Labour pledges to ‘bulldoze’ through planning system

Sir Keir Starmer has pledged to build 1.5m homes, unlock brownfield sites and create a new generation of new towns by “bulldozing” through the planning system. In his Labour Party Conference speech, the party leader said he would take on the planning system, which he described as “the obstacle to the aspirations of millions”. “We must bulldoze through it,” he told a packed auditorium in Liverpool. “Today we launch a new plan to get Britain building again,” he said. Putting planning reform at the heart of Labour’s “new approach to politics – mission government”, Starmer said “getting Britain building was critical for economic growth” and a way to soften the “hard road” of the climate and cost-of-living crises. “There is no magic wand here,” he said, “but a decade of national renewal, that’s what it takes”. With a reference to the prime minister’s volte-face on climate change and HS2, he said his government would not seek the easy answer but “the hope of the hard road”. Starmer said the party would go back to “an old Labour idea” that was right for modern times and launch a new generation of new towns. He said new development corporations would be set up where they were wanted and needed, “with the power to remove the blockages”. He outlined a rethink of the green belt that would allow development “where there are clearly ridiculous uses of it”, such as car parks and derelict sites, which he dubbed “not a green belt, but a grey belt”. “This doesn’t mean we are tearing up the green belt,” he said. “We created the green belt in the first place. But where there are clearly ridiculous uses of it… we will take this fight on.” Starmer said investment and restructuring of the national grid would make it “faster, much faster”, while towns would be made “more beautiful”. He also pledged a new generation of technical colleges, which would be built in areas most aligned with those industries, and putting Scotland at the heart of a new green economy. And he confirmed investment would be lead by a new national wealth fund – “Not state control, not free markets, but a genuine partnership with business”. “People are looking to us because they want us to build a new Britain,” he said. “And we are the builders.” To send feedback, e-mail piers.wehner@eg.co.uk or tweet @PiersWehner or @EGPropertyNews Image © ADAM VAUGHAN/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock