Briefings and responses

The Business and Planning Bill is a positive step in the journey towards economic recovery, supporting the reopening of hospitality businesses as well as setting out measures to boost construction.

Councils want to work with the Government to develop post COVID-19 recovery options. The economic, social and environmental recovery our communities need will look different in different areas of the country and only a locally coordinated response will be effective.

A local, plan-led system continues to be vital in ensuring that councils and the communities they represent have a say over the way places develop. This includes the delivery of homes, where locally required, and the supporting infrastructure needed to create sustainable, resilient places. This will be even more critical as we move towards recovery after COVID-19.

The Government needs to give social housing providers clear guidance on what materials can be used to replace unsafe aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding.

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities held a consultation on implementation of plan-making reforms between 25 July and 18 October 2023. A genuinely local, plan-led system delivers positive outcomes for places and communities. The LGA are supportive of the plan-making process being sped up in order to help achieve greater coverage of plans across the country, but only where there is no dilution of plan quality, and democratic and community engagement.

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities held a consultation on permitted development rights, including additional flexibilities to support housing delivery, the agricultural sector, businesses, high streets and open prisons; and a call for evidence on nature-based solutions, farm efficiency projects and diversification between 24 July and 25 September 2023.The LGA are dismayed and strongly oppose the Government’s pursuit to extend national permitted development rights further. We continue to call for them to be urgently revoked.

This briefing outlines LGA policy on council tax and council tax reform and also highlights work commissioned by the LGA on council tax and alternative forms of funding for local government.

The housing shortage is one of the most pressing issues we face. Councils have a key role in delivering more affordable housing and helping to build 300,000 homes a year. The last time this country built more than 250,000 homes a year, councils delivered more than 40 per cent of them

Councils are providing temporary housing for over 70,000 households, including over 120,000 children. The net cost has tripled in the last three years.

It is fantastic that the Government has accepted our long-standing call to scrap the housing borrowing cap. This demonstrates the Government’s willingness to make councils central to solving the national housing crisis. We would welcome clarity on when this will be implemented, and urge that this should be as soon as possible.