Government plans for 19 new garden communities

An extra 19 garden villages will be created across the country, with the potential to deliver 73,554 homes, it has been announced today.

The government is providing £2.85 million to support the development of plans for housing from County Durham in the North to Truro in the South West.

Each of the projects will be given £150,000 to progress planning applications and specialist reports needed before homes are built.

The new settlements include a dementia-friendly community village at St George’s Barracks, in Rutland, which would allow the elderly to live safely and independently in their own homes.

Planning bureaucracy cut:

Councils will be able to approve planning applications more quickly under radical new measures to remove bureaucracy from the system.

The new accelerated planning green paper, to be published later this year, will dramatically improve the planning process.

This is part of a renewed and refreshed focus on making sure planning authorities have the resources they need to act for the benefit of homeowners delivering a better service, faster than ever before.