Localism takes centre stage

Communities and local government secretary Eric Pickles has unveiled the Localism Bill designed to empower communities and reduce central government control over neighbourhoods. Among the measures is a new right to bid to buy local assets such as libraries, pubs and shops.

Ministers believe the current planning system is too centralised and bureaucratic while being adversarial and remote from the communities it affects. The aim of the Bill is to restore democratic and local control over planning by replacing the Infrastructure Planning Commission with an efficient and democratically accountable system for major infrastructure.

The Department for Communities and Local Government said the Bill would enable regional planning to be swept away, with neighbourhood plans becoming the new building blocks of the planning system in its place, giving communities the power to grant planning permission if a local majority was in favour.

Councils would be able to grant discretionary business rate discounts, make small business tax breaks easier to take advantage of, give affected businesses a greater say in rate supplements and cancel certain backdated business rates including port taxes.