Shadow Housing Minister Kevin Hollinlake (main image) warns that attempts to move workers away from councillors and take more power from experienced local planning officers backfire.
During an interview with a news website for the in-home social housing sector at MIPIM Gathering in Cannes, Hollinrake widely welcomed most of the measures in the plan and infrastructure bill currently passing through Congress, but warned that it would “publicly move local government democratic accountability.” 
Hollinrake, who founded the Hunters Estate Agency Chain in 1992 and serves as Tory MP for Thirsk and Malton in North Yorkshire since 2015, will refer to the legislative worker's plan to remove councillors from planning decisions on small housing developments, excluding later stages of the development journey, but local councillors have made local plans.
Nevertheless, he said inside the home: “Technocracy sounds like a good idea, and while we just make these decisions, limiting councillors overseeing local planning decisions to local planning will create a lot of problems for local people.
Repulsion
“You'll see a backlash over time as people realize they don't affect planning applications through local councillors.”
Propertymark states similar points. “The key is that local knowledge will be effectively utilized and local democracy will be fully considered and strengthened when it comes to planning decisions.”
The Local Government Association agrees, pointing out that 96% of planning applications have already been decided by officers and 90% of applications have been approved, and that the decline in the role of democracy in the planning process is not proportional to the issue, and that enforcing land supplies and home builders to take action to build more homes is a more important issue.
Read the interf in full.
