Cllr Adam Hug

• WESTMINSTER Labour has called on the leadership of the city council to work with them to build a cross-party campaign to oppose proposals to effectively privatise key areas of planning policy while taking decisions on key developments out of local control to unelected bodies answerable to the government.

The Sunday Times wrote that local government secretary [Robert] “…Jenrick and [Boris] Johnson’s senior aide, Dominic Cummings, have set up a panel of experts to advise on radical reforms of planning laws that will hand control of decisions from local councils to development corporations owned by the government”.

Reports also suggest that they are going to give businesses “complete flexibility” over change of use, enabling property owners to switch between retail, residential, hospitality, office and other use classes without any local oversight or input from residents.

I have written to the Westminster Council leadership calling on them to publicly oppose this proposed power-grab by central government.

These proposals could give carte blanche for property owners and developers to ignore local needs and do whatever they want, harming communities and undermining efforts to make them help deliver social housing and other priories for our city.

We believe these proposals take us in completely the wrong direction. Instead of centralising planning decisions in Whitehall, we should be giving more power to local communities to decide what gets built in their area.

The trade-offs between growth and sustainability are best decided locally.

CLLR ADAM HUG
Leader, Westminster Labour Group