New public sector housing jobs will open up at West Northamptonshire Councils as the Government returns planning powers that were removed 5 years ago.

In 2005, the Government transferred local planning powers from the area's councils to the West Northamptonshire Development Corporation (WNDC). Following a recent review of such urban development corporations (UDC's), Ministers have announced that these powers will be returned to the council's they were originally taken from.

The Local Government Chronicle reports that Northampton Borough Council has welcomed the return of planning powers.

"We want this to take place as fast as possible" it said in a statement. "We note that WNDC will retain responsibilities for very large planning applications, but that these will be transferred back to the Council in the future. We hope that it will not be too long before that further transfer takes place".

"We look forward to working with WNDC for the remainder of its existence and to working with partners to develop a better way of managing regeneration in Northampton once WNDC comes to the end of its life".

The WNDC is currently responsible for all schemes of 50 or more new build homes in Daventry, Northampton and Towcester, as well as most applications in the centre of the county town. From 2011, it will concentrate on planning applications for schemes of 200 homes or more, as well as major commercial schemes across the area. All public sector housing schemes will be handled by the West Northamptonshire local planning authorities.

As a result of the decision five years ago, many management jobs in public sector housing were removed from councils. High level decisions on housing schemes were instead made by the WNDC. The new decision will reverse this situation and leave council employees back in control of the decisions on where, when and how to build social housing projects in their area.