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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that local residents are consulted on planning decisions in their community.

Local planning authorities are required to undertake a formal period of public consultation of no fewer than 21 days on a planning application prior to its determination. Effective consultation allows local planning authorities to identify and consider all relevant planning issues associated with a proposed development. Consultees, particularly those living near to the site in question, may offer particular views or detailed information relevant to the consideration of an application. Where relevant considerations are raised by local residents, these must be taken into account by the local authority as the decision taker in the first instance.

The planning reforms set out in the Planning for the Future White paper will make it simpler, quicker and more accessible for local people to engage with the planning system. The best way to bring forward new, significant development is by improving community engagement and input at an earlier stage in the planning process. At the plan making stage, people will have the opportunity to comment on local plans and deciding where proposed development should go.

By making the plan-making system focus on the big issues that really matter (what to build where, what must not be built on at all) and making all the processes and assessments easy to understand and engage with, we are giving local people a hugely improved and much greater opportunity to shape the future of their communities. Couple that with digitalisation and we really are bringing people into planning rather than leaving them outside, bewildered by the opaque rules and technical language of the current system.

For planning applications that fall outside the remit of the local plan, or vary from it, there will be a continuing role for the existing planning application process and the public engagement that comes with it, which will be enhanced by new digital tools. Full planning applications will still be required in the usual way in these cases.