New neighbourhood planning powers are boosting plans for housebuilding by more than 10%, according to housing and planning minister Brandon Lewis.

Neighbourhood planning is designed to give local people more input into the planning and development of their areas. They have a say over where new homes and businesses should be built, what they should look like and what local infrastructure is needed.

Once local people have drawn up a neighbourhood plan they can submit it to their council which is required to consider it when drawing up their own plans.

Since they were introduced, more than 100 areas have voted yes in neighbourhood planning referendums, with more than eight million people living in areas involved in neighbourhood planning.

The latest figures show that plans for housebuilding are more than 10% higher in the first areas with a neighbourhood plan than they are in areas with only the council’s local plan.

In the last year planning permissions were granted on almost 250,000 new homes and, according to the National House Building Council, the number of new homes being registered is 9% higher than a year ago.

Speaking during the second reading of the Housing and Planning Bill, Brandon Lewis said: ‘This government is continuing the huge shift of power from Whitehall to the town hall and to local people.’

He continued: ‘We are scrapping the broken old planning system that pitted neighbours and developers against each other, and cornered people into opposing any development in their back yard. The 100 neighbourhood planning referendums show how our approach of getting the whole community working together is paying off, and breaking through local opposition.’

Measures included in the Housing and Planning Bill include:
• New affordable starter homes – a new legal duty will be placed on councils to guarantee the delivery of Starter Homes on all reasonably sized new development sites, and to promote the scheme to first time buyers in their area.
• Automatic planning permission in principle on brownfield sites – to build as many homes as possible while protecting the green belt.
• Planning reforms to support small builders – requiring councils to help allocate land to people who want to build their own home
• Selling off high value vacant assets – which will be reinvested in building new affordable homes
• Neighbourhood planning - simplifying and speeding up the neighbourhood planning process to support communities that seek to meet local housing and other development needs through neighbourhood planning
• The Housing and Planning Bill can be accessed on the Parliament website