A DECISION to strip a council of its planning powers – described as a complete affront to local democracy – will not be reversed, says the government. Epping Forest District Council is one of nine under-performing councils who have been put into special measures this week reports the Local Democracy Reporter.

They join Lewes District Council which was placed in special measures earlier in May. The designation means housing schemes bigger than 10 homes or on sites bigger than 0.5 hectares, those looking to build buildings over 1,000 square meters or all other developments on land over 1 hectare no longer need to apply to the council for planning permission.

Designations will remain in place until ministers are convinced that the council shows improvement and demonstrate they can make quality planning decisions. Recent figures show that in the last administrative year Epping Forest has seen more successful appeals on major application than the 10 per cent limit allowed.

The council saw 12.9 per cent of major application refusals being won at appeal in 2024/25 and 14.6 per cent being won at appeal in 2025/26. Epping Forest District Council has argued that changes have already been made – but it will take until the end of the year before those improvements to be seen.

A statement to a scrutiny committee in June said: “The outcome of the decisions made by the new Committee Structure will not start being seen until Q3, and we may not see significant benefits to our KPIs for another twelve to twenty-four months since the assessment period is two years and these current figures are based off decisions made between October 2024 and September 2025.”

Leader of Epping Forest District Council Chris Whitbread said: “Epping Forest District Council has worked incredibly hard in recent years to improve our planning processes.

“We took on board government concerns and implemented a wide range of recommendations made by the Planning Advisory Service including unpopular changes to our planning committees. To remove our local powers now when the reforms are just about to bear fruit makes no sense.”

The decision to place the council in special measures has also been picked up by Epping Forest MP Dr Neil Hudson.

Speaking in the House of Commons at housing, communities and local Government oral questions on June 15 he said: “Outrageously today the government has stripped Epping Forest District Council of the soul local right to determine major planning applications.

“This means that my constituents will have major planning decisions taken by central government and not by our local council.

“Epping Forest district is largely greenbelt and we are already under threat from speculative housing applications, farmland being sacrificed for solar plants and the Labour government arbitrarily reclassifying green belt for a so-called grey belt.

“Will the Secretary of State step in and reverse this awful planning policy decision which is a complete affront to local democracy?”

Matthew Pennycook, minister of state for housing, communities and local government, said: “I don’t intend to reverse the decision. I made the decision.

“His local authority is one of nine that’s been designated for poor performance just as the previous government designated local authorities when they fell below the required standards in terms of their planning processes.”