Housing secretary Robert Jenrick has said the government’s planning reforms create a “big opportunity” to tear down unpopular buildings dating from the 1960s and 70s.

Speaking at the Conservative party’s virtual conference, Jenrick said one of the reasons he had supported expanding permitted development (PD) rights as part of the reforms was to allow people to “demolish some of the mistakes of the recent past”.

He said: “I think that there’s going to be a big opportunity to demolish some of the mistakes of the recent past because you do see quite a lot of empty derelict buildings in town and city centres that were put up, often poorly constructed not within the character of those places, particularly in market towns in the 60s and 70s.”

…