The Housing (and planning) Secretary has announced a raft of planning reform measures at the Tory Party conference, but they remain short on detail.  They appear to amount to new permitted development rights to build upwards on existing residences and giving permission in principle to change the use of unsightly commercial buildings to residential.  Presumably the former will build in safeguards to protect neighbours from overshadowing and overlooking and hopefully the latter will ensure that once converted the buildings are no longer unsightly (as well as adding the protections on uses in short supply and vital town centres mentioned in the article).  There is also what appears to be a Ryanair (or Disneyland?) proposal to allow larger developers to fast-track their applications on payment of an additional fee.  Let's hope this means additional resources rather than just queue-jumping.