The issues: resources; skills; process -- Our recommendations: improve recruitment and retention; let planners get on with planning; outsource mainstream planning functions; accept property industry funding for planning resources; make councillor training mandatory; pool resources; incentivise local authorities to promote development; use tax increment financing to fund infrastructure; reduce information required to support planning applications; speed up the contribution from stautory consultees; improve and incentivise pre-application discussions; planning appeals should concentrate on the reasons for refusal -- What the BPF will do

This note offers advice for reforms to the existing planning system, suggesting that the government has not been receptive to calls for wholescale changes to the legislative framework as it stands. Promotes a range of key topics where the current system could be reformed and offers to support such change with the provision of information, as well as the engagement of the British Property Federation with a wide range of stakeholders in any consultative process.