Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what guidance his Department issues to local authorities on ensuring that new build homes are built according to the plans for those homes agreed by the local authority's planning committee.
The Government is clear that effective enforcement is important to tackle breaches of planning control, including against new built homes which do not conform to the planning permission. Local authorities already have a wide range of planning enforcement powers, with strong penalties for non-compliance, and as the Planning for the Future White Paper highlighted, we want to strengthen these powers and sanctions.
The National Planning Policy Framework emphasises that effective enforcement is important to maintain public confidence in the planning system, and further guidance on enforcement for local planning authorities is set out in our planning practice guidance.
My Department does not collect data on enforcement notices served against different types of development so has no data available about enforcement action against new built homes.