Record year for home improvements as planning consents surge
Nearly 250,000 planning consents were granted in England in the year to September 2021; a fifth above the pre-pandemic norm, and an increase of more than a third on the previous 12 months.
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Last year's "radical" Planning Bill is long gone, replaced with watered-down reforms that promise local referenda on planning decisions and a few other tweaks.
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There's not a lot of detail to go on, but early property industry reactions to the latest proposed planning reforms have been less than positive.
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