Britain needs more homes. But why should building them require a choice between local democracy and individual freedom?

Bolton offers a revealing example. From 31 October, new national rules in England require planning officers to decide certain applications, including qualifying schemes of up to nine homes on small sites. Larger or more contentious proposals can still go before elected councillors, subject to the rules. Bolton’s council rejected the constitutional changes in October and has scheduled another vote for 10 November. It warns that, until the matter is resolved, it cannot lawfully determine planning applications.

That is a remarkable result: a reform intended to speed up decisions has, at least temporarily, threatened to stop them altogether.

For Liberal Democrats, local democracy matters. It should. Decisions affecting a community ought not to be casually removed from elected representatives. Yet we should resist the temptation to confuse the power to obstruct with the right to govern.

A planning committee is not necessarily a guardian of liberty merely because its members are elected. Nor does handing applications to professional officers magically liberalise the housing market. Centralisation is not the same as liberalisation.

The deeper question is whether people are free to build homes where others want to live. Too often, existing residents can organise against development while future residents — young workers, families and people priced out of an area — have no vote in that neighbourhood. Their absence makes obstruction politically cheap.

I write from Italy, where local planning controls can be extensive and debates about historic centres frequently turn into arguments over who may use private property, and for what. Naples is a vivid reminder that protecting a city’s character and protecting every restriction on its housing market are not the same thing.

None of this means abandoning safeguards for infrastructure, safety or the environment. It means asking whether a rule addresses a real harm or simply prevents someone else from having a home.

Britain should simplify permissions, make the rules predictable and allow more building without treating local representatives as an inconvenience. Councils should be accountable for clear planning frameworks, not encouraged to turn every modest proposal into a political battlefield.

The measure of a liberal planning system is not how many officials or councillors can say no. It is how much freedom ordinary people have to say yes — to building, moving and making a life in a place they can afford.

* Massimo Ricciuti is an Italian journalist and supporter of our sister parties in the Renew Europe Group.