The housing department has written to the head of the country’s planning body telling it that local planners must show development “flexibility” in their plans and formally revoked their green belt restrictions.  

“The current system of local plan making is too slow and cumbersome,” wrote housing minister Matthew Pennycook (pictured) in a letter to Planning Inspectorate chief executive Paul Morrison yesterday.

This government body is responsible for the enforcement of appeals and holding inquiries into local development plans.  

The letter comes as local planning bodies prepare development plans for the next five years, and as the government pushes ahead with its target to build 1.5 million homes by the next election. 

Pennycook said: “That is why we are committed to introducing a new model of local plan development that enables better, shorter plans to be produced faster.  

“We intend to publish the regulations and guidance that will underpin that model later this year, and I know that you share my determination that the Planning Inspectorate work alongside and support local planning authorities to ensure good plans are put in place as efficiently as possible.” 

The minister added that these plans “provide the necessary certainty and confidence for the sector to bring forward the development required across the country”. 

But Pennycook added that ahead of the “new plan-making system” coming into force, it is “critical that inspectors approach examinations of current system plans with the appropriate degree of flexibility”. 

The minister added that the passage of the government’s Planning and Infrastructure Bill would help push housing and infrastructure projects forward.

This Bill cleared its third reading in the House of Commons in June and will move to the report stage in the House of Lords on 20 October.

The housing department hopes that the Bill, once passed, will sweep away a series of planning restrictions that will kickstart housebuilding in the second half of this Parliament. 

Pennycook also revoked green belt restrictions for local planners that have stood for more than a decade in a bid to boost development, a commitment set out by Labour in its election manifesto last June.

He said: “While it is the role of strategic policy-making authorities to decide to review green belt boundaries where they are unable to meet development needs, I am revoking the letter issued in March 2014 by the then minister Nick Boles.

“This is to ensure that planning inspectors can fully play their part in helping to give local plans the best chance of being found sound.  

“This provides planning inspectors, where necessary, with the option to recommend as part of the examination that a green belt review is undertaken to consider whether additional sites could be identified, in line with national policy, to meet development needs.” 

In that 2014 instruction to planning inspectors, coalition housing minister Nick Boles said his administration was “reaffirming green belt protection, noting that unmet housing need is unlikely to outweigh harm to the green belt”. 

Last month, total construction output was estimated to have grown by 0.6% in the three months to July, according to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics. 

Private housing work saw a slight increase from £3.36bn for June to £3.39bn for July. And total housing work, including public housing, saw a moderate increase from £3.77bn to £3.81bn.