Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of the Planning White Paper’s proposals to end the statutory requirement to advertise planning notices in local newspapers on the income generated by those local publications.

The Planning for the Future Consultation was published on 6 August and sets out proposals for comprehensive reform to the English planning system. This package proposes significant changes to both the focus and processes of planning – to secure better outcomes in terms of land for homes, beauty and environmental quality, as well as processes which give greater certainty and speed for communities, councils and developers. At the heart of these reforms is a need to make the planning system simpler, quicker and more accessible for local people.

The use of digital tools is important to be able to standardise and improve the user interface where local people seek to engage in the planning system. It is not a replacement for engagement but is a tool to make this engagement more transparent and more accessible to all parts of communities across England. This is particularly the case for publicity of planning applications where we want to see greater digital coverage, and we will be exploring the best way of doing that as we develop our proposals over the next year. In doing so, we recognise the importance of local newspapers to communities and that there will continue to be a need to reach out to people who cannot digitally access information.