Place directors have called for action on planning, infrastructure and the environment, including a financial regime enabling councils to build more affordable and ‘climate-ready’ homes.
ADEPT (the Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning and Transport) has set out the strategic objectives it wants a future government to adopt in its approach to local authorities and place.
As well as calling for funding enabling councils to build more ‘genuinely affordable and climate-ready’ homes for social rent, the association said it wanted to see more ambitious devolution, an end to competitive bidding and a commitment to sustainable growth and levelling up.
Capital funding to address the ‘deteriorating’ local highway network should be at least doubled, ADEPT said, and grid-scale infrastructure investment should be unlocked to connect renewables more quickly.
The association also called for new local climate action agreements between national and local government and a commitment from Whitehall on the reforms set out in the resources and waste strategy.
ADEPT’s first vice president Ann Carruthers (pictured) said: ‘With recent announcements indicating a serious change of direction on transport, environment and net zero, local authorities increasingly find themselves having to hold their nerve under immense pressure.
‘We need a new partnership with government, and what we’ve set out in our Manifesto for Stronger Places envisions where to start and what that could look like for place.’
This article first appeared on localgov.co.uk.
