The District Councils’ Network (DCN) has rejected a call by former local government secretary Greg Clark for planning to shift to upper-tier authorities.
With the Government’s revised version of the National Planning Policy Framework expected imminently, Mr Clark said planning should be moved to upper-tier authorities ‘where a more strategic perspective can be taken’.
He argued the move would ‘address the alarming thinness of many district council planning departments, where under-resourced officers are pulled in all directions without the professional benefit of working in a substantial team of experienced colleagues’.
But the DCN’s growth and regeneration spokesman Barry Wood rejected the MP’s view.
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