The government said it believes that the current planning system has held back investment and distorted how businesses compete, deterring development and growth.
In his Budget speech to the House of Commons, Osborne said that councils now spend 13% more in real terms than five years ago on planning permissions, yet applications have fallen by a third.
He said: “Cumbersome planning rules and bad regulation stand in the way of new jobs.”
Osborne announced that the “new presumption” would be in favour of sustainable housing developments, while nationally imposed targets would be scrapped to allow local communities to decide about the use of previously developed land.
However, the government will retain control of greenbelt land.
In addition, the government will introduce a 12-month guarantee for processing all planning applications, including appeals, and conduct a consultation on making it easier to convert commercial premises to residential.
The government will also accelerate the release of public sector land to housing developers, working with local authorities to speed up planning decisions for surplus military land and other sites suitable for housing.
It said it will test ‘build now, pay later’ techniques in order to speed up the delivery of new homes.
The government estimated that the proposals could see the Ministry of Defence realise up to £350m from the sale of land and deliver up to 20,000 new homes by 2014/15.
