Collaborative Planning and Development: the opportunity offered by the neighbourhood planning process

The recently published Housing White Paper (Fixing Our Broken Housing Market) poses the question ‘What changes do you think would support more proportionate consultation and examination procedures for different types of plan and to ensure that different types of plans work together?’ It seems that the intention behind this question is to ensure that local plan making provides a basis not only to increase the allocation of land available for development, but more importantly to do so at increased speed. Whilst there would appear to be a number of fundamental issues to address in relation to bringing the right volume and mix of housing forward in communities, it does appear from early evidence that a move to a more collaborative planning process can support an increase in the number and rate of houses being built….