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Builders can now start earlier and work later under new relaxations of regulations, designed to boost the building sector and help it emerge from the coronavirus lockdown. Planning permission deadlines will also be extended and planning appeals will be sped up, amongst measures announced by housing secretary Robert Jenrick today (June 22)
Building sites with planning consent that is due to expire between the start of lockdown in March and the end of 2020 will now automatically have consent extended to 1 April 2021. Planning permission usually expires after three years if work has not started onsite.
The government estimates that without these measures, over than 400 instances of consent, coveriing more than 24,000 new homes, would have expired.
Jenrick said: “Building the homes the country needs is central to the mission of this government and is an important part of our plans to recover from the impact of the coronavirus. New laws will enable us to speed up the pace of planning appeals and save hundreds of construction sites from being cancelled before they have a chance to get spades in the ground, helping to protect hundreds of thousands of jobs and create many others. Taken together, these measures will help to keep workers safe and our economy moving as we work together to bounce back from the pandemic.”
