Housing Secretary Michael Gove has said the Queen’s Speech will look to shift power from developers to residents in new planning reforms set to be announced as part of the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill.

Talking to the Sunday newspapers, Gove said new design codes would allow residents to set standards that developers must meet.

There’s also going to be changes to local plans for those authorities who are “constrained by the green belt”. They will no longer have what Gove calls “unrealistic” targets.

Other potential reforms include:

• A refreshed look at how the Planning Inspectorate operates
• “Fast track” application category for SME builders
• Powers for local authorities to take over vacant homes

On the reforms, Gove said in his Sunday Telegraph interview: “One of the big things that bedevilled attempts to ensure that we’ve got the supply of homes we need are all the reasons why people resist them.

“But you don’t get that resistance if you’ve got a community like Poundbury. You get a resistance to it from a few modernist architects who sneer at what the rest of us actually like.

“And you get that resistance from people who dislike anything that seems small-c conservative, but actually, the population here have embraced the fact that you’ve got beautiful homes.

“You’ve got all of the infrastructure, the pubs, the doctor’s surgery, the supermarket, Waitrose. All of that as part of the community. And the amazing thing about Poundbury is you would not be able to tell which of the homes were owned, and which of the homes were for rent. So it creates that sense of community, which is what we all like to see.”

Gove also touched on housing as being part of the reason why the local election results were bad for his party.

He said: “We have a problem, in that the proportion of people living in their own homes has gone down. The proportion of people in the private rented sector has gone up.

“Even as interest rates are in the position that they are, there are people who are perfectly capable of servicing a mortgage who are paying more in rent than they would for their mortgage. That is wrong. We need to shrink the private rented sector and get more people owning their own home.”

He added: “We’re not just the party of home ownership. We’re the party that’s on the side of people wo want to get on the property ladder, not the entrenched interests of developers. We’re on the side of people I the private rented sector who deserve to be treated fairly against a small minority of exploitative landlords.

“And we’re the part of people who deserve and need affordable social homes, council homes or housing association homes for social rent, so that they can be part of their community, they can pursue their career in the place that they love, and they can save the money necessary in order to then go on to be homeowners.

“There is a particular challenge for us in London and I think that challenge in London relates to… home ownership.”