Pictured above: Peter Taylor

Local authorities need to grasp the nettle now that the Government has confirmed the scrapping of Regional Spatial Strategies.

Peter Taylor, planning partner at the Birmingham office of legal advisers DLA Piper, urged them to take a lead.

But they should not work in isolation and, worse still, end up in conflict, he warned.

RSS's had been developed under the Labour Government to create regional priorities for housing and development, but had received criticism for creating an overly centralised system.

Responsibility for driving planning strategies for our region's towns and cities was, as widely touted, handed back to councils earlier this month.

Mr Taylor said: "The fate of Regional Spatial Strategies has hung in the balance since day one of the new government, so this announcement will no doubt come as a relief to developers and local authorities who, until now, have been unsure as to how much weight to give RSS's in determining planning applications. 

"Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles has been quite clear in his view that removing this regional framework will give local authorities greater freedom to determine their own development priorities, and hopefully remove a level of red tape for local developers."

But, while this new clarity and freedom may be welcomed, Mr Taylor also believes that there are now new challenges for developers and local authorities to meet in order to ensure planning decisions are in line with demand and support recovery in the market.

"The key moving forward will be to ensure local authorities respond quickly to this new found freedom, so that developers have a clear understanding of objectives in their area and are not left in a policy vacuum," he cautioned.

"Local authorities will need to indicate whether or not they are working to the housing supply numbers as set out by the now defunct RSS, and if not, to set out what the appropriate numbers for their areas will be.

"In practice this will mean pushing forward, or in some cases reviewing existing, Local Development Frameworks - planning documents prepared by the local authority setting out how they will manage development and land use in the area.

"It will also be critical that neighbouring local authorities maintain an awareness of each other's development priorities, to ensure that their local plans recognise the fact that economic activity transcends local authority boundaries, so that they can work in harmony with each other, rather than in conflict."