A Saddleworth councillor has written to the Prime Minister to oppose changes to planning rules, warning they would remove local say over smaller applications.

Cllr Max Woodvine, who represents Saddleworth South and leads Oldham Council's Conservative group, has joined more than 1,000 Conservative colleagues around the country in recording his deep concern.

The National Scheme of Delegation is a standardised set of rules for English local authorities. It replaces local schemes and comes into force on October 31, with the aim of speeding up decision-making and making sure elected councillors focus only on major, strategic developments.

Woodvine says the change would take local knowledge out of a subject that can be emotive. He writes that the Government has said it wants to devolve powers to local communities rather than have decisions made from Whitehall, but that the scheme "does the exact opposite".

"It significantly curtails, and in some cases entirely removes, local democratic accountability from the planning process," he states, adding that power is being taken from local communities and the councillors they elect.

He sets out his case with figures. The Government's own working paper noted that 96 per cent of decisions in the second quarter of 2024 were made by officers. According to the Campaign for Rural England, 2023-2024 saw 86 per cent of all planning decisions approved, with decisions overturned in 2.7 per cent of cases for major applications and one per cent of minor applications.

Woodvine, who has sat on Oldham Council's Planning Committee for more than five years, said: "Planning committees and the councillors who serve on them are not the blocker to building houses, with the overturning of decisions rare and officers deciding applications in the vast majority of cases."

He added: "Instead of staying with the current process, which is not the cause of the Government's failure on its own housing targets, the Government may be about to slow the planning process even more."

He argues the change is unfair on planners, and that if the Government wants to encourage housebuilding it should not make their work harder.