The Conservatives have pledged to scrap the regional special strategy, and create a joined-up approach to planning and infrastructure led by councils.
The party’s shadow planning minister, Bob Neill, told the party’s annual conference this week that councils would be given control over local planning decisions.
Council coalitions will take over the work of regional development agencies, including city regions, and regional special strategies would be scrapped.
Mr Neill said: ‘The regions themselves are unnatural. The regions mean nothing to anyone. They don’t engage communities. This is a sensible basis on which we can all work.’ He also pledged to link up decisions on planning to meet other priorities. ‘Jobs and infrastructure must come with it. Everybody has become dependent on a targets model as a means of delivery,’ he said.
Mr Neill confirmed that the party’s planning Green Paper would be published this autumn.
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