🎯 Proposal:
Introduce a new criminal offence:
“Planning Fraud by Misrepresentation or Omission”
— to deter coordinated manipulation, dishonesty, and systemic gaming of the planning system.
🧱 Developer Objection 1:
“Planning is already regulated.”
🔍 Reality:
Planning law governs procedure, not truthfulness.
- Developers can submit misleading viability data, overstate constraints, or suppress sites — and still be “compliant.”
- There is no penalty for false strategic submissions unless it crosses into provable document fraud — a nearly unreachable bar.
🧠 Ask yourself: Why does the financial sector punish misrepresentation, but planning — which governs land, public services, and environment — does not?
⚖️ Developer Objection 2:
“It’s too hard to prove intent.”
🔍 Reality: The Fraud Act 2006 already handles this.
It criminalises:
- Dishonest false representation
- Failure to disclose when there is a duty
- Abuse of position
➡️ The bar is clear: knowing dishonesty or reckless disregard.
➡️ Honest developers have nothing to fear.
➡️ Only those who game the system would be caught.
🏗️ Developer Objection 3:
“It will chill investment and slow delivery.”
🔍 Reality:
That same argument was made before financial regulation reforms — and was wrong then, too.
Regulation does not stop investment. It stops fraudulent enrichment and system distortion.
In truth:
- Manipulative tactics like landbanking and site suppression already delay delivery
- Criminal deterrents would accelerate honest delivery, restore public trust, and unlock consent where it’s currently gridlocked
🧭 Bottom Line:
If false statements about share prices can land you in court…
then false statements about housing, infrastructure, and land use — affecting real people’s lives — should too.
✅ Criminalising deception is not red tape.
✅ It’s basic public protection.