Govt to give mayors power to overrule planning committees
The likes of Bev Craig, Steve Rotheram, Tracy Brabin, and Richard Parker will get the final say on large developments under plans from the Prime Minister, and former Greater Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham.
While local councils will continue to be the primary planning arbiters in given area, under the new powers combined authority mayors will be able to intervene if they believe a decision made locally is to the detriment of growth.
Examples of how this could pan out can be found in London, where mayor Sadiq Khan, who already has call-in capabilities, has stepped in to overturn refusals of several high-profile schemes.
These include a 505-home project from Muse and the Canal and River Trust in Tottenham in 2017 and, more recently, TfL’s plans for around 300 flats at High Barnet Station.
Projects with more than 150 homes, more than 15,000 sq m of commercial space, or any building over 30 metres or taller would fall within the scope of the mayors’ new powers.
The move is likely to ruffle feathers and has already been criticised by the Conservatives, Greens, and Lib Dems who see it as a watering down of local democracy.
The proposals are due to be published in full this week.
Under the beefed-up powers, mayors outside London will also be able to charge a levy on development to fund major infrastructure such as railway lines.
Strange how place “north-west” omits the Liverpool Metro Mayors name from this article.
By Anonymous
Correct me if I’m wrong (perhaps Place can check?) but hasn’t Steve Rotheram had call-in powers since 2016 when the LCR devolution bill first came into effect? If he hasn’t used them in the past 10 years, what makes anyone think he’ll do so now?
By Anonymous
Poor Steve Rotheram. He might find this quite perplexing?
By Just saying?
This would be great for Liverpool if we had a dynamic mayor with a bit of ambition who would challange the planning department who are holding our city back
By Peter McDonough
UK democracy slowly being chipped away at. So much for Burnham giving power back to local communities. What a joke. Heading closer to communism each day.
By Sam Sharps
Communism? Seriously? Yes, probably it is serious. That’s the level we’re now at. Still, it’s probably annoying the right people. Although it would probably help if we all started to acknowledge that planning decisions like this are quasi-judicial and that the democracy element has long been abused by politicians of all colours. Sadly, those politicians have brought this on themselves and their constituents, because they too often refuse to make strategic decisions because of hyper-local politics. Political expediency over the greater good. Only the next election ever counts and that’s no way to operate if you want grown up decision-making.
By Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov
Should make things interesting in Stockport while they get their Local Plan together!
By Anonymous
Should give more power to planning committees not a single person and get rid of the biased inspector
By Anonymous
12:18 pm By Sam Sharps right now the government is providing about £11.5BN to modernise the transpennine rail route, similarly the TfGM has £2.5BN to invest in extending Metrolink. The idea that ‘local democracy’ is when you take all upsides of these investments in terms of access to employment and other opportunities (and see you house value increase), and then drop a shoulder on taking any more housing is one all lot of us will struggle with.
By Rich X
Sam Sharp, I think you will find that Mayor’s are democratically elected by their constituents.
By Anonymous
Good to see PNW has now included Steve Rotheram but it says it all that he wasn’t included in the first place. To be fair most people in Liverpool don’t have a clue who he is never mind the rest of the North West
By Old Swan
@sam sharps – unsure how this is chipping away at democracy, the power is being handed to local mayors? hardly funneling power to Whitehall, or indeed as you so astutely claim, heading closer to communism. If anything, this will help genuinely impactful and appropriate projects to get planning permissions sooner, and who earns money from planning approval in the first instance, hint hint, not the government
By definitely not a communist
Well said #Sam
By Anonymous
@Sam Sharps…Communism? Did you mean federalism? How has unitarism helped the north of England and other marginalised parts outside London and the South East?
By Hand of Reason
Communism is definitely not when an elected Mayor decides to overrule a planning committee decision for the benefit of a metropolitan area. What a silly and inflammatory comment.
By Anonymous
@Sam giving power to a local city mayor is still giving it the local community, it’s just the balance is tipped away from NIMBYs slightly.
By Anonymous
There is a real concern here about the gradual loss of local planning control.
While there is clearly a need to deliver more homes, investment and infrastructure, local planning committees exist to ensure that decisions reflect local knowledge, circumstances and the views of the communities most affected.
Giving mayors the power to overturn locally made decisions risks moving important planning decisions further away from those communities. Growth is important, but it should not come at the expense of local accountability and democratic decision-making.
The detail of these proposals will be important, particularly around what safeguards will exist and when these powers can actually be used.
By Steve5839
To be honest Steve Rotheram is very poor and need to find a replacement instead of him and for the best way for Liverpool city region 👍🏻
By G J Kitchener
The whole point of Devo when it was rolled out in GM – before Andy Burnham adopted it with the zeal of a convert – was that it took power down from Westminster but very specifically didn’t hoover anything up from the 10 councils.
