intends through clause 46 alongside the passage of the Bill?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I will address that specific point in due course. The proposals are entirely consistent; we do want to make changes to where planning committees can determine decisions, but local residents will be able to object to applications in every instance, as they can now.

Planning is principally a local activity, and this Government have made clear at every available opportunity that the plan-led approach is and must remain the cornerstone of the planning system. Local plans are the best ways for communities to shape decisions about how to deliver the housing and wider development their areas need.