Place directors have called for action on planning, infrastructure and the environment, including a financial regime enabling councils to build more affordable and ‘climate-ready’ homes.
ADEPT (the Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning & Transport) has set out the strategic objectives it wants a future government to adopt in its approach to local authorities and place.
As well as calling for funding enabling councils to build more ‘genuinely affordable and climate-ready’ homes for social rent, the association said it wanted to see more ambitious devolution, an end to competitive bidding and a commitment to sustainable growth and levelling up.
Capital funding to address the ‘deteriorating’ local highway network should be at least doubled, ADEPT said, and grid-scale infrastructure investment should be unlocked to connect renewables more quickly.
The association also called for new local climate action agreements between national and local government and a commitment from Whitehall on the reforms set out in the resources and waste strategy.
ADEPT’s first vice president Ann Carruthers said: ‘With recent announcements indicating a serious change of direction on transport, environment and net zero, local authorities increasingly find themselves having to hold their nerve under immense pressure.
‘We need a new partnership with government, and what we’ve set out in our Manifesto for Stronger Places envisions where to start and what that could look like for place.’
