England's Mayors Could Get Big New Powers Over Building Decisions

Andy Burnham will next week put forward plans that would give England's regional mayors major new powers over local planning decisions. According to The Guardian, mayors would be able to step into planning cases, tell councils to approve or refuse applications, and give developers upfront permission to start building without needing a separate application.

The rules would apply to developments of more than 150 homes, commercial buildings above 15,000 square metres, or any building 30 metres tall or more (about ten storeys). Ten of England's fourteen regional mayors, from different political parties, support the plan. A public consultation on the proposals will be published next week.

Regional mayors are leaders elected to run groups of local council areas together. They already handle some transport and housing duties. These proposals would give them a much bigger say over what gets built and where.

Burnham called the new powers a "two-way street," meaning mayors could also block projects that local councils wanted to go ahead. He told the Sunday Times he understood worries that this could take power away from councillors and residents. The Liberal Democrats were blunter. Their housing and planning spokesperson, Gideon Amos, called the move a "direct attack" that would silence local people and strip powers from communities.

The government wants to get around councils it sees as blocking development. Some local councils resist new building projects in their areas. Ministers believe this resistance is holding up large developments that could help the economy and contribute to the government's goal of building 1.5 million homes by the end of this parliament. That target, recently restated by Housing Secretary Angela Rayner, is still far off. The government has built just over a quarter of the homes it promised.

Even with the new powers, mayors would still have to follow existing planning rules and national policy. Government ministers would keep the ability to step in if needed. The proposals would also let mayors influence how national housing money from Homes England is spent in their areas, and allow them to charge a fee on new development to pay for large infrastructure projects like roads or transit.

These powers would bring regional mayors in line with the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who got similar authority earlier in 2026 to help unblock stalled affordable housing sites. The UK government has also agreed to create mayoral development orders to boost housing, though the detailed rules for how these will work have not yet been published.

This is part of a bigger plan Burnham has been building since entering Downing Street to move power away from the central government in Westminster and into the hands of local leaders. Earlier this summer, he announced that regional mayors would be allowed to keep a share of the income tax collected in their areas starting in 2028, along with business rates worth tens of millions of pounds. The Mayor of the East Midlands is already set to receive a share of income tax under this arrangement. Greater Manchester already controls transport, planning, housing investment, and land acquisition, including the ability to set up Mayoral Development Corporations.

The political setup is unusual. Burnham's allies have also pushed for public control of water and energy, a one-year freeze on private rents, and a cap on bus fares. The creation of "No 10 North" has built the devolution push directly into government structures. The fact that ten of fourteen mayors from different parties back the planning proposals shows this is not just a party-political project.

The broader context here is a long-standing tension in England between getting things built and keeping local people in charge of decisions about their areas. The government's housing target is falling far short, with about three-quarters of the 1.5 million homes still unbuilt. Regional mayors with these new powers could push past the local roadblocks that have stalled large building projects. But the Liberal Democrats raise a fair question: handing planning authority to individual mayors moves decisions further away from local communities, and the government's ability to intervene does not do much to reassure people who worry this gives too much power to one person.

Whether these proposals survive the consultation process unchanged, and whether mayors use the powers to speed up building or to block projects they do not like, will decide whether this becomes a real tool for getting homes built or just another layer of dispute. Burnham's own description of a "two-way street" is an honest admission: the same powers that can unblock housing can also create new ways to stop it.