Labour’s war on nimbys won’t work

Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner has promised the ‘most ambitious programme of devolution this country has ever seen’, with new powers for local councils and more directly-elected mayors. But this will not apply, it seems, when it comes to planning. On the contrary, the centrepiece of the King’s speech today will be planning reforms aimed at reducing the powers of local communities to block housing and infrastructure developments. Powers will be centralised, with central government taking it upon itself to rule on more housing and infrastructure projects deemed to be in the national interest – just as Energy Secretary Ed Miliband did last week when he approved three large solar farms in Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and Lincolnshire. 

So much for ‘devolution’. One of the solar projects, Sunnica, near Newmarket, was not only opposed by local councils, it had also been recommended for rejection by the Planning Inspectorate, the government’s Bristol-based national planning quango.