NIMBY councils blamed for delays

A run of council planning decisions has kept large housing schemes off sites even as ministers push England’s planning system to approve more homes. (thurrock.gov.uk) (gov.uk) Thurrock Council said on April 16 that the Secretary of State upheld its refusal of outline permission for 750 homes at Kings Farm, Parkers Farm Road in Orsett. The scheme also included shops and a medical centre. (thurrock.gov.uk) Baroness Taylor of Stevenage rejected the appeal after a two-week hearing, citing significant harm to the borough’s green belt, impacts on Bulphan residents, the site’s size and its isolation. (thurrock.gov.uk) A separate case in Hertfordshire went the other way inside the planning system but ended with the same result. In January, Three Rivers District Council’s planning committee refused 600 homes in Croxley Green against its planning officer’s recommendation. (theplanner.co.uk) That application included a one-form-entry primary school, NHS health and social care space, a community building, retail and café uses, a country park, allotments and drainage works. The officer’s report said the public benefits and affordable housing case supported approval. (theplanner.co.uk) The committee said the land should still be treated as green belt, not “grey belt,” and also raised concerns about nearby woodland and the lack of a completed Section 106 agreement. (theplanner.co.uk) Those local fights sit inside a national policy shift. The government’s December 12, 2024 planning overhaul set mandatory higher housing targets for councils, defined lower-quality “grey belt” land in policy and tied green-belt releases to infrastructure and affordable-housing “golden rules.” (gov.uk) The Planning and Infrastructure Bill, introduced on March 11, 2025 and later enacted, was designed to speed up homebuilding and other major projects as part of the same 1.5 million-home agenda. Government guidance says it aims to make delivery faster and more certain. (gov.uk) (bills.parliament.uk) Homes England’s 2025-2030 strategy says the agency expects to support about 280,000 new homes over five years and unlock land capable of supporting almost 400,000 more. It says completions backed by the agency could rise from about 40,000 in 2025-26 to more than 80,000 by 2029-30. (gov.uk) The dispute is not over whether Britain needs more homes; it is over where councils will accept them and how much weight green-belt policy, local impact and officer advice should carry. The next test is whether national reforms change committee votes on the ground, not just the language in Whitehall. (gov.uk) (thurrock.gov.uk)