Pickles gives councils £55m planning grant

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Pickles gives councils £55m planning grant

21/10/10 1:53 pm By Nick Johnstone

Communities secretary Eric Pickles has offered local authorities £55m over the next five years as part of a bid to encourage more localism in the planning system.

In a letter to councils, sent after yesterday’s Spending Review, Pickles gave details of how various grants would be distributed over the next five years.

The Royal Town Planning Institute welcomed the news, saying that it would help local authorities manage the transition to a planning system in which councils set their own housebuilding targets while dealing with decreased budgets.

Of these, £20m in the next three years and £35m in the following two, have been put aside to help local authorities implement the government’s localist agenda, which was detailed in the Conservatives’ Open Source Planning green paper earlier this year.

In May, Pickles scrapped the Housing and Planning Delivery Grant, which was designed to boost planning authorities’ services with a £150m package every year.

A spokesman for the RTPI said: “This looks like money to help with transitional arrangements to the new planning system. If this is the case, then it is a small amount, but set against significant cuts in public expenditure any news is welcome news.

“Open Source Planning represents a significant change in the system, and it will be important for planners – and crucial for the economy – for the new system to work from the word go.”

Pickles’s letter also revealed how the New Homes Bonus, which is designed to incentivise housebuilding following the scrapping of regional housing targets, will be rolled out financially.

Next year, there will be £196m set aside for matching new council tax income with equal levels of government, and this will be increased to £250m in following years.

Yesterday, it emerged that the Department for Communities and Local Government was facing a 33% cut to its budget, following the Comprehensive Spending Review.

The cuts include a 50% drop in contributions to social housing.