District councils warn over ‘exclusion’ from government’s strategic planning proposals

“We remain committed to ensuring universal coverage of up-to-date local plans as quickly as possible. The production of SDSs should not be used as a reason to delay the preparation of local plans.”

However, there is no requirement for district councils to be represented on the new boards, according to the District Councils’ Network (DCN).

The organisation pointed out that as planning authorities with statutory responsibility, district councils take the majority of decisions on planning applications.

Richard Wright, chair of the DCN, said: “It defies common sense to exclude planning authorities, with their longstanding local expertise and knowledge, from a full role in strategic planning.

“In some places it could lead to the bizarre outcome that strategic planning boards include no planning authorities.”

Mr Wright said the DCN overall supported the reintroduction of strategic planning. The concept of regional spatial strategies was scrapped by the coalition government in 2010.

He warned there would be a danger that “top-down decision-making” would mean local people are cut out from “important decisions”.

The County Councils Network (CCN) described Mr Pennycook’s announcement as an “important milestone” in the return of strategic planning.

Andrew Husband, housing and planning spokesperson for the CCN, said: “Many CCN members have put in a significant effort with neighbouring local authorities to ‘lock in’ their strategic planning geographies and are ‘ready to go’ to implement these new spatial development strategies once the relevant legislation enables them.”

The latest changes come amid separate plans for the biggest reorganisation of English councils in 50 years, which will see many councils merge to form new unitary councils. However, final decisions on council boundaries have yet to be made and the changes are not expected to be fully implemented until April 2028.

Mr Husband added: “For those places where discussions and geographies have proved to be more complex, it is important that the government is opening the process up for consultation, rather than imposing a top-down approach.”

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has been contacted for comment.

Mr Pennycook has also announced the launch of a consultation on the geography for SDSs.

He said: “The consultation identifies a number of groupings where we understand that there is a degree of broad agreement about the principle of working together, and in these areas we propose an SDS geography.

“In other areas where such agreement is tenuous or lacking entirely, we are inviting proposals to help inform final decisions.”