The rhetoric of planning reform has changed more than the substance

Planning for the Future, the white paper setting out the government's intentions to reform the planning system, promised a generational change. Yet faced with stiff opposition from both backbench MPs and voters in the Conservative heartlands, the government backed down.

Michael Gove was parachuted in as Secretary of State and quickly signalled that the reforms would be abandoned, to be replaced by a more prosaic "tidying up exercise." There would be, he said, no Planning Bill.

Look beyond the soundbites and the headlines, however, and the picture is very different.

In his latest piece for Housing Today, our managing director, Paul Smith, explains why.

Read the full article here.

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