The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) will see organisations like Sport England, Theatres Trust and The Gardens Trust no longer be required to input on planning decisions.

This will also see the scope of other statutory consultees narrowed to focus on heritage, safety and environment protection.

The NFB has been lobbying for such an approach to be taken for a decade, and the trade body has welcomed what it sees as “fantastic news”.

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“We should not underestimate the significance of reforming the statutory consultee process to help projects get off the ground faster,” added Rico Wojtulewicz, head of policy and market insight at the NFB. “Some consultees take months to respond and years to settle agreements, causing project costs to spiral while planners get unfairly blamed for delays beyond their control.
 
“Statutory consultees should be subject to deemed discharge. This means if they fail to respond within 21 days, their challenge is forfeited. Unlike the current flawed deemed discharge system on planning conditions, exemptions should be extremely limited.”

Currently, over 25 such organisations are listed as consultees and can often cause delays by taking too long to provide advice, re-opening already-solved issues and submitting automatic holding objections.

According to the government, in the past three years over 300 applications were forced to be escalated for consideration by the secretary of state due to such disagreements.

An official consultation over these plans will be issued this Spring.