Burnham's Planning Power Push: What England's Mayors Could Gain
Andy Burnham will next week present proposals giving England's regional mayors sweeping new authority over local planning decisions. The measures, first reported by The Guardian, would allow mayors to "call in" planning applications, direct councils to approve or refuse them, and grant upfront planning permission so developers can start building without filing a separate application.
The rules would cover developments of more than 150 homes, commercial spaces above 15,000 square metres, or any building reaching 30 metres (roughly ten storeys). Ten of England's fourteen devolved mayors, from multiple parties, have backed the move. A formal consultation is due next week.
Devolved mayors are regional leaders elected to govern combined authority areas, which group several local councils together. They already hold some powers over transport and housing investment; these proposals would extend that remit into the heart of local planning.
Burnham described the new powers as a "two-way street," noting that mayors could also block projects that councils wanted to push forward. He told the Sunday Times he understood concerns that handing such authority to mayors could sideline councillors, MPs, and residents. The Liberal Democrats went further, with housing and planning spokesperson Gideon Amos calling the move a "direct attack" that would silence communities and strip powers from local councillors.
The government sees the changes as a way to bypass "nimby" councils. A nimby (short for "not in my back yard") is someone who opposes development near their home, even when it might benefit the wider area. Ministers argue that such local resistance is stalling major projects that could boost growth and help meet the government's target of building 1.5 million homes by the end of this parliament. That goal, recently reaffirmed by Housing Secretary Angela Rayner, is still distant: the government has built just over a quarter of the homes needed.
Mayoral planning decisions under the new framework would still have to follow existing planning rules, local plans, and national policy. Ministers would keep a backstop power to step in. The proposals also give mayors more say over how national housing funding from Homes England is spent in their areas, and allow them to charge a levy on development to fund large infrastructure projects.
The powers would bring regional mayors into line with the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who received similar authority earlier in 2026 as an emergency measure to unblock stalled affordable housing sites. The UK government has separately agreed to introduce mayoral development orders to drive housing delivery, though the regulations needed to put them into practice have yet to be published.
This reform is part of a broader devolution programme Burnham has pursued since entering Downing Street, fulfilling a pledge to "transfer power from Westminster to every postcode in the country." Earlier this summer, he unveiled plans allowing devolved mayors to keep a share of income tax generated in their areas from 2028, alongside 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, with immediate reforms to remove barriers to locally led transport projects and activate new planning powers. Greater Manchester's existing devolved portfolio already covers transport, spatial planning, housing investment, and land acquisition, including the power to create and oversee Mayoral Development Corporations.
The political architecture is distinctive. 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 embedded the devolution push within the machinery of government itself. The cross-party backing for the planning proposals, with ten of fourteen mayors signed on, indicates this is not a narrowly partisan initiative.
The broader context here is a structural tension between delivery and local accountability that has haunted English planning reform for over a decade. The government's housing target is lagging badly, with roughly three-quarters of the 1.5 million homes still unbuilt. Regional mayors, armed with call-in powers and upfront consent mechanisms, could cut through the local bottlenecks that have stalled large sites. But the Liberal Democrat response raises a genuine constitutional question: concentrating planning authority in individual mayors shifts decisions further from the ward and parish level, and the backstop of ministerial intervention does little to reassure those who see the reforms as executive overreach.
Whether these proposals survive the consultation process with their scope intact, and whether mayors use the powers to speed up development or to block projects they dislike, will determine whether devolved planning authority becomes a credible delivery tool or another contested layer of governance. Burnham's own framing, that this is a "two-way street," is an honest acknowledgment that the same powers which can unblock housing can also create a different set of roadblocks.
