New changes branded “an attack on local democracy”.
Bedford Conservative Councillors have condemned the Labour Government’s new planning changes as a direct attack on local democracy, warning the move would strip both local residents and elected Councillors of their voice in planning decisions.
Currently, Councillors are often the last line of defence for local communities, using their right to “call in” controversial planning applications and put them before Planning Committees, constituted of locally elected Councillors.
This cornerstone of local democracy is now under threat, as the Labour Government’s Town and Country Planning Direction 2026 requires councils to refer certain major applications to the Secretary of State before they can be refused. This will create a 2-tier system where decisions are increasingly taken out of local hands and decided nationally by faceless, unelected bureaucrats in Whitehall.
Under the Government’s changes, applications for more than 150 homes would require Government sign-off before refusal, giving Whitehall greater ability to overturn local decisions.
In practice, this could mean large-scale developments being forced through against local wishes, unleashing a rash of unwanted development that would especially blight rural areas and chew up large amounts of green open space.
The move is being driven by the Government’s failure to meet its own housing targets and rather than work with councils and communities to deliver manageable, sustainable development, Ministers are seeking to bypass local decision-making entirely.
Conservative Group Leader, Cllr Graeme Coombes, commented:
“Councillors are elected to represent residents and make decisions in their best interests. Instead of working with local councils to deliver sustainable development backed by the right infrastructure, the Labour Government has chosen to ride roughshod over local communities in a desperate attempt to rescue its failed housing agenda.
These changes achieve nothing except the transfer of power to faceless Government officials who have no knowledge or understanding of our towns and villages.
The result will be more inappropriate development, more pressure on our countryside, the loss of high-quality farmland, resulting in weaker national food security, and more decisions imposed on communities that have clearly said no. It is an attack on local democracy, plain and simple.”
