Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what plans he has to remove potential conflicts of interest where a local authority owns land which is subject to a planning application and/or is directly or indirectly a residential developer.

There are already safeguards in place to ensure that decisions on local authorities’ own applications for planning permission are taken properly. Applications cannot be decided by a committee or officer responsible for the management of any land or buildings to which the application relates. They must be determined under the same legal principles as any other planning application and publicised in the same way. In reaching their decisions, authorities must take into account the views of statutory consultees and relevant objections by local residents.