“Planning reforms mean the public are increasingly powerless” says Lib Dem councillor Roger Crouch

Guest blog in the Chiswick Calendar by Roger Crouch, Liberal Democrat councillor, Isleworth ward, London Borough of Hounslow

At last Wednesday’s Special Meeting, Hounslow Council, like all other English local authorities up and down the country, approved changes to the Planning Committee Terms of Reference section of its Constitution. These changes were required by the Government’s Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 and the Town and Planning Regulations 2026. These are a seemingly innocuous set of legal changes, which the Government, both under Sir Keir Starmer and Andy Burnham’s leadership, argues are needed to stimulate economic growth.

That argument seems to ignore the two elephants squatting in the room which prevent economic growth: low levels of investment and productivity and, with no apologies for mentioning it, Brexit. The changes proposed are, to be blunt: undemocratic.

The process at Hounslow did not get off to a great start. At the Full Council on 15 September 2026, the changes were bundled together with other Hounslow-specific constitutional changes that the Leader of the Council wanted to force through.

These drew the ire of the opposition parties, and a bungled Council meeting meant a Special Meeting was required to avoid a potentially judicially reviewable mess identified by sharp-thinking Independent Councillor Theo Dennison.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Councillor Dennison (former Labour, today Independent), Councillor Guy Lambert and I voted against the proposals. My party has opposed these legislative changes since they were introduced in Parliament. For reasons unknown to me, the two remaining Green councillors abstained despite their party nationally being opposed to the proposals. They seem caught up in their own internal machinations and international politics.

Planning is a core Council responsibility. Residents, and their elected representatives, must be at the heart of the deliberative process that was a feature of contentious planning applications in the past. In essence, the new rules shut residents out of decisions about developments and will curtail the ability of councillors to openly debate the benefits and impacts of applications.

In Isleworth ward, I have been told that I can no longer call-in an application which may increase traffic volumes contrary to the Local Plan. In Chiswick, your local representatives should be able to call-in the proposed conversion of the Station House in Grove Park. Loss of a community asset, such as a pub, would have been a valid reason to bring a planning application to committee to debate the merits of a scheme and, where appropriate, add conditions if the application was approved.

Instead, we in Hounslow, and elsewhere, under the National Scheme of Delegation, have a dangerous accretion of power in the Director of Planning who, in consultation with the Chair of Planning Committee, can effectively approve planning applications with no reference to democratically elected colleagues.

The recent High Court ruling on the 1 Burlington Lane development in Chiswick, where it was found that officers had misled and omitted key facts in their report, suggests that officers need to be subject to much greater scrutiny from an experienced committee asking probing questions. Sure, residents and councillors can submit comments to the planning department but, as a liberal, I believe planning committees play an important role in weighing up complex applications in public, balancing benefits and harms in a way that is transparent and open to scrutiny.

In my previous councillor life, I was joint vice-chair of Richmond Council’s Planning Committee. I am confident that applications that came before us were improved by public input, applicants being able to respond to councillors, officers advising, and then councillors deliberating.

It is said Andy Burnham might soon seek his own mandate. The manifesto of his Labour Party should promise real devolution: allow councils to decide what systems of governance work best for their own local circumstances. Hounslow’s structures need to reflect an era of multi-party politics. Instead, when it comes to planning and other matters, Labour under its current leadership behave with swagger and arrogance as if they won 20 seats rather than lost 20 seats in May’s elections.

The article is available on the Chiswick Calendar here: https://chiswickcalendar.co.uk/planning-reforms-mean-the-public-are-increasingly-powerless-says-lib-dem-member-of-hounslow-council/