Planning committees can be bypassed to speed up house building.

The Government will be given the power to bypass council planning committees in England under plans to make it easier to build new homes.

Officials will be allowed to speed up the process by rubber-stamping proposals that comply with existing council strategies without seeking committee approval.

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner said the planning process was acting as a “drag anchor” aimed at providing more housing and vowed to bring about a “scrutinizing overhaul” of the local committee system.

Housebuilders welcomed the widespread paving, but councils said a better way was to give them more resources.

A Conservative spokesman said the government’s plans were “no more than a list of empty promises that will do nothing to ensure Britain gets the housing it needs”.

Earlier this week, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer repeated his pledge to build 1.5 million new homes by 2029 despite admitting this may be “a bit too ambitious”.

The accelerated planning process will apply to housing proposals and related infrastructure such as schools, if they have already been broadly agreed as part of local development plans where councils have developed land-use strategies in their areas. Practice sets.

If the proposals “comply” with those plans, the government said, they could “completely bypass planning committees to deal with chronic uncertainty, unacceptable delays and unnecessary wastage of time and resources”. .

Rayner said building more homes and infrastructure meant “unblocking the closed system of planning that serves to stifle growth”.

“Building 1.5 million homes over five years means tackling the housing crisis we inherited with bold action,” he added.

According to government planning statisticsbetween January and March 2024 only 19% of major applications were determined within the statutory 13-week period and only 38% of minor applications were determined within the eight-week period.

A push for more homes could be popular with voters struggling to get on the housing ladder.

But even smaller housing projects are often opposed by nearby residents for a variety of reasons, including concerns about the impact on local schools, doctors, roads and parking.

Taking away the power to stop development from local people by making a case to the planning committee can cause a political backlash, especially in rural areas.

Labor has already angered farmers by bringing agricultural land under inheritance tax, and needs support outside the cities if it is to retain political power.

The Local Government Association (LGA) said that, in addition to being responsible for delays in planning for housing, the 1 million proposed houses had actually been agreed in principle by councils in their local strategies but The developers did not take the project forward.

Councilor Adam Hugh, housing spokesman for the Association representing councils, said local authorities and communities “need to be full partners together to tackle the housing crisis”.

He added that this “can be achieved by supporting new development with the infrastructure that communities need to thrive and proper consultation and engagement to help ensure local people are able to benefit.” can be found”.

The Home Builders Federation (HBF) said that while “democratic involvement and planning oversight” was a “key element of the process”, it “can be very frustrating for applicants to repeatedly debate the principle of development”.

The Housing Ministry also hopes to streamline the strategic planning process and introduce better training requirements for members of planning committees. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill will be tabled next month.

Many in local government and the housebuilding industry believe the now-mandated target of 1.5 million new homes by 2029 will be impossible to meet.

A Conservative spokesman said the government had “set a housebuilding ‘target’ which the OBR has already said it cannot achieve because of its budget”.

HBF agreed with the LGA that councils needed more planning resources and called for more financial support for young home buyers.

Kate Henderson, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, told the BBC the reforms were needed to tackle the “huge challenge” of meeting the government’s “truly ambitious” home building target.

He said local authorities “have to plan for population now and for population in the future”, and called on the Government to facilitate coordination across council areas to ensure housing Social and affordable housing should be provided as part of any growth in construction.

Next week the government will announce further reforms by updating England’s planning rulebook, the National Planning Policy Framework.