The final day of the Parliamentary term is normally known as ‘Take out the Trash Day’ on account of the government trying to sneak out bad news via the government website in the hope no-one notices.

Not this year. Instead, the Labour Government made a major announcement: a shake-up of the planning system, including a rapid eight-week, 69-page consultation on the National Planning Policy Framework.

For years, I fiercely opposed the Conservative’s planning system because it failed on every count: the top-down approach didn’t allow any flexibility for local context and housing figures were based on out-of-date population data.

At the same time, it didn’t deliver the homes we need, it didn’t deliver infrastructure, and it didn’t protect the Green Belt.

It appears that Labour’s reforms could go some way to addressing some of these concerns – but almost certainly not all of them.

Labour are going to keep top-down targets but the algorithm underpinning it could change completely: instead of using population data, it would look at how many homes we currently have and then factor in affordability.

This could result in the St Albans district’s housing target increasing by up to 75 per cent.

In terms of getting the right kind of homes, there is promise of a greater focus on delivering affordable homes to rent or buy.

But within that, there’s no specific target for the social (council and housing association) homes we need to tackle homelessness, overcrowding and years-long housing register waiting lists.

It’s possible that local planning authorities could be given more powers and resources to ensure that developers build infrastructure first.

And my long-running campaign to scrap the Government-imposed cap on planning fees might finally come to fruition too.

It will take a few weeks to go through the details and to work out whether any exemptions exist for any Green Belt sites and consequently what that means for us here in St Albans.

Thankfully, the Lib Dem-run St Albans District Council is powering ahead to deliver a Local Plan which would safeguard greenbelt sites from speculative developments, but this consultation is a real curve-ball.

It’s vital that the Labour government respects the council’s hard-fought progress and doesn’t send the council back to square one to start all over again with a new target and a new methodology like a game of snakes and ladders.

If this happens, we’ll be opened up to the threat of speculative development for a further two years or more.

The Labour government was elected on a promise of delivering change, but what this change means for our local area and our Local Plan process remains to be seen.