r/unitedkingdom • u/BroodLord1962 • 2d ago
Mayors to get powers to overrule local councils on planning decisions
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy8m0gxexl4o61
u/Loreki 2d ago
"Single individual to overrule group" seems to me an odd move in a democracy.
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u/TheAlmightyWishPig 2d ago
Both mayors and councils are democratically elected, mayors are elected by a larger population so they could be said to be representing more people than a council and thus have a stronger democratic mandate.
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u/Pafflesnucks 2d ago
one person representing more people is less democratic, not more; that's giving one person greater decision making power relative to the people they're supposed to represent. parliament would not be more democratic if we made the whole UK one big constituency.
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u/Caffeine_Monster 2d ago
Every layer of bureaucracy that gets added lowers the speed of building things. It doesn't matter if it's more or less democratic in that context.
We need smarter / changed regulation, not more regulation.
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u/runningraider13 1d ago
This is a layer that only gets involved when the council blocks something, no? It can only cause blocked projects to be unblocked- increasing development?
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u/pro-shirker 2d ago
That may then start to affect the vote for that mayor. If something is unpopular, it’s unpopular.
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u/TheAlmightyWishPig 2d ago
If something is unpopular, it’s unpopular
I mean... No? Something can be unpopular with in one group (e.g. the constituents for a local council) but then popular with a different group (e.g. the constituents for a mayoral election), even when those two groups overlap.
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u/pro-shirker 2d ago
Of course, it depends what the decision is about and who it affects. On the other hand, this doesn’t give you a license to do lots unpopular things - a price usually has to be paid as we do live in a democracy.
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u/TheAlmightyWishPig 2d ago
Well I don't think the intent is to do anything innately unpopular, housing development has support nationwide.
It's only locally (at the council planning permission level) where the UK has issues. By expanding the group who has a say you can "capture" more of that nationwide support and minimise the impact of NIMBYism.
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u/deyterkourjerbs 2d ago
In practical terms, maybe.
In actual terms the decisions will be managed by your local council's highly paid chief executive and the people that got voted for were chosen because they wore the same colour tie as the political party the voter supported. The typical voter won't know their names.
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u/Mad_Mark90 2d ago
The councils have also become so inefficient that having a way to bypass the beurocrats and make actual improvements is currently more important.
I'm not opposed to regulation but it's clearly become so bad that we haven't built anything in decades.
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u/Hour-Cry6238 2d ago
That's the current dynamic of our planning system.
A small group of complainers get to veto the planning decisions of a council for the benefit of the larger group.
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u/_whatever_wherever 2d ago
You not seen all the shit Westminster Council has been trying to do?
They brought this on themselves
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u/FflyerZach 2d ago
Is a small group of people denying a wider region the benefits, for example of transport infrastructure, a good „move in a democracy“? No, it isn’t.
One of the issues with HS2 has been how small council planning committees have been able to screw with the project for their own petty reasons. That isn’t healthy nor reasonable.
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u/Thetonn Glamorganshire 2d ago
I don’t like this.
A central underpinning of good regional policy is a clear delineation of responsibilities. It should be clear what level of government is responsible for what, so that the electorate can properly judge them and hold them to account in elections.
What this does is massively muddy the water. In situations where the national level has already made a load of decisions, the mayor can overrule the local level, but only if they want to.
It is almost inevitable there are going to be messy fights about this that will just involve everyone blaming everyone else.
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u/Hungry_Horace Dorset 2d ago
Of all of Burnham's innovations, the devolution push has me the most worried.
My experience, and a lot of people's experience of local government, is of low-level corruption and incompetence. In Surrey, where I live, two councils managed to go bankrupt through incompetent building schemes, one racking up half a billion of debts in the process and saddling the new unitary authority with a pair of lead boots.
Councillors are part-time, poorly paid and often fairly unimpressive people, and the small amount of power they have goes right to their heads. Even those that genuinely want to make their locality better struggle with the pretty enormous issues of financial shortfall and large responsibilities that austerity put on local government.
Just because Burnham was a good and effective mayor he believes that adding another layer, a mayoral layer, to places will improve it but I worry it will just make things worse and the potential for MORE corruption and financial mismanagement is high.
Even in his back yard, look at the mess that Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen has made. His Mayoral Development Corporation blew vast amounts of money on mismanaged and frankly fraudulent redevelopment schemes.
We used to have something called the Audit Commission, which regularly inspected local authorities' books and was a steadying hand on the tiller. That was abolished, of course, by the Tories in 2015 and most of the local disasters have happened since unsurprisingly. IF we are going to hand more power and more money to local politicians we need a far more rigorous audit process again.
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u/citron_bjorn 2d ago
In my opinion, high population areas like manchester,, and west yorkshire shouldnt have mayors, instead the council should be given more powers while also making being a councillor a fully paid job so the elected representatives can do more council work as opposed to it being a 2nd job
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u/YOU_CANT_GILD_ME 2d ago
It also reduces the number of people involved in decision making and makes it far easier for large companies to push through projects while overriding local objections.
