Chancellor Rachel Reeves has pledged to take on the “blockers” that frustrate the housebuilding process at Labour’s annual party conference.

She said there was a need to “rip out the blockages” in the system, while she spoke of helping “builders frustrated by a system that hands power to the blockers”.

The reiterated Labour’s aim to build 1.5 million homes in this parliament.

Fergus Charlton, planning partner at national law firm Michelmores, said: “Understandably the Chancellor has dipped lightly into the world of planning in her speech to conference.

He said: “’Ripping out the blockages’ of a system that places great value on community consultation and which turns on both local and national level political decision taking, suggests that the Chancellor is inclined to extend permitted development rights.

“This would be consistent with the direction of travel signalled over the weekend by the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government’s planning reform working paper that is proposing ‘brownfield passports’ akin to permissions in principle, and which also extols the use of Local Development Orders.”

Alun Williams, partner at London law firm Spector Constant & Williams, said: “The Chancellor is another in a long line of politicians who appears pretty adept at identifying the illness plaguing the planning system.

“The question is whether Labour will be the first to successfully administer a cure.”

Reeves also defended the choice to cut the winter fuel allowance, saying she “judged it the right decision in the circumstances that we inherited”.

Via @PropertyWire