Does anyone seriously think Bernstein and Leese would have accepted anyone else interfering (or having any say at all) in MCC’s planning decisions?
By Town Clerk
ahh yesss, more developers hoovering up money from local councils and not giving anything back…
By Anonymous
I suggest this is what keeps West Lancashire outside the Liverpool City Region. The Green Belt here is some of the most fertile agricultural land in the UK, so building on it is understandably unlikely to be a popular choice among local residents.
The question, then, is whether it is fair to restrict clear growth within established geographical and travel-to-work areas, or whether protecting the Green Belt should take priority over meeting housing demand and enabling growth.
By Anon
@August 25, 2026 at 9:39 am
By Steve5839
Good points well made. Personally, I’d introduce a Subsidiarity Act so power always goes down to the lowest level where possible. Things like transport work better over a wider area especially in urban conurbations. Devolution should work on all levels. In fact, this is what is happening in practice in places like Shropshire, Wiltshire and especially Cornwall where parishes and towns have taken on assets and powers including libraries, road sweeping, museums and deep working with other organisations. St Ives successfully worked with Cornwall Council to implement restrictions on second homes in its neighbourhood plan. Result – housing prices in the parish have actually gone down.
Each place will have different needs. You can tailor many concerns locally, leaving the strategic stuff like trams and reservoirs on a more regional footing.
By Rye
The consensus from the comments so far seems to be that local councillors know best when it comes to planning, but I disagree. Of course local people should have a say, but that shouldn’t mean a small group of existing residents can effectively block growth for everyone else. Greater Manchester and the Liverpool City Region are trying to grow, create jobs and build the homes they need, and I think elected mayors should have the power to make those bigger, strategic decisions. At some point NIMBYs need to accept that housing demand far outweighs their preference to keep every green space exactly as it is. That doesn’t mean building everywhere or approving rubbish developments, but we can’t complain about the housing crisis, high rents and lack of growth while letting people who already own homes continually block new ones.
By Anon
Maybe Steve and his new strategic appointment Paul can use the infrastructure money to reopen the outer loop. The Liverpool underground was from inception to opening 7 years this would take a lot less. Too busy not doing much.
By Anonymous
9:39 am by Steve5839 I think that depends on how local authorities are designed. I lived in Nottingham for number of years before returning back to the NorthWest, and unlike, say, a GM borough, has has a town(s), suburb(s) and rural workshed, they chose to leave the city as the core and the poor inner neighbourhoods and allowed the affluent suburbs and rural workshed to be their own authorities.
By Rich X
Town Clerk comment is spot on. Devolution is in danger of destroying local councils not empowering them.
By Anonymous
Rye, ignoring the source of Steve5839’s ‘opinion’, the critical issue here is housing. No-one is much bothered if Generic Council gets itself worked up about whether Mr and Mrs Miggins’ two storey extension should be refused because it overlooks Mr and Mrs Wiggins’ garden. Housing is a key strategic matter you’ve not mentioned (which it has to be, given even just the examples you’ve chosen) and that is where a key issue lies. What you cannot have, if you are serious about meeting housing need, is councillors refusing important housing development (and we are assuming here the proposal is fine in all the ways it should be for planning approval) because it suits their local electoral purposes.
People might think that goes against local democracy, but then that is to buy into the idea, not supported by the legislation around making planning decisions, that planning is an inherently democratic process. It isn’t. It’s a technical process shoehorned into democracy. We can see what happens when councillors decide to simply take the easy route and refuse applications because there is local opposition. Someone on here recently pointed to Cheshire East losing appeal after appeal because this is what they do. That’s not down to PINS being useless or corrupt or whatever it is they’re supposed to do wrong. It’s down to councillors refusing approvable development. That adds time and cost to a process that is already time and money-hungry, for both sides. Crucially, it is the late delivery of homes needed by people. People who are routinely ignored in the process because they don’t have a vote in the area.
By Northern Monkey
@August 27, 2026 at 5:56 am
By Northern Monkey
Thanks for that but it doesn’t really argue with the points I actually made.
By Rye
Rye – I was taking your comment about subsidiarity and applying it to where ‘localism’ comes up against ‘strategic’ most often and most obviously. If you read PNW you will know that housing proposals are the ones where you get the most vocal opposition but where we face the most pressing need. I understand both sides of the argument and I’m not saying all housing developments are good. Not by a long way. But that is where a big problem lies in terms of delivery. So my point is simply that housing developments, over a certain size threshold maybe (50 or 100 units or whatever) should not be in the hands of local members who have shown themselves to far too easily take the line of least resistance rather than act in a strategic manner.
Do you disagree with that?
By Northern Monkey