Local Government Reform: biggest shake-up for over 50 years

Mayoral strategic plans, call-in powers and development corporations all on the horizon, as well as unitary planning authorities following the abolition of county, district and borough councils

As we have been briefing for several months, local government reform is not only on the horizon, it is now a huge juggernaut thundering down the road. The actual details of these reforms have yet to be finalised, and the government has not made any final decisions, but more structure to what is coming forward has now been revealed both formally and informally.

Following the publication of the Devolution White Paper before Christmas, the government has invited upper tier councils to submit proposals by 10 January on creating new mayoral strategic authorities and reforming local government in their areas, the biggest shake up for more than 50 years, since the Local Government Act 1972.

Several councils will be in the first wave of what the government calls the ‘Devolution Priority Programme’ (DPP), including Devon, East Sussex, Essex, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Kent, Norfolk, Suffolk, Surrey, Warwickshire, West Sussex and Worcestershire.

If approved, this will involve a new elected mayor and strategic authority leading a county, taking responsibility for various areas such as transport, skills, housing, economic development, environment, health and public safety.

Those areas approved for the DPP, will have their 2025 county elections postponed and preparations made for mayoral elections in 2026. Those areas will have until March to come forward with interim proposals for reforming local government, abolishing the county, district, borough and city councils, replacing them with a smaller number of unitary authorities. Comprehensive proposals will be expected by October. In Essex, for example, proposals are for between two and five unitary authorities to replace the 15 existing councils and the county council.

The timetable then would be to have elections for shadow unitary authorities, possibly in 2027 or 2028, taking over a year later. At that point, the two-tier councils will be abolished.
To give a sense of scale and ensure optimum efficiency, the strategic authorities must have a minimum populace of 1.5million, whereas each unitary should have a minimum of 500,000. There will be some exceptions, but these are likely to be few.

What could this mean for planning?

The government is very clear that these reforms must in no way effect its plans to build 370,000 new homes each year, in fact it heralds the reforms as facilitating this greater level of housebuilding going forward to achieve the 1.5million new homes by the next general election. That said, the detail has yet to be agreed.

The new mayoral strategic authorities will acquire several oversight roles, one being housing and strategic planning. But how strategic planning and development management will happen has yet to be finalised.

It is expected, so not to interrupt the development flow, for the existing local plans to continue until an area strategic plan and unitary plans have been developed, which will take several years after their creation. So, we are looking at the early 30s. This will mean local plans will remain on a district/borough/city basis, including any reviews, until that time. This is similar to how Buckinghamshire proceeded when it became a unitary.

Local Planning Authorities will retain decision making powers until they are abolished, when the unitary authorities will take over. Taking planning decisions away from existing councils to new ‘super councils’ will be opposed by local residents as the perception will be that important decisions will be made by some distant body with few links to the local area. How that is addressed has yet to be determined.

Mayors are also expected to acquire planning call-in powers and will be able to create mayoral development corporations.

There are very interesting times ahead for planning with much change in local government. The industry will have to stay on top of the changes, which will be on different timetables in different areas of the country, and the form of the strategic authorities may also vary. Our Michael Hardware is a serving county and district councillor and so in the midst of this local government reform and reorganisation. He is able to brief clients on the programme and implications in those countries affected – please contact him if you would like further information.