Called the Places for Everyone, PfE is a development plan for nine Greater Manchester districts to deliver more housing in the area.

This plan seeks to maximise the use of brownfield land and urban spaces.

PfE has been a source of great debate within Oldham council, with concerns raised about this being developer-led, using decade-old ‘housing need’ calculations and potential impact on green belt areas.

As such, at an extraordinary meeting on 12th February, the council voted in favour of exiting the plan and wrote to deputy prime minister Angela Rayner asking to be removed.

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MP Matthew Pennycook, minister for housing and planning, has since written back to Oldham council and denied this request.

In providing this reasoning, the minister reiterated the importance of local development plans in delivering more housing in the UK.

“Authorities that fail to maintain an up-to-date plan are failing their communities,” wrote Pennycook.

“That is why we want to see universal local plan coverage as quickly as possible, why the government expects local authorities to do everything in their power to ensure that up-to-date plans are in place in line with their statutory duties, and why we will use the full range of ministerial intervention powers at our disposal if that does not happen.”