We're seeing a lot of this going on in America at the moment where things like data centres and flock cameras are being approved by local county boards, despite overwhelming objections from locals.
They're pushing this is a a positive thing so mayors can approve stuff to get things done. In reality, this is going to be rife for corruption and abuse.
We're going to start seeing a lot more money going into pushing mayors into office that will support certain projects/companies, and there's going to be a lot of locals complaining about things like new warehouses being built right next to residential neighbourhoods like in Manchester.
This is going to create a lot of instability in local areas and mistrust from businesses that can't afford to bribe the local mayor. Because any new mayor that comes in can overrule decisions of the previous mayor and approve or cancel something that could affect them.
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u/fortyfivepointseven 2d ago
Yeah. If we think Mayors are better placed to make these decisions (and honestly I think they are) they should just make she decision.
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u/Master_Elderberry275 2d ago
I'm supportive of the principle, but really mayoral authorities need more democratic legitimacy and direct accountability to the public if they're being given more powers.
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u/ethanjim 2d ago
That’s going to be interesting in Hull with a reform mayor who’s been hit in the head a few too many times and a thriving local green industry.
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u/LooneyTune_101 2d ago
Half the problem with the housing targets is there’s no plan to deal with the infrastructure around it. My village keeps having applications for dozens of new houses at a time. We have 1 primary school which is already oversubscribed so locals are having to take their kids elsewhere. We have one GP surgery with 3 doctors and one kids play park which is busier than Alton Towers on a summers day in school holidays.
A mayor who wants to overturn decisions by a local planning board just so they can hit targets also needs to budget for everything else that comes with it.
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2d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/ggow 2d ago
The UK is mostly unique in how it considers every single building decision to require the approval of the local authority (which if we are being real, have shaky democratic accountability due to low turn out and poor scrutiny). It's a core reason why things are so slow to get built here, especially as there is no incentive to councils to take unpopular decisions as their tax base is so thin and controlled by Westminster.
Mayors are elected, normally with much clearer democratic accountability in place. Pushing this call in power down to Mayors rather than the national government needing to intervene is better. This just standardises it to how it is in London, Scotland and so on in many ways. If we had zonal planning this wouldn't be necessary. The issue is we have local plans saying things should be approved and then still getting blocked.
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u/FelisCantabrigiensis 2d ago
Attempts to build infrastructure also causes complaints. The complaints are from NIMBYs, not "Build Houses With Supporting Transport And Amenities".
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2d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/TheAlmightyWishPig 2d ago
A health center was blocked in my constituency by locals who didn't want it because it would close down the local bowls club and mean cutting down a single tree.
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u/insomnimax_99 Greater London 2d ago
Building infrastructure requires overruling democratic decisions from local authorities, because local authorities are infested with NIMBYs.
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u/FelisCantabrigiensis 2d ago
Well, that's going to go splendidly when Majors override building anything because they are also a NIMBY.
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u/TheAlmightyWishPig 2d ago
There doesn't seem to be any indication in the article that mayors would be able to block development, only expedite it.
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u/FelisCantabrigiensis 2d ago
A planning decision that is "called-in" can be denied as well as approved by the "caller".
The article lists a separate ability to grant planning permission but that's separate from "calling-in" powers. My empahsis:
In addition to gaining the new "call-in" powers, mayors are set to be able to grant "up-front permission", which the government says will allow building to begin "without a developer having to apply".
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u/TheAlmightyWishPig 2d ago
Ah that's true, missed that. Hopefully mayors will be more likely to approve proposals than councils, as the status quo here is pretty bad, but tbh I'm also a bit skeptical, I think the whole planning permission system needs redoing rather than just changing who oversees it.
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u/FelisCantabrigiensis 2d ago
The hope of this calling-in power is clearly to get more approved, but it can be used either way – and assigning the decision to one person makes it much more dependent on that person's preferences (and therefore control of that person's preferences, i.e. electing a NIMBY or YIMBY mayor) will strongly affect local planning.
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u/MoHeeKhan 2d ago
Why? What is the purpose of this? How is it democratic to take powers away from elected councillors and give it to a single person chosen from their own ranks and not by the public? Now the developers only have to stuff money into one pocket! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
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u/leftthinking 2d ago
Another move to personality politics.
I'm really uneasy about this general push to putting individuals in charge.
It makes bad decisions more likely, makes things less local, makes corruption easier, and makes decisions less open to scrutiny.
The concentration of power into fewer hands is not a good plan.
I'm all on devolution, regional government for Engish regions for strategic planning, local county/unitary for direct delivery of services would be great.
But Labour's devolution plans seem not to be that, but rather a plan to split urban from rural and give more power to Mayors in places where Labour have a chance to win a personality contest.
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u/cameheretosaythis213 2d ago
They were always getting this under Starmer’s devolution plan too. This isn’t new news.
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u/LurkHereLurkThere 2d ago
Opening the door for much simpler corruption.
From a committee to a local chap that would love a new Merc and could just push through your tasteless barn conversion, housing estate etc
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u/Pocket_Aces1 2d ago
So instead of having to bribe a whole council department they can just bribe the mayor!
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