Regional Strategies

My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Bob Neill) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement. As part of their stated commitment to protecting the environment, the Government decided to carry out environmental assessments of the revocation of each of the existing regional strategies, on a voluntary basis. It is the Government’s clear policy intention to revoke existing regional strategies outside London, which impose housing targets on local communities and put pressure on councils to review the green belt in 30 towns across the country. But this is subject to the outcome of the environmental assessments and will not be undertaken until the Secretary of State and Parliament have had the opportunity to consider the findings of the assessments. I wish to inform the House that the Government are undertaking public consultation on the environmental reports, copies of which have been placed in the Library of the House.