Britain's town-planning system has long been criticised for being over-complex and impeding economic growth, but Sainsbury's planning chief Sue Willcox will today unveil the British Property Federation's (BPF) Planning Manifesto, with a host of measures to improve the system without the need for more time consuming and costly legislation.

The BPF, trade body for landlords, investors and agents, will say that developers should be encouraged to contribute resources to help local authorities deal with planning applications. Councils are already allowed to do this but unnecessary fears over issues of probity are restricting its use.

Councillors should receive formal planning training to help them take more informed decisions. Currently, there is no mandatory training and the industry believes councillors could benefit from a better understanding of how the property market works.

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Smaller applications like loft-extensions should be dealt with by planning 'technicians', leaving qualified planners free to tackle major schemes that have a big affect on communities.

Councils should also be encouraged to outsource work to private consultants, or form partnerships, using the freed staff for higher level work; a move currently being pioneered by Salford City Council and supported by the Audit Commission.

The Planning Manifesto is designed to make the best of the system we have, rather than rewrite it again.

These improvements will be vital to the delivery of new homes and other large projects, with delays and uncertainty costing business and public bodies tens of millions of pounds a year.

Liz Peace, Chief Executive of the BPF, said: "Our recommendations are designed to make the best use of what we have, mostly without the need for legislation or substantial extra local authority funding. We must ensure local politicians and officers understand how development operates and encourage developers to contribute towards more efficient processing of applications.

"The BPF has fully supported government planning reforms but we feel there are still a lot of obvious and relatively simple changes that could be made. This manifesto is a direct response to the government’s call for the industry to support their aspirations for improvement and provides them with a blueprint for real action."

(CD/JM)