Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, which local planning authorities do not have an adopted local development framework in place.

The Localism Act helped abolish the Labour Government’s top-down Regional Strategies and strengthened the role of Local Plans (complemented by neighbourhood planning) in determining where new development should and should not go. Our locally-led planning system now asks councils to have up-to-date plans in place, for elected councillors to take decisions, sometimes challenging, in consultation with local residents.

We have provided support for all local authorities in plan-making, both directly and in conjunction with the Planning Inspectorate and Planning Advisory Service. This includes engagement from expert officials to support authorities in resolving challenging issues and preparing effectively for examination, and by providing direct support on technical matters via the Planning Advisory Service.

The National Planning Policy Framework strongly encourages all areas to get Local Plans in place quickly as the best way of determining what development is appropriate and where; councils with a Local Plan are in a strong position to stop unwanted speculative development.

Plan production has increased significantly since 2010: 79% of local authorities have now published a Local Plan, and 59% have an adopted Local Plan. In addition, there are high numbers of Plans at examination. A breakdown by local authority can be found online at:

www.planningportal.gov.uk/planning/planningsystem/localplans

To place this in context, six years after the Labour Government's 2004 Planning Act, by May 2010, only one in six local planning authorities had an adopted Core Strategy, reflecting how the torturous regional planning process slowed down development and stymied local plan-making and local decision-making.