Taking Planning Powers

The government's commitment to local democracy is thrown further into doubt by its threat to take planning powers away from Councils that don't process cases swiftly enough.  In practise, I suspect this will be difficult, as central government probably hasn't got capacity to deal with lots of planning cases itself.  Burdening the Planning Inspectorate in this way will presumably slow the rate of appeals.  A cynic might conclude that the government is more concerned with bending over for rich property developers than protecting local areas.