‘Death of democracy’: councillors dismay at changes to planning process in East Yorkshire
The long-standing tradition of public debate will come to an abrupt end in a significant change to planning law
Last updated 23rd Oct 2026
For generations, the public gallery at County Hall in Beverley has served as the frontline of grass-roots democracy in East Yorkshire. It is the room where residents, developers, and local councillors have locked horns over the future of their towns and villages.
But later this month, part of that long-standing tradition of public debate will come to an abrupt end in a significant change to planning law that is stripping councillors of some of their power when it comes to certain developments. One East Riding councillor has described it as “the death of democracy”. However, the Government says it will “improve efficiency over decisions” and “deliver quicker for local people”.
On October 31, sweeping changes to planning law will take effect across England, fundamentally altering how housing applications are approved. Under a new national mandate introduced by the Labour government, many housing developments will bypass elected councillors entirely. Instead, the decisions will be handled by local authority officers and civil servants who will decide on applications behind closed doors.
The drastic overhaul follows official regulations published by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). The new rules are called the ‘Town and Country Planning – Discharge of Local Planning Authority Functions Regulations 2026’.
Could the radical reforms could slash red-tape and get houses built more quickly?
Ministers hope the radical reforms will slash red tape, make planning speedier and importantly help housing to be built more quickly. It removes local debate from many decisions on housing with a more automated system.
However, the idea will backfire, according to some East Riding councillors, who believe the move will be “so damaging to democracy”. Cllr Denis Healy (Liberal Democrat – St Mary’s Ward) said: “Local residents will no longer have a say. Councillors are a line of reason and the people’s voice in planning applications. This is the death of democracy.”
At East Riding Of Yorkshire Council, the changes mean that two planning sub-committees (one covering the eastern area and the other western area of the county) are being totally abolished, with the last planning sub-committee meeting taking place on October 27.
The larger strategic planning committee meetings will still be held, but these meetings only generally look at applications which represent a significant departure from the authority’s Local Plan or those that have significant implications across a wider area.
Cllr Healy explained: “I just don’t understand why the government is getting rid of the old planning system because it was working well here. They are dismantling democracy and I’m not at all convinced it is going to ‘get Britain building’ anyway.”
The implementation date was originally set for September but was pushed back to the end of this month. The delay has given local authorities time to rewrite their constitutions, revamp internal governance structures, and retrain staff.
This specialist training for council officers will not fill in the gaps of local knowledge and experience that planning committees bring, according to Cllr Healy. As an example, he explained that councillors had recently successfully overruled planning officers’ recommendations in Goole.
Planning officers had recommended that an application to transform the long-empty and somewhat dilapidated RAOB Club be refused because it is in what is described a ‘flood inundation zone’. However, councillors argued the scheme should go ahead, knowing that the building had been in a poor state of disrepair for far too long.
Cllr Healy said: “We made a decision to overrule based on the strength of feeling from local people and we knew the massive benefits of returning an important historic building into active use. These factors outweighed the flood risk and our approval came with conditions around flood mitigation measures too.”
How the new system will work
At the centre of the government’s planning overhaul is a two-tier framework that leaves local planning committees with reduced powers. Tier A covers minor and technical developments, including infill builds and small housing estates. Under the new law, these will be decided strictly by council officers, with no legal ‘call-in’ right for councillors to request a public committee hearing.
Tier B covers larger, multi-home developments, but sets a legal presumption in favour of officer approval. A planning committee will only be permitted to hear a Tier B application if both the chief planning officer and the committee chair explicitly agree to make an exception.
Crucially, if a developer’s proposed housing scheme aligns with a council’s pre-approved Local Plan, the public committee stage is removed automatically. That means for standard housing developments across East Yorkshire, the public town hall showdown is pretty much a thing of the past – the changes mean that filling council public galleries or delivering petitions will no longer guarantee a public hearing.
Scrutiny will be altered too, with far fewer planning debates being screened on YouTube and local journalists not being invited to cover planning officer discussions. While written objections must still be logged and considered by planning officers during assessment periods, the opportunity for objectors to speak directly to elected decision-makers face-to-face will disappear for standard housing schemes.
Some community campaigners in rapidly expanding East Yorkshire towns fear that local nuances – such as traffic congestion, overburdened village schools, and access to healthcare – are becoming secondary to national housebuilding targets, according to councillors. They worry officers will be forced into a tick-box exercise as long as a developer meets high-level planning policies on paper.
Cllr David Jeffreys (Independent – Goole South) believes the old system was working perfectly well and estimated 95 per cent of planning applications went through automatically anyway, with only 5 per cent going through to committee because of resident objections.
He said: “This is not a complaint about planning officers who are there to follow the rules. But people have to realise that local councillors could show common sense and give planning reasons to support or object to developments. These new rules take away people’s choices and decision making.
“I am so, so disappointed. The 27th of October is our last planning sub-committee, and I think that it will be a sad day for democracy. Many councillors feel the same, and there is a lot of unhappiness with MHCLG.”
The government’s big plan of building 1.5-million homes is simply not achievable, no matter how much ‘red tape is torn up’ according to Cllr Jeffreys.
“Building supplier companies and construction companies are going to the wall around here, they just can’t make a profit. Now, I’m not saying that housebuilding is not important because of course it is. But it feels like the government is trying to railroad new housing. Where’s the infrastructure? There’s no doctors, if you haven’t got a car you are snookered. A lot of communities really have no infrastructure there to support them,” he said.
And the skills and experience of planning committee members will be lost, according to Cllr Jeffery, who serves as the Chair of the Western Area Planning Sub-Committee at East Riding Council.
“After the next election, new councillors will have no idea how it used to go on, democracy going out the window,” he added.
A longer-term focus on the Local Plan
In response, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has previously said: “Our plans will modernise planning committees to improve efficiency over decisions so that planning applicants have the clarity they need, and we can deliver quicker for local people.”
Government officials argue that democratic input is not being erased, but moved forward in the process. Under the new system, ministers say grassroots opinion will form the creation of the Local Plan itself – the master framework outlining where development should happen over a 15-year period.
However, critics point out that Local Plans are extremely technical and detailed documents that can be only updated once or twice every ten years. Expecting busy residents to predict specific development impacts years before a developer submits actual plans is, opponents say, completely unrealistic.
The reform also places extra pressure on planning staff. Unelected officers will now carry sole responsibility for signing off many contentious developments, taking on public scrutiny without the political buffer that elected committees historically provided.
While planning committees will remain in place to deal with major infrastructure or non-compliant schemes, their meeting schedules are set to shrink dramatically – marking a massive turning point for how East Yorkshire develops over the coming years.