The District Councils’ Network (DCN) annual conference heard many calls for freedom. Primarily these relate to financial freedom – equipping districts with the flexibilities and tools to improve financial sustainability.

The consultation on increasing planning fees from the summer of 2023 is welcome but illustrates perfectly constraints within the centralised system of governance. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities took more than nine months to issue the consultation paper, having suggested the increases in a policy statement issued last May. With two months of consultation and given Whitehall’s flexible definitions of the seasons, it will probably have taken more than 12 months to implement change.