The Lead Untangles: Planning reforms
New planning rules have sparked claims that councils will no longer be able to block HMOs, but the reality is more complicated
Long awaited planning reforms — published at the start of the month — will speed up decisions on housing schemes and other forms of development by delegating nearly all decisions to planning officers.
The new regulations and statutory guidance will severely restrict the ability of local authorities to decide whether elected councillors or unelected officers should make decisions on planning.
The government believes planning reform is essential as it struggles on its way to a target of delivering 1.5 million new homes over this Parliament and backs “the builders, not the blockers”.
But critics say further delegation of planning powers reduces democratic oversight by sidelining the role of local elected representatives, setting the scene for a political row.
Reform UK politicians locally have immediately moved to suggest the changes will result in local councils being unable to block HMOs.
We’ll unpick how much truth there is to that.
The current system
Currently, local planning authorities have their own system of deciding how planning consent matters are split between planning officers and elected members sitting on planning committees.
According to the Local Government Association (LGA), whether to refer decisions to the planning committee can be influenced by a number of factors, including the level of interest from local residents, whether the matter is contentious or differs from council policies, and its impact on the local community.
Wirral Council, for example, publishes its system on its website, where it includes applications for large-scale major developments and applications attracting petitions of objection of more than 25 signatories or 15 individual written objections as ones needing to be decided by committee. But the LGA says many councils merely include details in the body of its constitution, making them difficult to access.
In addition, ward councillors have call-in powers allowing them to step in and divert a decision from officers to the planning committee where they have a specific planning concern.
What’s changing
The government’s aim with the new regulations is to ensure there is “greater clarity and consistency” about planning decision making, by dividing all planning applications into two schedules, which all local planning authorities are expected to follow.
Applying to all authorities except development corporations, the Homes and Communities Agency, national park authorities and the Broads Authority, the guidance says planning committees should focus on the “key proposals that matter to an area”, with the rest made by planning officers.
Schedule 1 matters must be delegated to officers. They include householder development, minor commercial development and residential development of up to nine dwellings.
Schedule 2 functions include large outline planning permissions, applications concerning listed buildings and tree preservation orders. The “over-riding presumption” is that these will be delegated to officers, but exceptions can be made to refer to planning committee if a nominated officer and a nominated member of the planning committee agree the application meets certain criteria, most notably if it “raises an economic, social or environmental issue of significance to the local area”.
The regulations also reduce the size of planning committees to no more than 13 members and require mandatory training for them.
The politics
Housing minister Matthew Pennycook insists he recognises the vital role planning committees play in ensuring decisions are shaped by local residents and communities but that significant variation across the country creates “risk and uncertainty” in the system.
The new delegation scheme will create “greater consistency and certainty”, he says.
Property industry figures agree. Estate agent Savills says the changes “should in many cases provide greater certainty over their route to a decision and potentially reduce delays”.
The Home Builders Federation welcomes the new two-tier approach but argues it does not go far enough in delegating even more applications to officers, meaning it will “fail to have the transformative impact on decision making timescales that it has potential to do”.
The Royal Institute of British Architects and the British Property Federation are also in support.
The LGA is among critics, warning of the “potential erosion of local democracy and the limited flexibility created by a highly standardised national scheme of delegation”.
The Town and Country Planning Association says there is no systematic evidence that the current system is in need of radical reform. “We should make no mistake that the effect of these new regulations is to silence community voices in decisions,” says TCPA director of policy Hugh Ellis.
The new system may also fuel anti-migrant sentiment over the flashpoint issue of houses in multiple occupation (HMOs). Many asylum seekers already live in HMOs and that number is set to grow as the government tries to move more out of hotels.
Reform UK councillors on Preston City Council and Lancashire County Council are among those who have complained that Labour’s changes mean local elected representatives will no longer be able to block HMOs.
“The Labour government knows Reform councillors like me will continue to oppose problematic HMOs, so now they’re forcing the decision through unelected council officers and relying on them to blindly approve,” says Rob Walsh, who sits on Preston Council.
Labour politicians deny the claims about HMOs. Portsmouth Labour councillor Graham Heaney accused critics of “scaremongering” and “exaggeration”, insisting the council had “one of the strongest HMO policies of any local authorities in the country”.
Labour-controlled Bolton Council says as many as 35 proposals have been turned down since June 2025 when it introduced rules that all plans for new HMOs for three or more people require full planning permission. Councillor Sean Fielding blamed Conservative deregulation for a proliferation of HMOs.
Local authorities including Warrington, St Helens and Preston are among those considering similar moves to Bolton to limit HMOs.
Indeed, Preston City Council implements strict planning controls already across its main urban area to tightly manage and restrict new HMOs. This means the authority has more - not less - control over this type of accommodation.
Reform UK is making clear efforts to frame HMOs as an immigration issue - and one that they can therefore take ownership of. But in Preston, Labour councillors know that there are too many HMOs, describing the supply as “more than are necessary to meet local needs.”
What people are saying
A Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government spokesperson said: “This will speed up decisions and ensure they are being taken at the right level so we can get Britain building again.”
Conservative former shadow housing secretary Kevin Hollinrake said: “The democratic role of councillors in decision-making is the backbone of the English planning system, and this should not be diminished.”
What happens next
It’s not clear the changes will have much impact other than as a government statement of intent. Already 96 per cent of decisions are taken by planning officers.
The role of the nominated member in determining whether Schedule 2 applications can be referred to a planning committee – and the vague language of referral criteria – hold open the possibility of democratic oversight, even if diminished.
“If the nominated member strongly believes that one of the criteria applies, it is difficult to see how the nominated officer could resist referring the matter,” write Chrisa Tsompani and Nigel Hewitson, partners at law firm Davitt Jones Bould.”
That applies to HMOs of more than nine dwellings as much as any other contentious development, and they can also be challenged through the licensing process. And HMOs of fewer than nine dwellings were already delegated to officers anyway, not the preserve of councillors.
The abolition of councillor call-in powers, however, will remain a source of frustration at a local level.■
About the author: Kevin Gopal is a Manchester-based journalist who has returned to freelancing after editing Big Issue North from 2007 until its closure in 2023.
About The Lead Untangles: In an era where misinformation is actively and deliberately used by elected politicians and where advocates and opposers of beliefs state their point of view as fact, sometimes the most useful tool reporters have is to help readers make sense of the world. If there is something you’d like us to untangle, email ella@thelead.uk.
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