Responding to news that mayors across England are to be given new powers to overrule local councils on some planning decisions, leader of the Green Group at the Local Government Association (LGA), Councillor Emily O’Brien, said:
“Green-run Councils and Green Party councillors will be appalled by this centralisation of power. This Labour Government likes to talk about ‘devolution’ but this is just the latest and most shocking demonstration that their real agenda is not handing power down, but taking it away from local communities and local councils.
“Our residents do not want to see planning put it in the hands of regional mayors, who are out of touch with and not directly accountable to local communities. Increasingly, developments will be signed off by officers under national rules, eroding local democracy and leaving fewer decisions to be made in public. This is the very opposite of devolution.”